fun activities
Lynne settled into my new red Mazda CX-30 for a sunny afternoon drive through her old neighborhood listening to songs from her playlist of favorites. We drove past the Greek Orthodox church.
I asked, “Did you ever go there?”
“No, it would feel like I was intruding.”
We drove down the alley by her house where she raised her newborn sons. Blossoms still towered over her tall fence. She recognized the ballpark and Montlake elementary and the playground equipment where I played tag with her sons.
The late afternoon sunlight blinded us as we drove past houseboats, prompting me to tell her a writer in my class is working on a memoir of living on a houseboat for 20 years. We stopped at a waterfront park to see squawking ducks and a fearless pigeon that posed for a photo with Lynne. A daddy chased his laughing children as landscapers said they were planting 3,000 plants, so we thanked them. Kayakers on the water reminded us when Mom loved a lake where our camper trailer perched on a bank above a muddy shore.
Lynne laughed. “The Mighty Muck Monster.”
That was our kids’ favorite of many stories I told around the campfire. The Mighty Muck Monster rose out of the muck, so I warned them to stay away from the shoreline muck day or night. I needed an ending, and it came to me from somewhere.
“It was afraid of nothing,” I paused. “Except, for one thing.”
“What was that,” they asked?
I leaned forward for my hushed answer with complete conviction, “A mad mommy.”
Oh, yes, they could imagine their mad mommy protecting them from the Mighty Muck Monster.
We drove around Lake Union for an hour to arrive in line for shakes at Dick’s Burgers in the gloaming. We were cold by the time we got back to the car. We headed home as The Judds sang their song, Love is Alive. She mumbled something, so I patted her knee and asked, “A little cold?”
“No, I’m happy.”
That thrilled me. It awakened me. I was happy. For the most part we were as comfortable a couple as Karen and I would have been — there were exceptions of course, like when Lynne tried to take my strawberry shake after she downed her vanilla shake.
I constantly search for different ways to make her happy. At times it seems simple, and at other times, hopeless. Maybe I make it too complicated.
You’re a good dad, Jim…