jumpingfish

We rose at 5:30, as we often do. Who knows why. Perhaps it was my cough. Perhaps Trudy had again displaced me on 90% of the bed and I was shivering with only a sliver of blanket to keep me warm. Or most likely it was the dogs who seem this year to have never adjusted to the time change and are hence perpetually asking for breakfast an hour before it is due.

It was dark outside, dark inside, too. I leaned and gave Trudy a kiss. She smiled and then turned away, pulling the covers even further in her direction.

I stood up.

“Are you getting up!?” she asked.

“We’re getting up,” I said. “We have presents to open.”

Truth be told, although there were several presents in the living room, there was one in particular I was interested in.

You see, a package from Amazon with presents from each of us to the other had arrived a few days before. (We both had our hands on the mouse when we clicked “Buy”.) Trudy had already opened hers — because we wanted to cook pot roast in the new crock pot. But I didn’t get to open mine.

Just as Trudy had known what her main gift was, so too did I: David Hestenes, New Foundations for Classical Mechanics. And a certain package wrapped in red and green sitting on the coffee table was just the right size.

So even though it was 5:30 in the morning, and even though it was still dark outside, and even though we were undoubtedly up before the earliest rising kid on the block, the fair and industrious Trudy put on her slippers and made a pot of coffee, and the two of us and the two dogs sat in the living room with smiles on our faces and opened presents.

… and then I read the rest of the day.

I had a dream that it was Alex’s wedding day.

I was putting on a red tux and was getting ready for the ceremony. I was to be one of two groomsmen wearing red tuxes; we were going to walk at the end of the procession. The other groomsmen would wear black, and they had already left. I was late.

This was my childhood home. I was in the garage putting on the tux. Then *flash* a moment later, I was across the street where the Molufs used to live, still trying unsuccessfully to tie that thin, thick tie.

My watch beeped. I looked down. The others were texting me. We have started, they said. I had missed the ceremony.

Dang, if that isn’t pure me. I’m supposed to be in Alex’s wedding… I’m getting ready to go… and I miss it. 

Still, I kept trying to tie that infernal tie. And then one of the other groomsmen drove up. He was sweaty and was buttoning or unbuttoning his white shirt and tying or untying his black tie. 

“Oh,” I said with a tentative sense of relief. “You’re getting ready for the ceremony?” 

“No,” he said. He didn’t look up at me. “The ceremony is over. I’m getting ready for the second one.”

So at least there was that. There were to be two ceremonies, and it was possible that even though I’d missed the first I’d make the second.

Now Alex comes into the house. I try to think of something to say, but we’re both silent. He doesn’t even look at me.

…and then I wake up.

I’d do it again in a minute.