1976

That's how many eBay positive Feedbacks I have today. Lots more overall-feedbacks (100% positive), so I consider this one of my primary sources of income. A flawed source, to be sure... But more on that another time.

The number -- 1976 -- is also significant. It marks the one-year anniversary of my pairing with he-bean, or "HB" for short. We met by chance, in a park, while I was driving solo across the country, and moved in together just a few weeks later. Bad idea, I think, if you want a marriage to last. Better to stay individuals whilst you learn about each other. Better to know what the heart of the man is truly like before giving yours to him... More on that another time, too.

But I got a taste during that summer, on our European adventure. If I'd been a stronger, braver individual, I might have left him afterward. 'Cause it became clear we had some mighty big issues in conflict. So big, in fact, that I took up cigarettes again, in France, to soothe my nerves. (And I'd kicked my seven-year, 2-pack-a-day habit only three months prior, so that was a big disappointment in myself, too.)

Should'a known I was in for a rocky vacation when, early on our first morning in London, we couldn't --actually, HE couldn't-- settle on a restaurant to eat breakfast. I'd just become a vegetarian (because he was one) and maybe all the bangers-and-mash and other meat smells were bothering him, but he kept getting up from each table and leaving, with me trailing behind, bewildered.

I was uncomprehending his problem and getting a little complaining and whiny, with him saying how he gets grouchy when he hasn't had anything to eat in a while, and me snarking back that he probably shouldn't be leaving so many restaurants then, without eating, and we started getting louder and louder, walking along the sidewalk hunting for the next possibility. Until he slapped me right across the face (not too hard) just to shut me up.

Took me so much by surprise it actually worked, for a second. Then I grabbed his hand that slapped me and bit it (not too hard).

Whereupon we really started shouting and causing a ruckus, until a very nice Bobby came up and told us to quiet down -- that's just not how people behaved on their side of The Pond. (I think it might have been the Fourth of July, actually... our bicentennial.)

Well, we found our silent way into another restaurant pretty quick, and I left the table to go downstairs to the loo... for a good cry. A nice elderly British woman was there who suggested, in a roundabout way, that I might have found the wrong man for me!

Over the next four weeks (?) I had cause to agree with her, time and time again... but when we got back on US soil, I didn't make my break for it...

Not until coming here to care for Hunk and Bitchy, 32 years later. And go figure. (Bitchy reminds me SO MUCH of HB.)