Tommy and I have compensated by upping our lunches out. Just the two of us. Our fondness for food, just like our taste in music, is a perfect match. Hand-in-hand, one day a week, we go to our favorite barbecue restaurant. On another day, we’ll patronize a neighborhood Greek diner, and often, we opt for the city's most popular hot dog place.
My husband peruses menus with the pair of reading glasses I keep for him in my tote. He'll point to his choice, but I already know them: all of the vegetarian sides at the barbecue place, spaghetti with marinara at the diner, and a veggie dog with everything on it at the hot dog joint. We share the fries.
On the afternoon when we arrived home from the barbecue place where I was praised for my caregiving, Tommy flopped on his couch to watch TV. I settled on mine, and since no conversation would be forthcoming, put on my iPod headphones. My musing about our first date at the Mexican restaurant, where we matched on music, was still in my head. I scrolled through the list until I found our favorite song, It Never Entered My Mind:
I don't care if there's powder on my nose.
I don't care if my hairdo is in place.
I've lost the very meaning of repose.
I never put a mudpack on my face.
Oh, who'd have thought that I'd walk in the daze now?
I never go to shows at night, but just to matinees now.
I see the show and home I go.
Once I laughed when I heard you saying
that I'd be playing solitaire,
uneasy in my easy chair.
It never entered my mind.
Once you told me I was mistaken,
that I'd awaken with the sun
and order orange juice for one.
It never entered my mind.
You have what I lack myself
and now I even have to scratch my back myself.
Once you warned me that if you scorned me
I'd sing the maiden's prayer again
and wish that you where there again
to get into my hair again.
It never entered my mind.
©1940, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers from their musical, Higher and Higher.
©2012 Elaine Soloway for SeniorWomen.com
Pages: 1 · 2
More Articles
- Veterans Health Care: Efforts to Hire Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselors and Marriage and Family Therapists
- The Stanford Center on Longevity: The New Map of Life
- Adrienne G. Cannon Writes: Those Lonely Days
- Jill Norgren Reviews a New Inspector Gamache Mystery: All the Devils Are Here
- Rose Madeline Mula Writes: Look Who's Talking
- Celebrating 100 Years of Women Voting; Virtual Sessions: United States Capitol Historical Society
- Supreme Court Surprises The Public in LGBTQ Ruling: What is Sex Discrimination?
- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi And Donald Trump Last Year
- Elaine Soloway's Hometown Rookie: Mirror, Mirror; Jealous; Terms of Endearment
- Margaret Cullison: Cooking with Grandchildren Including Inauguration Cookies, Orange Julius and Chocolate Birthday Cake