Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Jory: Well, we’ll see what happens. Forever is a long time.
Hannah: Oh! I heard a car. Dad’s home.
Jory: That’s an early night.
Hannah: I know. He usually stays out longer when he—wait. Did Kola just squeal?
Jory: It was either him or Lucy. You better go check.
DEAR JORY:
When you are trying to feed your family healthier and your better half brings home hot dogs and other assorted “food” from Superdawg, what should you do?
Sam: What?
Jory: There are children squealing in excitement over hot dogs, Sam.
Sam: Yeah. So?
Jory: Why?
Sam: Why what?
Jory: Why did you get them food when they already had dinner?
Sam: Did they, though? I was told there was quinoa meatloaf. Is that a true story?
Jory: Sam! It was a good plant-based—
Sam: Good and plant based should not be in the same sentence together.
Jory: You would have eaten it.
Sam: Because I love you more than anything—
Jory: What are you do—ohmygod, there are children in the—
Sam: —and because I support you and I appreciate the time it takes to cook an amazing meal. I probably would have attempted to eat it, but I’m basically a caveman at heart, and you know this.
Jory: You are not. You’re a wonderful—oh!
Sam: Come upstairs with me. I bought food so they’d all be contained in one area and stay engrossed in one activity. Eating.
Jory: What?
Sam: Heh. Melted your brain with a kiss.
Jory: You did…not.
Sam: So the answer to that question of what should you do when your partner brings home food when you already had dinner is in the intent of the new meal.
Jory: Ohmygod, I’m too old to go over your shoulder like this!
Sam: Pay attention, I’m answering the question. I think you have to ask yourself, is your partner trying to sabotage your efforts or…does he want to get in your pants?
Jory: I want us to eat better.
Sam: I’ll eat roasted or baked chicken instead of fried, how’s that?
Jory: Wait, wait, wait, I think I’m starting to…one of the kids texted you and told you what I made, and you thought, in the middle of your own dinner—if I go get food, I can get laid while they’re eating.
Sam: Yeah.
Jory: That’s… I don’t know what that is. Sort of romantic and diabolical and—I think I’m flattered that you thought of that so fast.
Sam: Oh yay, good. Go with flattered.
Jory: Holy crap, you actually bought food so you could take me to bed.
Sam: I’m not a complex creature.
Jory: Ohhhh yes you are, don’t kid yourself. That was brilliant.
Sam: Yep.
Jory: Did you just lock the—Sam!
Sam: What? There’s the bed. Take off your clothes.
Jory: God, I love you.
Sam: Yep. Me too. Now seriously, take off your clothes.
It’s much later now and everyone is asleep but me. There’s something wonderful about having everyone safe and sound under one roof. Anyway, I’ll close this segment with my hope that all of you have a safe and enjoyable St. Patrick’s Day. I try and dye something we eat green, so wish me luck. Until next month, have a lovely rest of March.
MARCH 20, 2020
FICLET FROM FACEBOOK GROUP
Life has changed a bit in the Harcourt-Kage household, as I’m sure it has for all of you with this pandemic, and the lockdown, that we’re living through. Tonight, Friday night, the kids and I are home, along with Lucy, who’s staying with us, Jake and Harper, Kola’s buddies, and Tawny, another friend of Hannah’s.
“I can’t imagine what I would have done if this happened when I was in my early twenties,” I told the love of my life the day before. “I mean, I lived at the clubs.”
He rolled his eyes. “You would have had to do what the kids are doing now and develop actual friendships instead of just drive-by screwing.”
“I did do a lot of dancing as well, you know.”
“And drinking, yes. I’m aware.”
“Why do you say it like that?” His eyes locked on mine, and I understood. “You realize it’s been decades since I’ve slept with anyone else.”
He grunted.
The man wasn’t jealous, not really, but reminders that there had been other men in my bed before him were never something he enjoyed.
Tonight, the rain was coming down hard, and when I went to the back door, I laughed before I could stifle my reaction to him.
“It’s not funny,” he grumbled, standing there in a yellow rain poncho.
“It is, kind of,” I said, grinning at him, pointing at the rubber mat to the right of the door.
As he stepped onto it, I closed the door behind him, doing so with the Clorox wipe in my hand, cleaning the outside door knob and then the inside one before it was locked.
It was a whole process of him taking off the poncho and his coat and me hanging them on the new shower rod I’d installed near the washing machine. His shoes were next, and once those were off, I placed them in one of the Rubbermaid bins I had on my folding counter. His socks, shirt, and pants went in another bin until I had enough for a load of laundry, or until they could be added to another, and his laptop bag went in yet another bin. The gun, holster, phone, and wallet had their own bin as well. Once he was stripped down, he walked out of the laundry room to the kitchen sink, and I turned on the water for him and he washed his hands. After that, as I cleaned the mat he’d stood on in the laundry room sink, he wiped down his wallet, badge, gun and phone. The only piece of laundry I allowed upstairs was his underwear. We’d tried to put his briefs in with the rest of his clothes the first day we started the new way of him coming in from work, but it turned out that wasn’t a good idea.