Soup, Jane Austen, & Your Ideal Woman

Dear John,

 

I had a long day today and am off tomorrow. So it's okay that it's late - I can sleep as late as I want to in the morning.

I had a good, busy day at work. Kathy and I met and discussed her business plans for the future, which will me a great deal more responsibility for me. This job has certainly changed - it's not the one I took two-and-a-half years ago, working ten or twelve hours a week. And I'm glad. I needed a simpler job then, when I was dealing with your illness and then your death. But now I welcome the increased responsibility and challenge.

Kathy asked me to stay after work, so we opened a can of soup, got my cheese sticks from the basement, ate the leftover oatmeal cookies I'd brought with me, and watched the next part of Pride and Prejudice. I'm loving it, and loving watching it with Kathy. I'm just sorry I can't watch it with you - I know you'd love it.

I never stopped being amazed that we enjoyed the same television shows. Every time I found one I liked, I'd feel so anxious when I had you watch an episode. But you liked everything I did except Charlie Chan movies, and I loved you in spite of that deficiency. As I often told you, I'm so glad you don't like chick flicks - that I could not have put up with. And you never minded having a wife that watched ESPN and Spike. You loved NCIS and Burn Notice and Criminal Minds and The Glades - not a chick show among them. And I introduced you to your ideal woman: Fiona Glenanne.

But you bore up very well under having me instead, and I thank you for that. Until I get there, here's a pin-up photo to enjoy. Let it remind you, just a little bit, of me, too!

Love you, adore you, worship the ground you walk on,
Joan.