[Sca-cooks] OT: About Trader Joes from the perspective of wife

[iasmin at comcast.net]

My husband treats me like a princess and I don't doubt there is anyone among our circle of friends who would say otherwise. We indulge each other little things that, like most married couples experience over time, may be forgotten in years that one spends with a person who so comfortable they mold to your soul. 

My husband is away on business right now, gone only a little more than a week. It came as huge surprise to us. He'd just changed jobs and had been with the company for well short of a month.  Most people would think "Eh, business. Big deal." For him, though, it was entry into what the company lovingly refers to as their "Top Gun" training program (after the 1980s movie of the same name). Twelve people chosen out of 150,000 employees. We found out about the nomination and his subsequent acceptance and travel plans in the space of 3 days and short of emergency feast takeover, I've never been so busy in my entire life. I barely got to say goodbye. He will be gone until December 21st.

How, you are wondering, does this relate to Trader Joes?

We live near one in Michigan. It's a regular stop for me on the way home from work because it lacks the hustle and bustle of large chains and still manages to sell the organic, recycled, granola-crunching-hippie-though-I-was-born-in-1968 supplies I've come to desire in my short space of time on earth. 

And they sell cookies. Little ginger snap cookies. I can't eat them. I don't desire them. But I buy them for my husband because they make him smile. 

When he has to work on a weeknight when most people are watching TV or when he has to finish a project, I bring him one or two and every time he stops what he's doing no matter what and picks each of them up with the delight most people only see in a two-year-old child. He dances them across his desk and then promptly gives me a very nice kiss and tells me he loves me. It's endearing. It's silly. And it's one of those things I desperately miss now that he's going to be gone for so long.

I went to Trader Joes yesterday, maudlin, when I saw the cookies. I bought some. I couldn't help it. They're one more little connection for me while he's away. When he called me last night before I drifted off to sleep, he said "Luv, I found a Trader Joes near the apartment they've put me up in. I found them."

"Found what, luv?" I asked.

"The cookies. Our cookies." I could tell he was smiling.

"I can't believe we have a cookie like most couples have 'Our Song.'" I'm sure I buried my face in the pillow.

"It won't be the same dancing the cookies across the kitchen counter though. I like it better when you bring them to me."

*sigh*

Damn. December 21st can't come soon enough.

Iasmin