To Debby - Thanks

To make amends for my idiotic poem in "Shakespeare Doesn't Live Here", two offerings of a different nature. The first I wrote driving home from Syracuse today, the second offering is a song I wrote and recorded for my wife a few years back.

Good times are easily shared
Fertile ground for love,
Which seldom grows in grim circumstance
Shallow love and shallow ground
Both bear jealous fruit
But the roots of true love grow daily deeper
The synergy of two as one can withstand all
If each has given all
Tragedy refuses to play favorites
Yet, unlike too many others,
Our roots remain intertwined
Though we live our love each day,
No Valentine's Day has ever meant more

THANKS

When you've been in love with someone
As long as I've loved you
It's hard to explain all the things that you take for granted
The words you mean to say, but never do

When you share your heart with someone
Like I shared mine with you
Your love may be spurned or returned
Sometimes I wonder
What did I do to deserve a love so true

When you share your soul with someone
Like I've shared mine with you
If love is pursuit of what's true
I think we've found it
It's plain to see in everything we do

When you'd give your life for someone
Like I'd give mine for you
That may seem old fashioned
But that's love, and that's passion for someone
For the rest of my life that someone is you

So thanks for understanding me, when you don't, at least you try
And thanks for holding on to me even though I've made you cry
And thanks for all the little things you always seem to do
But most of all, I'm thankful that I am so in love with you
And you love me too

Happy Valentine's Day Debbie - I love you!

Shakespeare Doesn't Live Here

Least someone think I'm well versed in the works of William Shakespeare, let me say that it was high school when last I read the bard, so now I get a "Sonnet A Day" just for S&G's. I had to read slowly; some passages more than once; but the bottom line is that men have been paying the price for our natural instincts since God kicked his kids out of the garden lo those many years ago:

Sonnet #129
Posted:
CXXIX.

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had

Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Ladies: Feel free to leave your opinion of this sonnet in the comments section. Don't go there yet though, let me give you something else to write about.

I would be remiss if I didn't note that we are but days away from Valentine's Day, the penultimate Hallmark holiday. For all of our anonymous atheist friends out there, yes, it was a pagan holiday usurped by the Catholic Church - but since it all worked out for the best, why not just pass on this one.

I don't know exactly what prompts me to write things like the poem that follows, and my wife warned me not to put it on-line, but it is truly a love poem...kinda...with an accompanying warning from the Surgeon General. The poem has no title because I want any man out there brave enough to send it to his wife to put his own title on it - heh, heh, heh.

I wonder if you wonder

After all that we've been through

Is his love strong enough? Deep enough?

For a lifetime meant for two

When I look to the future

You're always at my side

And my love for you

Is as strong and as deep

As your pleasantly plump, rump is wide

SURGEON GENERALS WARNING: Humor of this nature is not necessarily appreciated by all women and may be hazardous to your health. It may result in bruising, lumps, bumps, lackanookie and - God forbid - a "bobbit". Please google Lorena Bobbit for full details.

I'm gonna pay for this one.

Big time!

Simpatico

Walking across a parking lot this evening, my lovely wife stepped on my heel.

She said, "Ouch!"

When we celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary in a few weeks, I'll have to remind her of this little incident.

In the past eighteen months I've attended fourteen funerals, and that includes my daughters this past December. Statistically speaking, the death of a child often results in the demise of the marriage as well. We vowed to become part of the statistical group that stays together a long time ago, and that's a vow we will honor "until death do us part".

We finish each other's sentences at times; we have those scary moments when the same idiotic thought pops into each other's mind simultaneously; we share.

There will be times when I will be writing about depression, because it is a malady that I am well acquainted with. I survive, even thrive at times, because my best friend is always there for me. To this point in time, I've been there for her too, but there are few husbands in history who didn't have room for some improvement.

As I cruised various news sources on the web today, replete with a Russian non-nuclear bomb capable of killing all living things within three miles, I started to make a list of every story that detailed potential threats to life, limb, fin, wing, et. al. - just got plan sick of it after a while and threw the damn paper away.

Thus, I turn to my best friend, my wife, for inspiration as usual, and post this knowing that when she wakes tomorrow morning and has her first cup of coffee, long before anyone else in the house is awake, she will read this to start her day and know that I am blessed to have my best friend as my wife. These flowers are for you: