On the walk from the car to the mall:

I promise to behave in here. Really.

If you’re good, you’ll get something very, very special when we get home.

Promise? Really? Maybe even that special thing that you do?

Yes, even that special thing I do. Now, just be good, please. You can’t be a smart-aleck. No talking back to the salespeople. And especially, no making fun of the old people or the moms with strollers that keep you from going your usual ninety miles an hour.

As soon as we got into the part of the mall with all of the little kiosks for things like suncatchers and black velvet paintings and nuts, a woman called out:

Would you like a free sample of lotion, ma’am?

No!

We didn’t even make it past the first kiosk and already you’re not behaving yourself! I told you no being rude to the salespeople.

But I didn’t WANT free lotion.

But she was asking me. She said ma’am. Not sir.

Yes, the discussion was between me and Mr. Hot.

—- Another reason to do all of my shopping online. —-

It’s about time for another set of letters to the people that I graciously allow to live in this house and breathe air that is so meant for me only love.

Dear Mr. Hot,

Honey, you are obsessive/compulsive MIXED with a healthy dose of Attention Deficit Disorder. Do you really think that’s the best way to be when attempting to invest in the stock market with a couple of extra dollars? Y’know, especially now that we’re in a recession and all? It’s not the money - really, I know that you’re doing your homework about all of this, - and I have 100% faith in your ability to research everything that needs to be known.

But, darling? You CANNOT play the stock market without gaining and losing. Sometimes, in the same fucking day. So, y’know, if you can’t handle seeing that sure winner drop a couple of pennies before it goes up a dime without getting all moody and shit? Step.Away.From.Bloomberg.Television.Now.

Love forever and ever,

The Hotfessional

lalalalalalalalalalala

Dear 24,

Now that you’re actually 25, I’m going to change your name. It’ll be easier in the long run, trust me, because I have the feeling that you’re not moving out anytime soon. You are now Diva. I thought about naming you “The Self-absorbed Diva”, but that’s just too long to type after the daily bottle of vodka you’re driving me to drink.

Aaaaaanyyyyywayyy, Diva, that phone bill that you owe me? For the 152 minutes you took us over our 700 minute plan? The one that we never, ever went over before we added you to the plan? The one that we barely ever hit 300 minutes on? Remember that?

I suggest you pay up before I use the parental controls on that number of yours. Because if I see you carry in one more bag from The Gap or see one more product sitting in the shower upstairs that I DIDN’T purchase, I am going to lose.my.shit.here.

Oh, and those credit card bills that keep showing up for you? The Hotfessional is not bailing your ass out.

Love, whether you like it or not,

The Hotfessional (Your stepmonster)

lalalalalalalalalalala

Dear Shortman,

Remember your Freshman year in High School? Let me refresh your memory. In elementary school, you were part of a program that gave you a year’s worth of elementary German. Granted, it was only one hour each week, but you learned how to count. And you learned colors. And Ich bin and Danke. So when you were choosing a language to take in High School, I suggested German, knowing that you were inherently lazy and hoping that somehow, someway, that German you learned had seeped into a few brain cells that you’d not already fried with video games.

Of course, you rolled those eyes at me and decided to take Spanish. It’s a ‘more useful’ language in the U.S. you argued. Hey, kid, I took four years of High School Spanish - I know how useful THAT was. But, because you’re my son and I love you dearly, I let you do as you wished.

When you decided to NOT take Spanish 2 in 10th grade, I pushed, but you were replacing it with welding. And since it looked like you were considering electrical trade work, I agreed to let you drop that Spanish 2 class. Little did I know that after a brief stint with vocational education, you would turn your sights back to college level courses. When you did that, though, I suggested picking up Spanish 2 at the beginning of 11th grade - because even though it had been over a YEAR since you’d studied yo, tu, usted, ustedes, and nosotros, the other kids taking it probably forgot most of it over the summer.

But no. Eleventh grade came and went. ¿Dónde estaba el español? No aquí.

Then came that meeting with your counselor. She told you that you needed two years of a foreign language to get into your choice of university. So, here we are, two days into Spanish 2. Three years after you took Spanish 1.

Oh mi santo infierno, ahora me matan*.

Love - more than I can ever express,

The Hotfessional (Your mother, who sometimes, does know best.)

lalalalalalalalalalala

And this is why Mr. Hot asked me today when my next “mental health” outing with other bloggers is scheduled. He knows me so well.

—- *Translation - Oh my holy hell, kill me now. —-

Shortman’s voice - from the living room:

I have a question. Y’know, after you have a baby, does your stomach go down immediately?

Mr. Hot’s voice - from next to me at the kitchen table:

No, it’s still kinda poofy.

Next sound - on the hallway floor:

click, click, click, click, click, click, click

Mr. Hot, again -

I said poofy, not Poopy.

WAG, WAG, WAG.

Okay, I’ll give you a scooby snack.

The garage? With the pristine new paint job on the pristine new walls and ceiling? Well, we had an attic ladder installed so we could use the rafter space as storage for things like Christmas boxes, and folding tables, and out of season shit. Like Shortman’s snowboard.

Guess who’s going snowboarding in 45 minutes? Guess who decided to go retrieve said snowboard from rafter space? Guess who, in a fit of brainlessness - kneeled, not on the rafter, but on the insulation - and put his knee through said pristine ceiling?

That’s right. Shortman - all 6′2″, 220 lbs of him - kneeled directly onto the insulation and the 1/2″ thick gypsum board. I heard a pop from where I was sitting - then I heard, “What the fuck? Move your knee!”

I went out to see. None of us could look at each other. I knew if I looked at Shortman, I’d start laughing. If I looked at Mr. Hot, I’d start laughing. Either way, I was doomed.

Finally - we all went into separate rooms. I sat in the kitchen, Shortman went into the living room, and Mr. Hot climbed the ladder to try to push the pieces back into place. (The photograph was taken after his attempt to repair.) We each had our own little “compose yourself” timeouts.

When Mr. Hot came back inside, looked into the living room and said, “You goofball.” And Shortman said, “I’m sorry.”, I knew I was safe. I buried my face in my arms and laughed - silent tears streaming down my face…my shoulders doing that hunch thing - as I tried and tried not to let Shortman hear me laughing.

—- Then I grabbed the camera. —-

Of course, Mr. Hot did this while fixing breakfast, so Kettle, meet Pot:

Did I ever tell you that I’m married to a chauvinist pig? No, seriously. It’s rather funny, in an unfortunate (for him) sort of way - I mean, look who he married. I am extremely independent. I believe women are more capable, more intelligent, more caring and more forgiving than 95% of the men I know. (Sorry, my darling male readers…I love you all, and we’d obviously die out without you, and you’re excellent lovers and bedwarmers…Hell, you’re probably that 5% that are at least as capable, intelligent, caring and forgiving as us, because you read this site.)

Aaaaaaaannywayyyyyy, (she says, trying to dig herself out of THAT hole), Mr. Hot is an admitted chauvinist. He ‘fesses up, y’all.

He’s really hard worker, and an excellent cook, and he gives pretty good backrubs when his heart is in it. He loves his kids and his wife and even, for the most part, the animals. He’s an excellent son-in-law (probably better than I am a daughter).

He’s also a sports freak, so when we moved to Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan (Go Blow!*) - we gave up professional sports outings to Pistons and Tigers games (they’re now too far away) for Wolverine sports. The waiting list for football is about a kajillion miles long, but U of M basketball hasn’t been a real contender since the Fab 5 years, so season tickets were readily available.

For the past two years, we sat in Section 57, Row 30, Seats 11,12, and 13. This year, because it’s our third year, we got moved closer to the court. (Down one.whole.row. To Row 29. snirk.) We also got a special offer. “Buy Women’s Basketball Season Tickets for $10″.

Um, y’all? That’s not $10 per ticket. That’s $10. For a seat. For the season.

I batted my eyes and told my chauvinist pig darling husband that we could combine the best of both worlds. Sports and dates - for an entire season - for $20. Screw Shortman - he wouldn’t be any fun. I may have offered, um, other benefits as well. Shaddup.

Even better? It’s general admission. No assigned seats. Sit anywhere you’d like.

Last Thursday, we sat close enough to smell the Gatorade.

Today, we sat on the court. (And I may have lusted after the photographer’s cameras, just a bit.)

Now, I’ll give you one guess as to which member of the Hotfessional family is these girls’ biggest fan.

—- Of course, it kills me to have to listen to that fight song - because as a Spartan, I think it can do serious damage to my brain cells. —-

*And as a Spartan, I NEVER, EVER cheer Go Blue. Just sayin.

Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3
Part 4 — Part 5 — Part 6 — Part 7

We’re in the home stretch!

Mr. Hot and I talked about wedding dates. We knew we didn’t have a lot of time, and since we weren’t planning on a church wedding (snort. and snirk. and hahahahahaha!), we figured it would be easy enough to plan.

I wasn’t thrilled about an early June wedding. That would have been too close to Mr. Hot’s previous anniversary. (I wanted to make it easy on him, but I did not want him to mix up my date with hers.) Nothing was available in late June or early July. We were scheduled for July 22nd. My grandmother’s birthday. She would have adored Mr. Hot.

First, though, we had to get through all of the pre-wedding crappe. There was the blood test. Then the license. In West-by-gawd-Virginia, when you applied for a license, they ran the bride and grooms name in the newspaper. I guess so that “if anybody knows if any reason these two should not be wed, let them speak now or forever hold their peace”. Oh Mah Holy Hell, y’all. Think about it. The home town newspaper publishing that “Ree Maidenname” and “Mr. Hot” were going to get married on such-and-such a date.

I had visions of the locals gathering up wood to use as torches. I had nightmares about the scene from Frankenstein where the mob stormed the castle. Our house wasn’t made of stone. To mix metaphors, it was made of straw - like the first little pig’s house. And the entire town was going to huff and puff and blow it right-the-fuck down.

Karen took the kids down to their usual beach vacation spot with her parents. They were gone for two weeks at the end of June/beginning of July. It would have been the ideal time to get the license and have that notice printed, but it was too far away from our date with the Judge. There was a time requirement (2 weeks prior maybe?) - and we were outside that.

************************

We Mr. Hot received a postcard while Karen and the kids were away. It said, “We miss you Daddy. Wish you were here.” And then in Karen’s handwriting, “I can’t believe you’re not here with us this year. Next year, I have faith, we’ll be together again.”

She really believed that they were going to reconcile. Even two months after the divorce was final, she believed that he’d come home.

************************

Our day was quickly approaching. My mother sent me a beautiful maternity dress. It was a soft dark green - she said it would bring out the green in my eyes. I laughed. “Mom, I wear glasses. No one ever sees my eyes.”

My sister made plans to come visit and bring her son who had just turned 18 months. She was going to come down for the wedding - to be my witness. I was so excited to see them both.

We finally got to the point where we had no choice but to go file for our license. If we waited one more day, we’d miss the deadline. My classes were over early in the afternoon. Mr. Hot had a later class, but it wouldn’t be any problem to get over to the courthouse afterwards. They were open until 5 and his class ended at 3.

Guess who didn’t come home until 7? Drunk as a fuckin’ skunk?

Mr. Hot had turned into Mr. Cold Feet.

Between 3:30 and 7 - I had imagined every possible scenario. He’d been in a car wreck. Practice had killed him. He’d gone back to Karen. He’d met someone else.

I tried to think. What would I do? I had a friend who had moved to San Francisco. I’d go live with her. I obviously couldn’t stay in Huntington - I was 6 months pregnant with my lover’s baby. I was divorced from my husband. My remaining settlement money was dwindling fast, eaten up by tuition payments and the difference in rent. I’d have to decide soon - I found a really old pack of cigarettes and told myself I’d have one. They were the stalest, nastiest, make-me-barf things I had ever had. It was exactly what I needed at that second.

And then he walked in the door.

He kneeled next to me while I cried great, heaving, gulping sobs. “Why didn’t you just tell me that you didn’t want to get married? I can live with that. I can’t live with the thought that you would leave me”, I managed to squeeze out the words between breaths. “Or did you just come to get some stuff? Please, can I stay here until I figure out what to do? And can our baby have your last name?”

He gathered me up into his arms and said, “I just need a little more time. I need to talk to the kids. I’m not leaving you.”

The phone rang. It was Karen. (Her timing was always, always impeccable.) When Mr. Hot cut her off - told her he couldn’t talk, her next question was, “Oh, are you and Ree fussin’? You can come sleep here if you’re having a fight.”

Sigh.

I went with him on his route that night. I wasn’t letting him out of my sight.

************************

Just like I didn’t want to get married in June, I wasn’t thrilled about getting married in August. That was MY anniversary month. Besides, I’d decided that I wasn’t mentioning marriage again. I had never had a single patient bone in my body, but I was sitting tight on this one. No mention of weddings. No mention of judges or licenses or another freakin’ blood test. It was going to be his timeline. His decision. (If you ask him now about this, he will tell you, in no uncertain terms, that even though he’s known me for nearly 18 years, this is the ONLY time I’ve done this. And he would be right.)

One day, we were sitting in the living room, studying, and he said, “I talked to 24 today. I told him I thought it was time that I married Ree. He told me ‘Whatever makes you happy Dad.’”

I looked up from my book. “That’s good.” and I smiled.

************************

The kids had spent the night or the weekend at our house many times. They thought we were roommates. Whenever they spent the night, Mr. Hot would sleep on the living room floor with them. I would sleep in our bedroom. When he left at 2-OMFG-thirty, he’d carry them into our bed or leave them sleeping on the floor and come into tell me he was going. Karen wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me being alone in our house with her kids, but there was nothing she could do about it either. I learned I could handle getting puked on at 4 am.

************************

At the beginning of September, I was sitting in our mudroom grading papers. I had gotten a job as an instructor for Computer Science 101. Teaching a 3-credit class for a semester equaled a semester’s tuition. Even up. I was sitting at my desk. Mr. Hot was sitting behind me, playing on his Atari - and talking. I kept losing track of what I was reading. Let’s face it, reading paragraphs on good directory structure rules is not the most compelling thing to read. Add heat, humidity, no air conditioning and being 8 months pregnant. (Did I mention he does this to this day? If I’m trying to read something, he talks to me? Well, he does.)

“The Herd schedule came out today. The new football stadium is opening September 7th. I can’t believe we’ve watched that thing being built. It’s going to be great to see them actually play there.”

“I can’t wait. I love football season. Maybe we can have some people over before the game? At least Matt and Annette.” (Matt and Annette were our newlywed neighbors. They lived in the other half of the house in a much smaller flat.)

“Sure, maybe some of the professors too. We’ll grill hotdogs, whoever shows up can bring whatever.”

“Alright, I have to finish grading these now. Gawd, these kids can’t write.”

“Wait, let me interrupt you again.”

“huh?” (I was not really paying attention. These things were killers to read.)

“They’re playing Brown on the 28th. We could go get married in Russell before the game. It’s a night game.”

“Uh, okay. That’s fine.”

And then it hit me - what he really had said. And I turned around and said, “Wait? You really mean it?”

“Yea, I told you that I just had to talk to the kids. And that we’d get married before he’s born.” He pointed at my belly.

Russell, Kentucky. Bring your blood test. No license wait period. A Justice of the Peace on every corner. On the banks of the Ohio River.

That’s where it happened. That’s where The Hot Affair became The Hot Marriage. Eighteen days later, this happened.

September 28, 1991

—- Thank you all so very much for traveling on this little journey with me. I’ve enjoyed re-living the amazing twelve months of my life from September 1990 through September 1991. I hope I’ve made you giggle a little on the way. I hope that if you are in love, this helps you remember all of the wonderful things about your partner. I hope that if you’re looking for love, this proves that fairy tales can come true. —-