File This One Under "What Were We Thinking?"

Yesterday I came home to discover a package on my door. I love packages. No, I mean, I LOVE packages! I must've had severe mail deprivation as a child because knowing an item has been wrapped up and journeyed it's way to my front door warms my heart like a blowtorch. Turns out this one was indeed special. My dear friend Janeal had sent me a puzzle of Fenway Park for my birthday. Quite apropos considering last night the Red Sox beat the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles to advance to the next round of playoffs. Caveat-- I think that's SO lame. Don't try to tie your team name to L.A., let the Brooklyn Dodgers do that. Just call yourselves the Anaheim Angels. Be where you're at! Bloom where you're planted! It's just such a wannabe thing to be the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim by Disneyland or whatever their official title is. It's like saying you're 29 when everyone knows you're 31. Give it up already.

Anyway, back to my package. Normally I would have waited to open it until my birthday but nothing on the outside indicated it was to be reserved for a special occasion. Because I'd already spoiled my surprise, I thought I'd put it to use for another special occasion: our wedding anniversary. That's right, as of yesterday Brent and I have been married for a whopping two years. It feels like just yesterday we kneeled across an altar in the Nauvoo temple and covenanted to be together for time and for all eternity. Well, feels like just yesterday until I consider the fact we have a 6-month old. THEN it feels appropriately two years. When Brent came home from work I suggested we do the puzzle for our Family Home Evening activity. How cute, I thought. We could pretend to be like a super old couple that eats dinner at 4:30 and constantly loses things and does puzzles for a rip roaring night of fun. How cute, right?

The puzzle was 500 pieces. That should have been my first clue. With intricate, tiny details (see photo). That should have been my second clue. Brent and I are both OCD. I should have factored that in as well. We didn't have a nice little evening together, we spent 2 1/2 hours painstakingly finishing this project (by then it had become one) so we could purge ourselves of the task and finally sleep at night. There was no reminiscent conversation, only mumbles about a conspiracy by the puzzle company who MUST have left out some pieces. To an outsider we probably looked like a couple with multiple personality disorder as we talked to ourselves under our breath and then shouted with glee when one of the pieces fit. At one point we put Tommy Boy on the TV in the background to help distract us because things were getting tense.

You would think seeing the finished puzzle would have given us a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction and perhaps togetherness? Not so much. It was more like a compulsive release that the puzzle was finally in it's proper order. What a horrible idea! I took a hot shower to release the knots from my neck and shoulders and we pretty much fell into bed. Romantic, huh? The silver lining is that this morning as we prepped ourselves for the day we both walked by the completed puzzle and were appropriately impressed with ourselves. In a way it's what I'd always hoped for in a marriage, someone who would stick by me until the very end. I love you Brent!