Wednesday, April 13

9:40 am
Waiting Room

What the fuck is wrong with people?

Sitting in the waiting room at Cate's physical therapist's office.  Decided to come into the City with her today; gotta drop some stuff by my lawyer's office.  After Cate finishes up here we'll do that then grab lunch and head back out to Jersey.  She's in doing her thing, I'm out here watching The Today Show and trying to go through some paperwork.

Just saw a story that makes me shake my head.  Apparently some crazy-ass people have their panties all in a bunch over some J. Crew ad that depicts a mother laughing with her little son, a kid maybe 5 years old.  It's a cute pic.  So what's all the uproar?  The kid's toenails are painted neon pink.  The ad suggests Mommy painted her son's toenails pink.

So of course one of those right-wing religious "Center to Protect the Family" groups or whatever they call themselves is all up in arms over this "horrific" image.  Of a little boy with painted toenails.  What the Fuck?  Seriously?  All the shit going on in the world, all the challenges, all the problems people could be turning their attention to.... and THIS is the crisis of the day?

Further evidence that our society is completely fucked up.  We should be figuring out how to feed and clothe and house our less fortunate.  How to care and help the disabled and mentally ill.  How to take care of our wounded and disabled Veterans.

NOT worrying about some Mom who paints her son's toenails.  And it's an ADVERTISEMENT, for fuck's sake.  It's a page from a fucking catalog, selling a sweater or a shirt or something.

Not that it's anybody's damned business if that lady DOES paint her son's toenails.  And of course nobody would give two shits if the ad was of some Dad putting eye-black on his daughter's face when she's dressed up in a football jersey.

The prejudice and homophobia that still runs rampant in this nation just makes me sick sometimes.

And the press doesn't help by covering this stuff ad nauseum.  If nobody paid attention to these nutjobs and their sham organizations they wouldn't have a platform from which to preach their narrow-mindedness.

I need to stop watching the damned news.  Or at least stop listening to these stories.  Just get the 5-minute encapsulation of what the headlines are.

Or just stare at Natalie Morales or Savannah Guthrie.  I can make up my own bylines in my head while I watch those girls, heh heh.


10:30 pm
Library

Having the most wonderful night with my Wife.  She just ducked out to the kitchen to fix us a little snack and open another bottle of wine.

For the last 2 hours we've been sitting here on the floor in the middle of stacks of photo albums, listening to music and sipping wine and giggling at embarrassing old photos and sharing funny stories.  I don't know why we never did this before.  It's been the sweetest, funniest, most romantic night we've had in ages.

This all started a few hours ago when I was trying to find an old picture of Davey, from back in the Fast Lane Days.  Lexi's doing some kind of surprise thing for him, wants a really goofy photo to embarrass him.  Her exact words were "a pic of him with a huge Jew-Fro," ha ha.

Cate walked past the library door and saw me in here flipping through an album and asked what I was doing.  She came in and looked over my shoulder, and next thing you know we had all these big ol' books off the shelves and on the floor.

Cate even has her scrapbooks here.  When we finally moved all her stuff up from her house in Georgia she just stored away all her boxes in the extra office in the basement.  All her teaching stuff, some pictures and things she had on her walls in her office back at the Center,  her scrapbooks of her career and stuff.  Her personal scrapbooks from college and childhood were in another box.

I never realized she didn't unpack those boxes.  Guess that wasn't very attentive of me, huh?  But I went down and hauled those books up from the basement, despite her scolding me because I'm not supposed to be lifting anything heavy.  So we compromised and I only carried an armful at a time.  There weren't that many; only a couple dozen.  Not compared to my volumes and volumes and volumes compiled by my doting Mother and ex-wife.

Then again, I've had a LOT more documentation of my life than Cate did, ha ha.  Hell, I could hardly take a piss back in the 80's without it making the news.  It was on fucking CNN when I cut my hair, for Christ's sake.  In fact, my Wife and I are pretty much opposites in that respect.  She has lots of stuff from her childhood and teen/college years, but only a modest amount from her military career and early cop days.  Lots of photos of nameless people and exotic places, but not much in the way of stories.

She maintained a low profile, ha ha.  Like a good counterintelligence agent should.  But someday I'd really like Cate to put some words with those photos, to document her history.  Our kids should know how amazing their Mom is, all the cool and important things she's accomplished.

As opposed to their Daddy, who wore lots of embarrassing outfits and shook his ass a lot and had hair like Cousin Itt, ha ha.

I'm learning a lot about my Cate tonight.  I would have liked her if we had met back in high school.  I think she was a lot like Dorothea -- just really cool and laid back and not into all the cliques and popularity shit.  She did her own thing, was confident and ambitious and anxious to get out of SmallTown USA and on with her life.  And she's come a long way, Baby, ha ha.

I wish I'd had the chance to meet her family.  She has some aunts and uncles and cousins left, but she's not close to any of them.  No siblings; her parents are both gone.  It's just her.  That's why she and Danny are so close; he's like the brother she never had.

And now she has me.  I'm her family.  And soon she'll be a Mama herself.

I asked Cate what her parents would think if they could see her now.  She just giggled a little and said I would have had to work my ass off to win over her mother, but she has no doubt I would have done it eventually.  Apparently Mrs. Sullivan was NOT a fan of "long-haired rock and roll music," ha ha.  Except for Elvis.  She loved Elvis.

Hey, I can be Elvis.

Cate was a beautiful baby and an adorable little girl.  Though she was definitely a tomboy all the way.  Like that's a surprise, ha ha.  There's a photo of her when she was about 18 months old, with a big happy smile and those bright eyes and thick, dark hair.  It just filled my heart with happiness when I saw it.

I know our little girl's gonna look just like that.

When Cate comes back it's my turn to tell some more stories... we're up to the Vancouver Days, ha ha.  Holy Shit, things could get interesting.  Especially with more wine.

But I know I can tell Cate anything and everything about the craziness that went on there.  She'll just grin and laugh along and probably call me an asshole for the way I treated some of those girls.  But she gets it.  And I love that I can share all those tales of the Glory Days with her.

Though there are a few things I won't tell her.  Promises made long ago.  Secrets to the grave.  That's what brothers do.

And I know she'll understand that too.

Ya know, looking at all Cate's scrapbooks and boxes of snapshots gives me an idea....

She doesn't really have her own place here, in this house.  What she said about seeing Dorothea everywhere in this house made me feel a little guilty; I've been thinking about it all day.

Cate needs her own space, her "woman-cave," ha ha.  Someplace to put up all her mementos from her career and her adventures, a place to display her I Love Me wall.  A place to put all her scrapbooks and photos and tchotchkes.  Hell, a place to put all her old Bon Jovi crap she's collected since high school, ha ha.

I wonder if I can surprise her somehow; maybe get a decorator to come out here and redo the upstairs office for her?  It's a huge room; lots of space to work with.  Now it's all dark and mannish.  With a new coat of paint and drapes and furniture and whatever I could turn it into a place that's really hers.  A place for her to work or relax or whatever....

And it's close to the master suite... and across the hall would be a great place for the nursery.

And if she has everything she needs in an office maybe she'll want to make working from home a permanent thing.  Maybe as a consultant or part-time teacher or something.  Maybe she could teach at the Community College--they have a Criminal Justice program.  She's got the qualifications for sure.

Just maybe she'll finally quit her job, leave the dangerous shit to somebody else.  Retire the agent badge and do something still related to what she loves, but way safer.

Tomorrow I'm gonna make some calls, find that decorator we used for the Hamptons house.

I like this idea.

And I hear my Darling Wife coming with refreshments.  She's singing -- Lay Your Hands On Me, ha ha.  Yeah, Baby, if only I could... hopefully just a few more days.

But tonight I'm more than happy to pick up where we left off, looking at old photos and clippings and telling stories.  And holding her and kissing her and laughing with her and counting my blessings.