In Sickness

(Written Permission Pending)

Nothing says i love you more than someone caring for another. Nurturing. Checking on. Bringing drinking water. Spoon feeding soup or other nourishing foods. Aiding to reach the bathroom and clumsily changing wet clothing. Palming the forehead for temperature. Adjusting pillows. Praying. Combing bed-head hair. 

A trip to germ-infested Urgent Care or the ER, with 4+-hour cattle-line waits. Clearly communicating symptoms to the doctors. Need I say more? Words are cheap and easy. He patiently demonstrates it. 

Nothing, nothing, nothing says i love you more. A real man nurses/guides his 84-year-old widowed mother back to health (and refrains from sharing the details).

In turn, one real man also cares about li'l ol' me, and we take care of each other and others. i love you, Huggy.

20 Questions & Fro-yo

(Written Permission Pending)

15 or 20 questions... 3 have specific answers:

• What is the ritual? getting ice cream or sharing one cone?
• Share a cone. Because it is a sweet, together-thing? or, because it is cheaper?
• Who gets the first cone lick, or is it a synchronized lick?
• What kind of cone is it? ice cream or fro-yo?
• What flavor?
• Is that a cherry or a snowdrop on the cone's top?
• Two sets of hands fit onto one cone? I don’t know about that!
• Do the snowdrops intentionally resemble a heart-shape?
• Buy a cold cone in the winter? (we do)
• Why eat a cone outside in the cold? Or, is the couple standing inside, with a storefront window behind them? (the picture would be back lit).
• Can some rituals really be silly? (who cares, we need them)
• Are they singing, “Let it Snow”? Or are they laughing?
• How often or regularly does an activity need to be done to be labeled a ritual?
• Do they go to the same place for a cone? (Andys? Braums?)

  

  Huggy: i love you (& Braum's fro-yo)

• See a check mark in the illustration?
• See a number 6?
• See a “drone”?
• How many questions are there, really?

Scrambled Ground

(Written Permission Pending)

Obstacles are things that obstruct or hinder progress. For people who like to get from Point A to Point B fast, obstacles are more than scrambled ground, they are a nuisance. Barricades, barriers, impediments, handicaps, fences, flowing water, walls. When we face an obstacle, common feelings include frustration, anger, impatience. Who, for example, wants treacherous snow-filled roads that delay or endanger our commute? Who wants a painful bone break, that slows us down every day, in every way?

Our subdivision recently installed speed cushions, to either slow down or discourage cut-through traffic. We in our neighborhood will hopefully be safer, as will our mailboxes that have been repeatedly knocked-down like bowling pins by careless or speeding drivers. We hope that drivers are frustrated by obstacles that jolt their car shocks and instead choose to take a nearby smooth road less traveled. Patient souls who drive our neighborhood will slow down and arrive a minute or less later to their destinations.

Mom & Dad cautiously cross over rocky (or scrambled) ground
Mom's birthday month = i love you month

Obstacles can force us to think about alternatives, if we stop to smell the roses. Facing obstacles together is grounding. Two are better than one, because two heads thinking about alternatives should bring a fuller perspective of ideas (The Bible, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 provides richer detail). The other person is there to steady and encourage, which helps us to patiently wait out or deal with scrambled ground. 

For Superbowl weekend kicks and scrambles, (because Bill Murray really is funny, even though he plays super frustrating egocentric Phil), The i love you Project recommends the couples-gotta-re-watch-it-together-movie: Groundhog Day.