Delaying gratification, being mature

Today's slow, and that's just fine. I can use slow.

If you look below this post, I have made up for missing the last Recipe Saturday and have an early recipe because I'm going to miss this one, too.

This morning, I made us biscuits while playing country music on the radio. It's stupid, but I make better biscuits with country. I sang along to all the love songs. L'Ailee just smiled and listened as I duetted with Tim McGraw on "When the Stars Go Blue." Then I sang along with Rascal Flatts' "What Hurts the Most." It's a great pop-country break-up song. L'Ailee observed, "You sang that with so much emotion. Were you thinking about [Ex-Boy]?" I thought a bit. I realized that if anything, I was thinking of how bad I'd feel if I lost *her*. I told her so. That wasn't just the truthful answer, it was the right one, too!

She was right to ask, though. Ex-Boy's now married and has just celebrated his first Father's Day. I found that out this weekend. I considered sending his new wife a sympathy card for a hot second. Then I just shook my head at myself. He gets to move on and be happy, too, I told myself. The hell of it is, I believed it! Really and truly believed it. I felt so very grown-up, then wondered if it's actually immature to feel so "mature."

My 13-year-old cousin says "mature" means "not always getting your own way and being okay with that." I smile at his definition, not only because of how it's applied to him, but because adults sometimes have problems with that, too.

Did y'all see Tony Stewart's latest crash? Day-am, that boy's had bad luck this year! He wasn't hurt, not physically. His shoulder was just fine, as we could see when he took a hammer to his car's many and serious dents. It was so cute--he was obviously taking out his frustration on the dents! That's a constructive way to channel it, though. Kevin Harvick might have had a chance if the rain didn't stop the race; as it was, he came in eighth, which ain't bad.

On Saturday, L'Ailee and I were busy putting the finishing touches on Mona and JC's apartment. I'm never letting L'Ailee ride my shoulders to paint again--they still hurt a bit. She's light, but I'm not strong. Anyway, our friends' wedding is the reason why we're going to France. (On a plane Friday night, back the next Thursday night!!!) The apartment was Mona's, but she wanted it redone to make it *theirs*. I certainly understood that. They've been slowly moving his stuff in and camping out--that's how she thinks of it--at his crappy studio. They won't live in the good apartment until after the wedding.

JC's French, which is why the wedding's in his hometown. Our foreign-born lovers were baffled by me and Mona's conversation. Mona is also a Southerner with Evangelical roots; we both have relatives who believe in "waiting until marriage." Of course, in my case, that really didn't apply. But she realized that with this project, she was saving something for marriage after all. "Maybe peolpe need something that says, 'Now you're married and life has changed'," she mused. We giggled over the concept of home as substitute hymen. But really, L'Ailee and I liked ending one year single and starting the next married that New Year's Eve. We've had friends who abstained for a few weeks or refused to enter their new house after the wedding or adopted an animal together right after the wedding.

The realization that life has changed, I'm seeing, doesn't actually come as a deluge all at once. It's more like raindrops. Drip, you're only buying one copy of a book to share. Drip, you realize your house smells and sounds different. Drip, the creep on the bus sees your ring and backs off. But an initiation of some sort may ease the way. Of the four people in that apartment that day, I was the only one who'd call it this, but the redecoration was an initiation ritual. I'm big on ritual. I am honored to have been part of this one, and hope we did right by them.