peter pan

On the day of my ex-husband's 44th year anniversary, I thought I would share some humor from our early life together.

I like coffee, okay truth be told I am totally addicted to coffee, I learned how to drink with my grandpa-who always drank it black, saying 'if you had to add milk and sugar, then you didn't really like coffee'. And being his girl I emulated him in every way possible right down to my coffee, until I met my ex-husband.

We were at his family's house for a big family dinner where he announced our engagement. After dinner we all had coffee and my ex-husband brought me a cup. Setting it down in front of me, I grimaced. 

'I don't drink milk in my coffee, I said I wanted it black.' I admonished.
'I heard what you said but I know what you want.' he replied and kissed me on the cheek.

The whole table erupted in laughter as I looked incredulously at him and his brother piped up with, 'welcome to the family!'.
It remains a running joke in the family to this day!


Fast forward a few weeks when we were cooking dinner at my place. The kitchen counter tops were rather low by most standards and while I was working at the stove I had set him to chopping vegetables for lasagna. He was using a very sharp knife and kind of slashing at them perilously close to his crotch. So I looked over and teased him about not cutting himself.

He clearly misheard me, looked down and said, 'It is ok, I am wearing steel toed boots'.
I burst out laughing and replied, 'That endowed are we?!' to a baffled look on his face, to which I explained what I said. He smiled sheepishly, pulled me into an embrace ... and we decided dinner could wait for a little while. :)


Not too long after that incident we were yet again in the kitchen fixing dinner, when the garbage disposal decided to go on the fritz. My roommates and I had been putting off calling the plumber, and since I was the grand-daughter of a plumber I kept using my meager skills to keep it alive. But this time it was beyond what I knew how to do. For some reason it was taking in too much air to push things down the drain.

'We need to somehow block the air that it is taking in', I said, as the disposal gurgled and sputtered.

So we tried dish towels, a plastic grocery bag, saran wrap. Nothing was working.

'I have an idea', he says and sprints out of the kitchen and runs upstairs.
I tilt my head after him having no clue what he could be thinking of...then he returns...with - a condom!!!

'You have to be kidding!' I say laughing at him.
'No.' he says, 'It is worth a try.'
'Oh good Lord, Grandpa would roll over in his grave to see what we are doing.' I laugh and am somewhat horrified at the same time.

So there we are unwrapping the thing and putting it over the air intake, holding it on, when my roommate walks in!!

'What the hell are you two doing?' she asks, appalled.
He looks up, smiles a darling mischievous smile and says, 'What? It was a new one!'

Ahhhh - I fall over laughing, she threw her hands up and fled the kitchen.
Want to know the best part, it worked!!


And the last one for today and yes it is another kitchen story, as they say - all the best parties end up in the kitchen. :)
We were three months into our married life and it was a fine saturday morning, we were having hunger pangs and went to the kitchen to hunt up some food. As I am poking around the refrigerator nothing is looking very appealing until I open the freezer. There all wrapped up is the top layer of our wedding cake, which truth be told I don’t even remember having at our wedding except that the pictures showed we had at least one bite. The tradition is that you wait a year and have it on your anniversary. Quick question here, who wants a year old cake?!

A point that I made to my ex and I guess I was persuasive enough that he gave in, in true Bill Cosby fashion, chocolate cake for breakfast? Sure, it has eggs, milk, flour. 

So we unwrap the cake, which was a lovely confection of chocolate cake underneath and
coated in thick, cold, butter cream icing.

So we popped a bottle of champagne, we always kept one in the fridge since we always had something to celebrate at the time, and cut into the cake, being moon-eyed and giddily romantic...at first. Until he took a big swipe of icing and put it on my nose ... so I did the same back and one thing lead to another and we had a massive cake fight totally destroying the kitchen and ourselves. Who knew such a little bit of cake could make such a mess!! The kitchen floor was like an ice skating rink from the melted and smeared frosting, we had cake all over us, so what did we do?

Sat down in the middle of the kitchen laughing and breathless, and toasted with our champagne to a delicious cake, that we still only managed to get one bite of.

So in closing, happy birthday 'peter pan' and thank you for all the funny memories, today I will toast you with a cup of coffee, with milk in it - of course.