Russ and his bride
Sister Shelley (middle sister) and brother-in-law, Russ, will celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary on December 24. She was a month shy of twenty when she took her vows. And she’s been making promises to Russ ever since.
Here are some of the vows Russ has asked Shelley to take—over and over—for a large portion of their last 14,600 days together. Well, they’re not exactly vows, but more like Rusty’s Rules of Order. They come along with his lifetime of pure devotion to my sister. And they even make Rusty laugh after all these years.
IN THE KITCHEN
Russ: “Stop resting your elbows on the table when you eat.”
Shell: “I promise I won’t.”
Russ: “The reason you have knee problems is because of the way you sit at the table. You should stop doing that.”
Shell: “Okay, I won’t.”
Russ: “You really shouldn’t put too much food near the light in the freezer.”
Shell: “I’ll remember that.”
IN THE BEDROOM (before they’re getting ready to cuddle at night)
Russ: “Take the barrette out of your hair.”
Shell: “Aye, aye, captain”
Russ: “Make sure you set your alarm.”
Shell: “Yes.”
OUTDOORS
Russ: “Promise me you’ll look both ways when you get out of the bus. I noticed you just run out without looking.”
Shell: “I’m still alive after sixty years, but I’ll make sure to watch next time.”
Russ: “Don’t wear high heels because we’re going to be doing a lot of walking and you’ll be uncomfortable.”
Shell: Silence, as she slips on her heels.
AND…IN THE BATHROOM
Russ: “When you take a shower, put some water under the mat so it sticks better.”
Shell: “Yep.”
Russ: “I heard you rolling out the toilet paper. Use less.”
Shell: “Absolutely.”
Note: Russ was the toilet paper monitor in high school. I swear!
We’re a slightly nutty family and so are the men we married. Ribbing aside, Russ and Shelley have one of the most successful marriages in the world. They love each other with all their hearts and Russ wants to protect my sister every moment he can.
The way he shows his love is endearing…if not slightly hysterical.
I love you, Russ.
P.S. Russ says he can’t wait to have a grandchild so he can have “someone else to boss around.”
Dwight and Nikita compromised a bit
“People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
My day today seemed to be all about compromise, from morning to night. I had coffee with a not-quite FOF friend (she’s 48), who told me about her contentious relationship with an older sister. My friend is cool, unemotional, methodical and thoughtful. Her sister is hotter, emotional and often compulsive. They come to odds when older sister perceives younger sister is acting like a know it all and younger perceives that older is self-centered and unthinking.
I’ve learned from my own sisterly relationships that no one wins unless one or both sisters accepts the other, for good and for bad, kind of like we need to do in a marriage. Chances are, my friend is not going to change her sister and vice versa, so it’s best if you each give a little.
Later in the day, Lina and I made a presentation about FOF to a big beauty company. The executives liked our pitch a great deal, but explained why they couldn’t do quite what we proposed. Instead, they asked if we could do take another approach, which they outlined. We said yes, and then they asked us to tweak our presentation and send it back to them. That’s another kind of compromise, not involving any emotional sacrifice, so it’s pretty easy to accept.
When two parties have to settle on the terms of a business contract, their lawyers usually shuttle it back and forth numerous times until they come to terms. Both sides invariably give up something. David, my lawyer husband, says a good settlement is when “both sides feel like they lost.” At first, it seems to be a strange notion, but it makes sense when you think hard about it. “Neither side should be 100 percent happy,” David explains. “That’s what compromise is all about.”
David can be sage.
Ellen Burstyn (Is her quote referring to me?!?)
“She goes from one addiction to another. All are ways for her to not feel her feelings.” –Ellen Burstyn
I’ve had addictions throughout my life. Here are the definitions of the word in the Encarta World English Dictionary:
1. A state of physiological or psychological dependence on a drug liable to have a damaging effect
2. A great interest in something to which a lot of time is devoted
As for definition #1, I’ve had marijuana about 20 times in my life (mostly, it made my giddy, then it bored me) and tried cocaine once, in my twenties (it did nothing for me and I never tried again.)
If nicotine is a drug, I was a cigarette addict, for sure. When I decided to quit, over 25 years ago, I was smoking as many as 2.5 packs a day. I was hypnotized to stop and I haven’t even held a cigarette between my fingers since then. Thank goodness, my lung x-rays look good, but I always worry a bit about lung cancer.
If alcohol is a drug, perhaps I was an alcoholic. I favored gin and vodka throughout my twenties and thirties, wine in my forties and into my fifties, then back to vodka. I could polish off a bottle of wine all by myself (sometimes even more.) I stopped drinking cold 2.5 years ago because I wanted to lose weight. For some strange reason, I completely lost my taste for alcohol. I keep waiting for it to return, but it hasn’t. (But I steal the icing off David’s cupcakes. I must still crave sugar.) Worse things can happen!
As for definition #2, I’ve been addicted to (not necessarily in order of importance):
1. Work
2. Shopping
3. Dieting
4. Decorating my apartments
5. My Blackberry
6. Edgar
7. Almonds and raisins
8. Popcorn
9. Knitting
10. Playing Scrabble on and with my iPad
Except for working, shopping, and my Blackberry, my addictions usually last anywhere from a couple of months to years at a stretch. Then I may drop them like a hot potato, never to return to them again. Or, I’ll miss them and pick them up again. Knitting is a perfect example. I’ll knit eight sweaters each year for three years (for myself, for friends, for relatives, as baby gifts) and then I won’t look at a skein of yarn or pick up a knitting needle for the next two.
My latest addiction (only since I bought an iPad a couple of months ago) is playing Scrabble with the computer. I can play for hours every evening, in the middle of the night, anywhere. I pay medium-level hardness and win 98 percent of the time. I don’t do well playing at the toughest level. I expect I’ll tire of Scrabble at some point. But I am learning lots of new words, even if I don’t always know what they mean.
Want to go out for some “Za” tonight?
How Angelina feels about Brad, or so they say
“Brad Is Boring Her” reads the headline of a tabloid magazine. The cover photo shows Angelina looking um.. bored.
Seven-year-old Kieron Williamson painted this
When is this obsession with these cockamamie celebrities going to end? Why aren’t we fascinated with the scientists who recently discovered how to detect Alzheimer’s disease early, or the seven-year-old lad in England whose landscape paintings are selling for $30,000? Or ANYBODY but Angelina, Brad, Jennifer, JLO, Madonna, Lindsay and those other devastatingly captivating personalities.
I noticed Jennifer Aniston is on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar again. It must be the 250th HB cover she’s been on in the last 10 years. Oh, wait a minute. There were only 120 covers in ten years. It just seems like she was on 250 covers. By the way, she’s imitating Barbra Streisand in the issue. OMG. Imagine connecting Jennifer Aniston with one of the greatest entertainers and talents of all time.
Isn’t there anyone else to model the new fall clothes? Perhaps a woman soldier who has recently returned home from Iraq, with an accompanying story on her experience and how she views the world. Or a cover of Michelle Obama’s best friends from Chicago?
If Jennifer Aniston is the only person who helps sell magazines, these magazines are in deeper trouble than we thought. What new information could possibly be revealed in an interview? Maybe they’ll tell us the time of the month she’s ovulating so we can cheer her on to get pregnant.
Fab Over Fifty RSS Feed