"Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot!" I muttered, as I hopped my way around the car, from the passenger seat to the driver's seat.
My husband watched, bemused, as he held the door open for me. He's long used to my habit of discarding shoes, even in the face of boiling hot parking lot pavement.
I like meeting him for lunch.
This time, I tried going through the front door to get to his office, and got turned around as soon as I arrived in the lobby.
The receptionists zeroed in on me right away. I had been hoping to put on such a convincing front of confidence and directional abilities that they would ignore me, but no such luck.
In fact, I ended up being escorted to my husband's office, with much pomp and circumstance. It helped that I was wearing a skirt with a heavy crocheted border; it swings at the slightest movement.
A fellow cadre, grinning, stood beside my husband's door and then gestured toward the door as I approached. I felt like a plane being waved into the terminal.
Inside, my husband sat, leaning back expansively in his chair, looking very pleased with himself and me and life in general.
"I could have just called you from the car," I admitted later, as we were walking toward the PX. "But I know you like to show me off walking down the hallway."
Caught, he grinned and looked down at me from the corner of his eye. "You are my little kitten," was all that he admitted to.
We shared a turkey sub on wheat bread with no mayonnaise, because Keith must eat healthy. He had his medical check done, and the doctor discovered dangerously high cholesterol levels.
They were so dangerously high, in fact, that Keith had to get and take medication that very day and must continue taking them, and diet, for six weeks. Only then, if the levels are lower, will the doctor sign off on the medical report.
I was alarmed, but I wasn't exactly surprised, considering his eating habits and general health. In fact, it was a relief to finally know what was wrong and to start addressing it. We can't move forward on the adoption until after the house gets rented anyway, so it's not as if this seriously delays us.
After we ate at the food court in the PX, we shopped at the Commissary. Keith has a new and burgeoning interest in health food and is willing to try many things he wouldn't otherwise have considered, like soy milk, Greek yogurt and rice snacks, all of which we purchased.
We were engaged in the serious and eye-opening business of comparing the labels on heart health margarine when a store clerk sidled up to Keith, and admitted that they were looking for a man in uniform.
In point of fact, they needed a man in uniform willing to eat his weight in watermelon, for the entertainment of children. Keith's face turned red just at the thought, and protested that he had already eaten lunch and was stuffed.
Although he addressed this mostly to the margarine, the clerk got the message and went off in search of another, hungrier soldier.
See what I have done? I have made our life sound cute and rosy.
I can do that. I can make my life story sound amusing and harmless, like a made for TV Hallmark movie.
Or, I can make my life story sound painful and difficult, like a documentary on NatGeo.
It's the same story; the feelings are authentic.
What bothers me is that when I want to sit with the pain, when I need to express the grief, I judge myself so harshly for doing it.
