The Little Things

*Typing to: Ring Ring by Sleigh Bells, Blood Bank by Bon Iver, No Love by Little Dragon, Possibility by Lykke Li, 9 Crimes by Damian Rice

It won’t be hard for me to post positive today as I’m headed back to California from a mini-vacay to Maui with 2 of my favorite people. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m jamming with my fancy new headphones. They’re boombastic.

Coasting through the air its bittersweet to leave paradise and land back to reality, but with a blanket of cotton swabs below me and cool glow of an amber sunset in the literal horizon I can’t help but entertain you with a memorable incite from my trip…

January 28^th is my parents wedding anniversary. Most years you can find these two beach / pool bums on Kaanapali shores in Maui. This year marked 33 years of love and marriage as the theme song to, “Married with Children” that was at one time so popular in my home as a kid, plays in my head.

33 years amazes me, I sat back to think and observe and then I can see why…

• The way they make breakfast in the condo like a perfected dance routine. Mom toasting her bread and frying her single egg while dad concocts his famous French toast recipe.
• The way mom always puts toothpaste on Dad’s toothbrush before bed.
• When Dad selects and orders the wine (that only mom and I drink) and on the anniversary makes sure to order a special one that would make my Mom giddy.
• Brief and intimate moments where I would catch them holding hands.
• Comfortable quietness without the need to clog the silence with words.
• The way my mom calls MY dad, “Pa” “Father” and “Daddy” as if her children were toddlers and she shouldn’t call him Ralph.
• The irritating but loving way that my Mom would look at my dad when he would order something a little less healthy.

Finally, the way that they both compliment each other on our way out to the door to dinner…why Jen do you ask why this is such a telling notion? After spending literally the entire day in board shorts, bathing suits and oversized t-shits, hair not combed and no make up, they get “dressed” for dinner.

Dad wearing his new Hawaiian shirt, souvenir sandals, cologne, hair combed (perhaps gel), and his dress watch and ring. Mom in her “flashy” (I “” flashy b/c if anyone knows my mom you know that shirt was not flashy but a notch up from her cute countryJ), sandals with a 1 inch heel and her diamond earrings from their 25^th Anniversary.

Dad: “You look nice dear.”

Mom: “Daddy you look so handsome. Jennifer doesn’t Daddy look nice in his new shirt?!”

AGAIN, why am I focusing so heavily on something like this? Isn’t this compliment that men and women pay each other tracked back to first dates and encounters? I think its amazing that after 33 years with one person that small/brief and to some insignificant 2 lines of conversation still happens. The Little Things.

As I wrote in their card on Friday, because we both know mom doesn’t know how to turn on a computer and dad probably doesn’t really know that I write a blog or what a blog is…

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad.

Mom, mahalo for working double shifts at Sambo’s diner.

Dad, mahalo to you and the rest of the farming clan for having breakfast, lunch and dinner at Sambo’s and for getting the courage to ask my mom out for a beer.

Love you Ma and Daddy…

Everyone go and do some Little Things to those that mean something to you, friends, family, hubby, wifey, dog, cat, whatever.

Signing out,

Polly