Six Decades of Bliss; Finally, A Fish Dinner! Do I Look Like Stevie Wonder? Spyder-Man; Zeros, Hellcats, and Eyelashes????

I was in the Buffalo Barber Shop yesterday... (no, they do not do trims or even “high and tights” on bison...), but it is located across the street from the local high school, whose mascots are the Buffalo. While getting my locks trimmed, a couple in their late 80s came in, the husband pushing his wife’s wheelchair. He found a nice spot where he could sit next to her, and then for about 10 minutes held her hand and spoke softly to her while waiting their turns. They had probably been married for 60 years or more, and were obviously still very much in love. It was a very touching scene.

Speaking of marital bliss, My Lovely Bride and I recently went out to dinner at Bonefish Grill, our favorite seafood restaurant here in TV (The Villages). It was a chance to dress up and enjoy some of our favorite foods, including "Bang Bang Shrimp" and Chilean Sea Bass (no smart cracks about having to go out for fish since I can't seem to catch any, please!) 

Suzanne decided to do some decorating upgrades on the interior of our house. I suggested buying a kit and doing the work ourselves for half of what a professional would charge. As in many of my undertakings, it was a good idea whose time has not yet come.

One of the ladies who came to give us an estimate for the work shall be called Gertrude (for my personal safety... I am not worried about MLB thrashing me about the head and shoulders with a 2x4, but Gertrude is another person altogether.) To make a short story long, when Gertrude visited the house, she asked what color fabric Suzanne was interested in... they looked at swatches for a few minutes, and Suzanne picked one. She asked my opinion, and I replied with a typical guy answer... “Hmmmm..... yeah, okay.... looks terrific....” Gertrude looks at Suzanne and says, “Why bother asking Stevie Wonder there? You make the decisions here, right?”

I will admit to not having a lot of color coordination ability, but you must remember, I wore khakis or whites or blues for 26 years, except for the occasional special event requiring going incognito (AKA, “out of uniform”).  After I retired from the Navy, I was working in DC in a “cube” for about six months when Suzanne asked me one night, “Sweetheart, what color are the walls of your cube?” “What walls?” I replied. “Okay, how about the carpet?” “The carpet? Well, I guess it may be grey or blue or brown, or something like that.” I was fast realizing that (1) I was in trouble, and (2) my abilities in "color awareness" were somewhat limited. 

So when Gertrude the Evil Witch of the West made the Stevie Wonder crack, I was a bit P.O.’ed. (It doesn’t mean “Post Officed”, although "going postal" may have an similar outcome.) I thought about making a snide comment about Gertrude’s Brooklyn accent, but knowing that my health was at stake, I smiled blandly and vowed silently to run her down in the parking lot at the Dollar Store when she was buying dinner on Saturday night. I am not attaching Gertrude’s photograph as it might increase the felony charge from witchslaughter or vehicular homicide to premeditated murder.

Speaking of cars, and on the brighter side, I have a new car. Well, not exactly a new car. When I got Corvette Chick her new red ‘Vette, we decided to sell her 10 year old (Japanese-built) Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder. It’s been listed on AutoTrader for six weeks, with nary a bite.   So until some Good Fairy comes along and buys her, Corvette Chick's husband has been informed that he is now and hereafter known as "Spyder Man". 

I’m not sure if the Eclipse's inability to sell has anything to do with being here in The Villages with a lot of WWII vets, whose only association with the Mitsubishi company was when it built the A6M Zero fighter, which was the mainstay combat aircraft of the Japanese Navy from 1941-1945.  

Actually, I’m probably very lucky that the Eclipse hasn’t been shot up by an old guy with a 12 gauge shotgun driving around in a golf cart made up to look like a Grumman F6F Hellcat. (That was the US Navy's rugged fighter plane launched from aircraft carriers to fight the Zeros in WWII.)

In any case, we now have two convertibles. Corvette Chick gets the red ‘Vette, I get the target... um, I mean the Eclipse... which is actually a pretty hot car, but nothing like a Babe Magnet that the Corvette is. I’m glad MLB didn’t suggest I drive a Mini-Cooper with eyelashes. (No, truly, I jest about that, but she would never, never do that...)