I have a terrific girlfriend whom shall be nameless, but she knows who she is . . . and guess all you want but I will never tell and you will never guess . . . who, under just the right moment and circumstance, says that although she loved her late husband dearly . . . she has become quite content with living life on her own schedule and terms.
I am paraphrasing a tad . . . but she likes sleeping in and rising when she darn well feels like it. She is not a morning person, although for years was one because she was a good wife and mother. I think that, if she still had the opportunity, she would be quite happy to pop up at the crack of dark and cook her most wonderful and handsome husband a full Southern breakfast . . . if only she still had him, but she doesn't . . . and so she has learned to "take life as she seize it" and appreciate simple things that for so many years would have been . . . selfish.
As a 'single' woman, she won't eat tuna fish, (he loved it), she eats crackers and cheese for dinner, and will be very bad and eat shrimp and other high cholesterol foods because she loves them so and, after all, life is short . . . and she, of all people, should know. To compensate she will faithfully walk at a manic pace in the blazing heat or pouring rain . . . and she does cut back just prior to blood work . . . although she can't resist my Bahamian macaroni and cheese or Bahamian burgers . . .
So my dear friend, whom I constantly forget is older than I, has taught me better than anyone the importance of so many things . . . but most importantly (at the moment, anyway) that it's okay to eat Cheese Nips with a glass of Merlot for dinner . . .
I have moved out of my dream home into a 40' motor coach . . . and tonight, as I was preparing dinner, I thought about my friend . . . and the lessons she has taught me.
After 25 years of sharing a roof and and someone else . . . I love being by myself. In all likelihood, I will never share a roof with anyone ever again. Like my friend, I have my own schedule, and I am not obligated to cook foods around someone else's dietary requirements.
I have a chop in the oven, a bottle of very excellent wine open (that had I realized was this bloody good would have saved it to share with my girlfriends when they come out to Texas to visit me), and I have made my sister's fabulous salad . . . I know that a salad may just be a salad . . . but my sister has this fabulous salad of spring greens, mandarin orange sections . . . and well, to tell you the rest we would probably have to kill you . . .
It is after eight o'clock . . . and I am just cooking dinner. Previously this would not have been tolerated . . . I have a fabulous 'peach cobbler' candle burning in the "salon" (you would need to see this macdaddy coach to understand how a 40' coach can have three very separate living areas (excluding the spa-like bath) and perviously . . . in my own home . . . this would have been unacceptable.
So, to my wonderful friend . . . thank you for inspiring me to eat grapes and blueberries for dinner . . . or Blue Diamond rice crackers and imported rugged English cheddar from my homeland for dinner . . . ah, the life unencumbered.
A toast to freedom . . . the freedom to eat, drink, sleep, awake, watch whatever the hell we want, or read in peaceful silence . . . because we are unencumbered and can do as we darn well please.
I am paraphrasing a tad . . . but she likes sleeping in and rising when she darn well feels like it. She is not a morning person, although for years was one because she was a good wife and mother. I think that, if she still had the opportunity, she would be quite happy to pop up at the crack of dark and cook her most wonderful and handsome husband a full Southern breakfast . . . if only she still had him, but she doesn't . . . and so she has learned to "take life as she seize it" and appreciate simple things that for so many years would have been . . . selfish.
As a 'single' woman, she won't eat tuna fish, (he loved it), she eats crackers and cheese for dinner, and will be very bad and eat shrimp and other high cholesterol foods because she loves them so and, after all, life is short . . . and she, of all people, should know. To compensate she will faithfully walk at a manic pace in the blazing heat or pouring rain . . . and she does cut back just prior to blood work . . . although she can't resist my Bahamian macaroni and cheese or Bahamian burgers . . .
So my dear friend, whom I constantly forget is older than I, has taught me better than anyone the importance of so many things . . . but most importantly (at the moment, anyway) that it's okay to eat Cheese Nips with a glass of Merlot for dinner . . .
I have moved out of my dream home into a 40' motor coach . . . and tonight, as I was preparing dinner, I thought about my friend . . . and the lessons she has taught me.
After 25 years of sharing a roof and and someone else . . . I love being by myself. In all likelihood, I will never share a roof with anyone ever again. Like my friend, I have my own schedule, and I am not obligated to cook foods around someone else's dietary requirements.
I have a chop in the oven, a bottle of very excellent wine open (that had I realized was this bloody good would have saved it to share with my girlfriends when they come out to Texas to visit me), and I have made my sister's fabulous salad . . . I know that a salad may just be a salad . . . but my sister has this fabulous salad of spring greens, mandarin orange sections . . . and well, to tell you the rest we would probably have to kill you . . .
It is after eight o'clock . . . and I am just cooking dinner. Previously this would not have been tolerated . . . I have a fabulous 'peach cobbler' candle burning in the "salon" (you would need to see this macdaddy coach to understand how a 40' coach can have three very separate living areas (excluding the spa-like bath) and perviously . . . in my own home . . . this would have been unacceptable.
So, to my wonderful friend . . . thank you for inspiring me to eat grapes and blueberries for dinner . . . or Blue Diamond rice crackers and imported rugged English cheddar from my homeland for dinner . . . ah, the life unencumbered.
A toast to freedom . . . the freedom to eat, drink, sleep, awake, watch whatever the hell we want, or read in peaceful silence . . . because we are unencumbered and can do as we darn well please.
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