Miscarriage and Mr. Husband.

It’s no longer painful but a poignant part of us: we miscarried a week ago. We were so happy and excited and totally believed the moon was made of cheese just for us. The magic of pregnancy eludes us, but we had it for an hour or so. We’ll keep trying, and we do. We have a great doctor and an understanding staff to take care of us.

But the sparkly part of everything left us for a while. First, we were instructed by the world police not to talk about it. And now, we’re instructed by the world police not to talk about that. Oh, goodness. Don’t talk. Hide from the world. Give me some kind of super religion blanket that allows me to forget reality. That’s not for us. That’s just weird. It’s real. Now. Here.

It’s a struggle. We want children so badly. The thing is—have you met my husband? Have you met Mr. Husband who is commonly known as “Super Husband”?? This man deserves children. Totally. He is so kind and understanding and the children of our friends flock to him like he’s some kind of Lego disciple.
He deserves children. Next weekend, we’re going to take the Loaner Son for the entire weekend. We told Mrs. Loaner Son that we have an emptiness that is hurting us. Mrs. Loaner Son, in her continuous and ever benevolence agreed to go skiing. Good woman. Give us your son! We need to fill the emptiness somehow. We are ever thankful to that woman who is also going through pain (divorce) who continues to share with us when we are in need. We are lucky on many different levels.

But not baby lucky. No.

And we couldn’t talk about it from the start. How painful is that? We cannot share. We cannot sing out loud. That’s nuts. But we understand now. We miscarried. It never really was—well, it was but for a very short time. I told my best friend, Debs, that we were telling our inner circle because when and if we go through a miscarriae—the circle will go through it with us. And they did. I had already had a miscarriage eleven years ago, so the idea, the possibility, the potential was always with me. We celebrated too early. Frack that! We’re going to celebrate! We did. We are. And we will. You cannot stop us.

We will celebrate. With wild abandon. Every step of the way will be a victory. And when we encounter pain, we will turn it into something not-pain. Somehow. We will. We can. Stupid life--we shake our fists at you!

We got pregnant. Mr. Husband’s glorious sperm came to meet my egg and they got it on. They did. It took Clomid (50 mg) to make it happen. But we did it. We documented the process all along the way for our families. And what are we left with now besides an empty uterus? Hope. We got pregnant. We did it.

We can do it again.

And we will. We are aggressive. We will continue to be so. We will bring baby Klusendorf-Stewart into the world one way or another. I’ve found that My Mr. Husband, the main subject of this blog, is even more worthy than ever of someone penning his amazing abilities. This man held me up and took care of me in ways that I never expected. I’m a strong woman. He’s a much stronger man. He went to the doctor and asked her a million questions. He helped to build a plan for us going forward. He even sat in on my pelvic exam after the miscarriage. He now knows what the cold silver duck is. Wow. He didn’t flinch. And I was the one who put him there. The doctor asked if he’d sit in, and I said, “Yes, he will. “ And he did. It wasn’t his decision, but I wanted him there.

Mr. Husband for president. Was there ever a better man?

Band of Gypsies (Who Knows): Valentime's in Four Parts.

Part One.

Valentime’s Day is an event. It typically costs money. It always costs money. And we like to spoil each other. Mr. Husband is my lover. And I am his ever-adoring fan. But for this year’s Valentime’s Day, we did not spend the actual day staring deep into each others’ eyes until we started to feel sick—maybe vomit a little in our mouths—no, we did not. We changed things up a bit this year and went to spend Valentime’s Day with Grandma Jean Stewart who recently lost her Harry. We gave ourselves, the gift of time, and spent our Valentime’s Day listening to stories about the “best nine years” of two people’s lives. Two people who had 40-50 year long first marriages and then unexpectedly found love again when their spouses passed away. Here was Jean, alone on her first Valentime’s Day after Harry’s death. Here was Jean full of stories and details and love.

Before taking off to Nashville, we celebrated in thrifty style. This was a big change from last year’s Valentime’s evening at Chez Lulu. It was way cheaper. Way.

We celebrated Valentime’s Day evening on Thursday night. Upon the advice from my boss, we were recommended to the local Little Caesar’s for the $5 walk-in pizza. What a deal. Walk in. Pick up. Maul. Eat without breathing. Do not chew. Swallow. Nom. Nom. Nom. We didn’t even sit at the kitchen table or make it to the couch—that is how violently we both attacked the pizza, killing it like we were a pair of Roman Brutuses. Neither of us had eaten Little Caesar’s pizza for years. For me, it was the stuff of hockey banquets and Sunday night Star Trek on TV. For Jeff, it was everything. The man loves him some pizza. My Mr. Husband has four loves in life (in this order): 1) Video Games, 2) His wife, 3) Beer, and 4) Pizza. He’s a simple man, and I’m simply his wife who likes to feed him. We inhaled the Little Caesar’s and then opened up cards and gifts. We spoiled each other, which we shouldn’t have done during these economic times, but it is right and proper and good to hear that squeal of delight that echoes through a house upon successfully surprising a loved one with a gift that screams, “I listen to you!”

I also got an iPhone, but that was not for Valentime’s. That was simply because I deserved it and my Verizon contract had expired. My life is anew. It is fresh. I am connected. Like. All. The. Time. There are no barriers. I am everything. Well, at least my iPhone likes to make me feel like that. Not a bad feeling at all. I licked my iPhone the other morning. I couldn’t help myself. Mr. Husband supported me fully. In fact, I believe he gave me a round of applause. That’s super support.

Later that night, we packed our suitcase for Nashville with the goal of seeing Jean, seeing a museum, seeing the Schermerhorn Symphony Hall, and seeing a free wind performance at Vanderbilt. We accomplished a lot in Nashville. Jean put us up at the world’s finest guest lodging—the guest room at Richland Place, the retirement home where she and Harry first met. On Saturday morning, we ventured to the Frist Center for the Medieval art exhibit where we examined lots of reliquaries that supposedly contained pieces of saints. Yes. Pieces. Like bits and pieces of St. Thomas. An ear or tooth from St. Denis. Pieces. Awesome. And the boxes and containers were so magnificently decorated, that one forgot that they contained dead pieces. Pieces.

I really found this fascinating. I was genuinely cracked up over it. Clearly, you see this as evidenced in my repeating the “pieces” point. Driving it home, I am. Pieces. Jean and I would lean in and exclaim about the beauty of an object, and then we’d read the description. Oh! Oooh. Not so endearing and beautiful when the object d’art is something that is so lovely to look at in order to distract from the gruesome ... pieces. The truth—someone is dead in there, at least a piece of someone, and we’re supposed to revel in the beauty of its container. The pieces container. Seriously, I cannot use italics enough to convey our surprise and amusement.

Upon leaving the Frist, Jean asked us Granddaddy Harry’s favorite question upon leaving any type of museum or attraction: “what was your favorite part of the exhibit?” This was a no-brainer for me. Me, all mesmerized and giddy over the reliquaries and their various pieces that I could not see but was obviously deep in imagination land and living with deeper now. Mr. Husband, while not sharing my utter sarcasm-has-nothing-on-me-fascination with pieces, agreed with me about my favorite part of the exhibit: the world’s oldest known zombie hand. If you love video games, you can appreciate zombies. Mr. Husband and I were positively giddy in front of the case filled with reliquaries when we realized the gilded silver encased hand was obviously that of a zombie. There was no doubt. We read through and above and over between the lines that the Frist Center cleverly offered to the casual museum goer to find this:

Found: First known zombie hand chewed off by infected Saint Denis after his being compromised by a band of violent gypsy zombie artisans. The band of gypsies promptly encased their first zombie hand in precious metals and worshiped it with fervor, fever, and bloodthirsty hunger. You never can get enough zombie hand.

What we especially appreciated in this between-the-lines reading was the marketing grab for attention at the end. Those zombies! Always trying to get you hooked!

And that was our Valentime’s Day up until noon: 2/14/2009.

Symphony = Loaner Son.

It’s always busy in Stewartville. This weekend we were awarded with one of our very favorite excursions: The Birmingham Symphony and Concert Chorale. The reason that we have a Loaner Son at all is due to this wonderful combination of music and singing that results in occasional performances at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center on UAB campus. Mrs. Loaner Son is a singer in the Birmingham Concert Chorale. We are certain that she is one of the best singers in the whole group. She must be. This is actually how she and I became such good friends years ago—I got the family ticket for her performances. I was the single girl at work who loves classical music. I was the boring geek girl who’d willingly give up a night at a bar for a night living the live NPR dream. I was the obvious choice for the free family ticket. This week, Mrs. Loaner Son had singing practice almost every night, so we had a lot of Loaner son practice as a result.

Here are some wonderful things that the Loaner Son has learned to do in this past week:

1) Pick his nose constantly to make me gag and amuse Mr. Husband.
2) Try to eat his boogers to hear our screams and protests.
3) Learned to eat an entire cupcake without pausing to breathe.
4) Jumping on the couch and screaming in a bid for more attention.
5) Take apart Transformers.
6) Draw a series of Picasso-like ducks with Crayola crayons.
7) Watch Shrek over and over and over and over.
8) Go an entire day without peeing in his big boy pants (Diego style).
9) Sing his ABCs, conveniently leaving out every third and fourth letter.
10) Bowling: he knocked down more pins than most adults.
11) Continue to pick his nose.

We had a full Loaner Son week that commenced with our having him stay the night last night as the Symphony and Concert Chorale celebrated their first ever five-star review for a performance: Carmina Burana. This was probably the most exciting part of our week EVER. We’d looked forward to having an entire evening with the Loaner Son for weeks. His mommy packed lots of books, various toys, his Diego sleeping bag, Diego pillow, and fun pajamas to get him ready for his big night out. And for Mr. Husband and I: Parenting 101 just got more involved. We were kind of worried, but we had each other to lean on—we figured we’d pull it off with finesse. We went to dinner at Don Pepe’s and then went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards. The whole time, we pretended to be a real family.

Mr. Husband and I sat there with our private thoughts, wondering if it will be like this when we have our own child to take care of through the night. The Loaner Son is an exceptionally good kid, despite the recent trend to pick the nose. If our child is like me, the child will be wild and non-stop, so we hope the child is like Mr. Husband: reserved, good humored, and quiet. Most likely, we will not get that lucky.
But this experience gave us the perfect opportunity to think really hard about it. To get ready. To hope. To dream. To want.

Last night, after our exciting night out where we ran up and down the sidewalks at Lee Branch after dinner, the three of us sat on the upper porch and watched the neighborhood below us. The Loaner Son crawled up on my lap and we rocked as we talked about the day. Soon, his eyes were starting to close. I rocked him and sang a made-up bedtime song as he fell asleep in my arms. Mr. Husband smiled next to me, watching the calm scene that included no nose picking (finally).

In the morning, the Loaner Son brought Mr. Husband a series of Transformers to fix. Mr. Husband made pancakes, and we all watched cartoons and sang silly songs. We thanked Mrs. Loaner Son for giving us this chance to see if we could make it through an entire night in our own home with someone else’s kid. Bring on the neighborhood kids. We can take it. Please, though, no nose picking.

Happiness is a warm cold.

Whenever I get sick, I am reminded of the best time I ever had being sick—on our honeymoon. It’s made being sick something romantic for me and for us. Today, I woke up with a sore throat. Sore enough that I suspected I was ripe with infection and only hours away from infecting the whole cube farm at work. My nose started to run in the simplest way to where I knew it would grow into something much more substantial. This was the beginning of the end for me. Remove the dramatics, and it turns out I will not die (most likely), but work was out of the question. For the safety of my co-workers, I sucked it up and took one for the team. I slept all day in a fever with my trusty cat Bonita stuck to my side and working as the best kind of feline heater on the right side of my body. Good cat. Awesome warmth.

Mr. Husband fed Thera-Flu to me before he left for work, braving the work day without his trusty companion and forced to fend for himself at lunch. Somehow he survives and is now looking through a picture book of Scotland with the Loaner Son downstairs. They were looking at Van Gogh books, but the Loaner Son decided that Vincent scared him. Well, ok, Vincent was depressed. I can see how the swirl of life, disappointment, and high intensity at all times can scare an almost three-year-old. The Loaner Son will be three years old in three weeks. Maybe when he’s five-years-old he’ll be ready for Van Gogh? I remember when they brought Van Gogh to Highland Elementary from the Toledo Museum of Art. I fell in love that day as someone’s mom
told us about the ear and the sadness and the never being appreciated until post mortem. I loved him then. I still do.

While I’m sick, I am exiled to upstairs. I sit all wrapped up watching TV without TiVo and suffer through my runny nose. I remember how being sick often doesn’t stop me. We knew when we left for Scotland on November 4th, 2007 that Mr. Husband was going to be sick. He had the beginning of a sore throat. So we packed Thera-Flu and promised each other that being sick would not ruin our honeymoon. No way. Thank goodness for Scottish beer and whiskey. With the happy combination of these wonderful liquids and Thera-Flu and some other Scottish cold drugs we found at the local Tesco, we were able to keep running every day. We would come back to our chalet every afternoon and nap for an hour or so, but we didn’t stop. We ran the entire time. We walked the little villages that we stayed in, Coylumbridge and Aviemore, from end to
end each day, discovering strangers. We became known to some as “the newlyweds.” We were cute and in love and knew that we were sending out infectious beams of happiness to everyone around us. It kept us going. We never stopped laughing and we learned that in Scotland, you don’t use an umbrella—you simply walk in the rain.

My mother taught me to run between the raindrops. Rain was always the enemy. Rain will ruin a good hair day. Rain will make it difficult to drive and arrive to a location in a timely manner. In Scotland, rain is a blessing from heaven. Surprisingly, in November, it wasn’t that cold in The Highlands. We didn’t worry about the rain. We embraced the rain. We walked around for hours in the rain, feeding our colds. We embraced our colds and fought off the desire to lay down and sleep for a thousand years. We did a really good job, too. From the photos, you’d never know that our pockets were stuffed with snotty tissues. It’s amazing what adding a fresh draft beer from the hills of Scotland will do to a cold. Knocks it right out. Or maybe it combined with the cold and gave us super strength. It was the best week of our lives—and the cold didn’t have a chance.

When we arrived home from our honeymoon, we let the cold have her merry day. We fell down. We were sicker than sick-sick. We were super sick. We went to see our family physician, the wonderful Dr. Licthy, and he prescribed awesome drugs for us that helped us get rid of the nasty Scotland cough and sleep out the illness. We got to be home from work sick together for another week. Best honeymoon ever. Being sick together will always be romantic for us. Mr. Husband makes me Thera-Flu and lectures me on staying in bed. He brings me Kleenex with lotion so my tender nose doesn’t hurt. He tucks me in. And I let him.

One of the best gifts in the world is having someone to take care of you when you’re sick. For this alone, marriage rocks. It is marriage perk #529. It is the special care perk. It keeps us warm. It's like so better than stupid chicken soup.

Fun with Fujazz: Thanks to Mr. Loaner Son.

The Loaner Son has a father. His father has ties to an actual “Stewartville.” Somewhere in the world there are most likely many Stewartvilles all inhabited by Stewarts. While we have one right here inside our house, we are now being contacted by others from outside our house. Join our club, they scream at the top of their lungs.Yesterday, we received a long-sleeve T-shirt in the mail from the Loaner Son’s father. As you can imagine, this brought hours and hours and hours of fun into our household. This is very good news for us, since we are on House Budget Poor Us Initiative Boom 2009. In order to make something that really, really, really sucks, like planning for the future when we just want to have fun, we give the situation a grand name … and then it’s not so bad. We are easy to fool.

Our friends were going out to dinner last night. The Stewarts had to stay in and make a homemade pizza. Now, we make a mean pizza—no problem there—but we were still lamed out at having to stay at home. When it’s by force, it sucks. Did I already write that it really sucks? I did. Ok, to be clear: budgeting sucks. And to counter that suckism situation, I should also be clear to point out that it is necessary. Planning for the future and all that jazz. I’d like to go see a jazz show, maybe down at Ona’s Music Room on 20th Street … but I’m not referring to the fun kind of jazz that brings immediate gratification and colors spinning behind your eyelids and a melody so hip and now and then and every day of the week to your ears—I’m referring to retirement jazz and baby jazz and a new car some day jazz. That jazz. It’s future jazz. It’s fujazz.

So while planning for fujazz, there must be budget cuts. The 2009 Stewartville recession has hit. No cat shall suffer while underneath our roof. They must be fed and have proper treaties at all times. Cat teasers must be replaced as feathers are eaten and bells fall off and are stored lovingly under the couch and under random bookcases. Since we cannot cut out feeding or spoiling the cats, we must cut out spoiling the Stewarts. We must make our own entertainment instead of relying on others, like those wonderful people making magic downtown at Ona’s Music Room or like our friends who want to go out and eat social dinners where we talk and laugh and tell story after story after story about our other friends, instead of all this—we must rely on our own wits. Just me, Mr. Husband, Oliver Baggins Pants, and Bonita Banana. We can do it. The Stewartville T-shirt helped. All of us, except The Senator who refused to lower himself to such comedy standards, had fun trying on the T-Shirt. Oh, how we laughed. Oh, the joy the Stewartville T-shirt brought to our little household.

This was a night that we’ll talk about for years and years and years as we reminisce over the joy and laughter that was witnessed inside our four walls and a holy columnthat cold evening at the end of January. The pizza was gobbled up within ten minutes as we watched X-Play and stole sideways glances at the waiting T-Shirt fun that was to be had. We chewed quickly, knowing that as soon as dinner was over, the T-Shirt wild abandon would begin. Oh, how we polished off that pizza without taking any extra breaths. No slacking on the way to super T-shirt fun. Not us! The cats danced at our feet in high expectation, not really knowing but guessing what was about to happen. It was better than Christmas—that feeling you get when you're a five-years-old and understand the concept of Santa and strangers bringing awesomeness wrapped in shiny packages into your home in the middle of a dark night. It was just like that. No, no, it was BETTER.

So, as you can see, we both tried on the T-Shirt and posed and made ourselves into Stewartville T-Shirt fashion models. For if ever there were a Stewart standard for wearing a Stewartville T-Shirt, the two of us, the two Stewarts onWerewolf Lane certainly captured the norm. Even Bonita got into the fun. She begged and begged and begged as you can imagine any cat would do upon seeing the revelry before her being played out in her parents, and we let her. We helped her lovingly into the T-Shirt and she cried great big meows of happiness and understood right at that moment—it’s good to be a Stewart in Stewartville.

God save the budget.

Listening for the secret, searching for the sound.

Valentime’s Day is one of those days where Super Husband gets to really shine. We call it Valentime’s Day after seeing the Valentine’s Day episode of 30 Rock last year where Rachel Dratch plays a hooker or something like that, a woman in the industry, and she falls down at the end of episode, screeching about Valentime’s Day. It so cracked us up that that is what it is. (I love an opportunity to use a double that.) So on Valentime’s Day, I get my hopes up. Way up. Pie in the sky up—hoping for the gift of all gifts. Hoping for the sparkle. Bring on romance and hold me tight.

Mr.Husband will forever have a hard time beating our first Valentime’s Day together. In February 2006, we’d been “dating” with the official label and everything for about three weeks. Both of us had not really had a Valentime’s Day in years and years and years. We were both secretly super excited. While I did a good job surprising Mr. Husband-then-boyfriend at work with a box of chocolate goodies and Godiva dipped pretzels, he took my breath away and kept me on pins and needles the entire day.

The weekend before Valentime’s Day, we’d taken our first road trip to Nashville to visit Mr. Husband-then-boyfriend’s grandparents: Harry and Jean. We made artwork in the car on the way there while listening to one Grateful Dead show after another. He was such a good wooer. While in Nashville, Mr. Husband-then-boyfriend took me to visit Yazoo Brewery, which is located in the old Marathon Motorworks building where Mr. Husband-then-boyfriend used to work for a small software shop. He sat me down at a table and ordered a sampling of six of Yazoo’s finest beers and told me that I was to drink them all. I did. I sampled and sampled those six tiny glasses until I was giggling and teetering off my chair. Later that weekend, it snowed lightly in Nashville. Tiny snowflakes drifted down among the streetlights and I swore that Mr. Husband-then-boyfriend made it snow.

I didn’t expect much when the actual day, February 14th, arrived. I hoped for flowers. I’m crazy for flowers—I love to watch them die and lose one petal after another as they droop down from their height of life. What I found instead of flowers was a tiny glass bottle hanging from a string on my Beetle door handle in my apartment parking lot. Wow. I looked around, expecting to see him. I was flabbergasted. That word is completely perfect for my feeling right then. There. Flabbergasted. I opened up a folded piece of red linen paper to find a series of three lines of numbers and dashes. What? This is no poetry with which I am familiar. I have stepped over to the genius side of life where everything pops and everything cracks with newness and thinking adventure. I think I floated to work. I couldn’t wait to speak to him.

Before speaking to Mr. Husband-then-boyfriend, I contacted a Boston genius, Dowling, and asked him what the series of numbers meant. He wrote back quickly, informing me that I was looking at a book cipher. He said that I needed to look for a special book that we shared in common or that a key would be provided. A book cipher. No shit. I was looking for something to unravel the numbers for correlation to a position of a word in a list and then the position of a letter in that word. Wow. Mr. Husband-then-boyfriend informed me around noon that a key would soon be on its way. I waited. I was in knots and had trouble working that day. I don’t think my boss knew I was dating yet, so I couldn’t share the hunt or excitement. That was tough.

Around 3:00, I received an email with a digital painting that contained twenty-seven words that referenced our trip to Nashville. Words that brought magical colors to my head as I swam in the memory of the road trip. Words like Hawthorne, the author whose story I read out loud in the car, Langston, the street Mr. Husband-then-boyfriend lived on in Nashville, and Centennial, the park that we walked through during our stay. It took me a while, but I finally discovered the meaning of the cipher … it was a website URL: http://squishyk.blogspot.com/. He wrote a story for me. He wrote the story of our first kiss and posted it to the world. I was so his girlfriend. God save the geeks. I was totally geek-struck.

This year is our fourth Valentime’s Day that we’ll spend together. We’re heading back up to Nashville to visit Yazoo for the weekend. I hope Mr. Husband makes it snow again.

Oliver Baggins Pants

On May 6th, 2007, Mr. Husband surprised me during the Birthannukah closing ceremony with a trip to the new Greater Birmingham Humane Society. There, we picked out my new kitty. There was only one kitten available, and Mr. Husband said it was a good omen that the only kitten that day looked very similar to Oliver, Mr. Husband’s cat that waited for us at home. There were several reasons that led us to take that May morning trip in 2007, primarily that Oliver Pants, our current cat, had become so lonely that he walked around the apartment at night moaning, howling, and crying for something more to be added to his life. Mr. Pants, or The Senator, as we refer to him in common speech, wanted all of our time to be spent looking at him, petting him, and shaking a cat teaser around the living room for his sole entertainment. He had become high maintenance. He needed something more in his life. Clearly, we were not enough.

When I met Mr. Husband, I was thrilled that he had a cat. T-H-R-I-L-L-E-D. Almost all the men I had dated or been out on a date with in the five years prior to meeting Mr. Husband were allergic to cats. They all despised cats and didn’t understand why any logical thinking human being would want a cat. I believe that all of those men are certainly still single. Ignorant, sniffling, cat-hating morons. It should be noted that these men also were not dog people. They were not people-people either. Not fit for long-term canoodling, but I digress. Suffice it to say that meeting Mr. Husband
who had a cat at home hiding under his bed was a breath of fresh air. Years ago, I developed a scale of needs for finding the optimal husband. You need a scale to keep you on track and root out the super-fun-crazy-wild-for-the-moment men who are not husband-worthy. Among six necessary traits, “must like cats” was one of the essential criterions. On our second first date, Mr. Husband told me the story about Oliver Baggins Pants and I was overwhelmed with his kind compassion. The good man radar was off the charts that night. I think I let him hold my hand.

Oliver, it seems, was part of a rogue traveling cat band that lived or, more likely, ran in Mr. Husband’s apartment complex in Nashville. He began feeding the long-haired black cat that looked at him with pleading trust in his eyes. Feeding led to a night
inside one evening. A night inside one evening led to … well, I’ll let you imagine what that led to. Soon, the two bachelors who needed very little from the world besides Hamburger Helper and tuna became a household of man and cat and no one else. They were happy. Mr. Husband left the window open for Oliver, his little orphan, when he went to work and Oliver waited patiently for Mr. Husband’s return from work each evening. The two of them spent their entire evenings and weekends curled up together watching Star Trek (I’m sure of it) and talking in cat-to-man language about their hopes and dreams.

A year after this cat-fills-man’s-empty-life arrangement, Mr. Husband hears a knock on the door. Expecting Mormons or some kid selling cookies, Mr. Husband opens the door to see his downstairs neighbor standing there trying desperately to look into his apartment. She asks, “Is that cat in the window your cat?” Mr. Husband’s heart retreats quickly to his feet and he begins to panic. It turns out, the cat in the window, our Oliver Baggins Pants, is actually named “Stash” and was part of the girl-downstairs-neighbor’s group of wild wandering cats. She quickly explained that she didn’t want him back, but only wanted to know that he was ok. She was glad “Stash” had found a home. Good thing, too. I suspect that Mr. Husband would have taken the girl-downstairs-neighbor to court over the paternity and right to parent our dear Oliver. It didn’t come to that, and Mr. Husband and Oliver moved to Birmingham in 2005, looking for me.

Upon moving in with Mr. Husband during our third month of dating (we were on the dating fast track), I learned to make The Senator my own.
I built him many different structures out of boxes and tissue paper, calling the creations part of Bear City. I devoted all my Saturday and Sunday mornings to entertaining The Senator lest I be evicted from Bear City. Oliver became my cat, too, but he never snuggled with me. Mr. Husband often explained that I was the loudest
thing Oliver ever met. Oliver is a scaredy-cat and he runs from me to this day. I must be something of an ogre in his eyes. Despite my killing-myself-to-make-him-love-me attempts, Oliver remained steadfast and stuck like glue to Mr. Husband. I was alone on my side of the bed. I keep myself warm at night with the knowledge that Oliver turns to me when he needs to be fed, have his poop scooped or if he gets a bag stuck on his head. I am the queen of bag and poop removal.

Mr. Husband and The Senator devised a plan to cure my side-of-the-bed loneliness. Enter, Bonita Banana …