Category: marriage

When Sarah and I were married in 2012, a honeymoon was not in the cards for us. We were married in the ICU of St. John’s Hospital, as I was in the middle of a 2-week hospital stay for various ailments. So we never got a honeymoon. That’s been at the back of my mind all this time. Then, with how awful the end of last year was for us, we decided that we needed a little getaway. Just a 2-day stay in a hotel with no distractions, dogs and cats to feed, dog to take out, cleaning up hairbals, even no social media. So, this past weekend, we went to the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Indy. At the last minute, we decided to upgrade to a suite. I think it was a good decision.

The suite itself was okay, and the hotel staff couldn’t have been nicer. But there were a few flies in the ointment. First of all, it was 4 degrees outside. The hotel was built in 1915 as an office building, converting to hotel use in the early 2000s. I don’t think the refurbishments took into account the possibility of Arctic temperatures. The heat in our suite could not keep up with the cold, and to get any hot water at all, we had to run the tap for at least 3 minutes, and even then we didn’t get very hot water. So that was certainly a detriment. On the plus side, we got some good time together. The bed was as decent as hotel beds can get. I finally got to experience Shake Shack (in my view the burger lived up to the hype), and I introduced Sarah to First Watch (she is now a fan). So, even though it wasn’t perfect, we finally got our honeymoon.

I will close with one happening from the weekend, one that was, I might say, a bit humbling. Since, due to the frigid temperatures we decided to not do anything outside of the hotel, I chose to not bring my heavy winter jacket, and just wore my trusty Crisis Text Line hoodie. I figured the big coat would just be excess baggage. My mother-in-law said “what if there’s a fire?” I laughed it off; my mother was the wat-if queen, so while I understood the intent I thought there was minimal chance something like that would happen. Fast forward to Saturday night, around 9 PM. Sarah was working on her computer at the work desk, and I decided there wasn’t any reason to stay up, so I went into the bedroom, climbed under the covers, and fired up Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. Roughly 3 minutes later, while Peter Sagle was still bantering with the contestant who would take part in “Who’s Bill This Time?”, I was startled by beeping sounds. Following the beeps, a voice said: “May I have your attention please? A potential fire has been reported in the building. While this is being verified, it will be necessary for everyone to leave the building. Please use the stairs. Do not use the elevator.” I rose up, grabbed my pants, put them on, went into the main room, put on my shoes, didn’t get them all the way on before we had to leave. Once out in the hallway, we realized we had no idea where the stairwell was. Between following voices and a very much-appreciated good Samaritan, we found the stairs, and went down, and down, and down. Luckily, we were on the fourth floor; the hotel has sixteen floors. So I’m in my hoodie, it’s 4 degrees ouside, and that’s where we were headed, and standing out there for who knows how long. Very thankfully, just as we reached the lobby, the all-clear was called, so we got right into the first elevator available and went back up to our room, which somehow didn’t seem as cold as before, at least for a while. So, lesson learned: If traveling in the winter, even if I don’t anticipate stepping outside, that winer coat is coming with me always.

First, the good stuff. I need to do some bragging on my bride. As of today, she is a bona fide, newly minted professor of the Hebrew language. Her online class began today, and to say she’s hard at work would be a gross understatement. If I was wearing a shirt with buttons, they’d be busting right now. I’m more proud of her than words can say.

Along with this pride, I’m feeling more than a little conviction. She has been working extremely hard in preparation for teaching this course over the past few months. She’s been living, breathing, even eating Hebrew all day, every day, all the time. I’ve even contemplated getting completely in the spirit and buying some Hebrew National hot dogs. Seriously, though, while she has been giving her all and then some for this class, my production level has slowed to pretty much nonexistent. Oh, I’m supporting her every way I can, making sure she’s eating, keeping coffee supplied, offering an emotional boost when needed, etc. During this time, though, I’m ashamed to say I’ve let my own self-development slide. It’s not like I haven’t had the time; there has been plenty of that. I have not been spending the time wisely at all. I’ve been fooling around on Facebook. I’ve been obsessively playing Trivia Crack and Dice World. And more recently, I’ve been binging on some rather mindless TV shows (my latest is Scandal, which is like a train wreck you just can’t turn away from). I’m devoting my precious time and energy to these fairly empty pursuits, and I find I don’t have any gas in the tank left when I want to turn to the more meaty stuff. For a long time Sarah has been admonishing me to be more mindful of my time usage. I want to say here, publicly, that she is absolutely right. With all the blood, sweat, and more than a few tears she has poured into this Hebrew class, I have no business essentially being a lump. So, from this point on, the meat comes first. There is certainly a place for games and television episodes and related frivolities, but I need to think of them more as the dessert course. I’ve been treating them like the meal in and of themselves, which is kind of tantamount to eating the ice cream out of the carton at dinnertime and foregoing all else. Thus, I will henceforth be devoting my intellectual energies to reading the massive backlog of material I haven’t gotten to yet. Also, I will be writing more in this space. I know I’ve said that before, but I now have some living, breathing inspiration sitting in the office with the nose to the grindstone as I type this. The way I see it, the best way for me to honor what she is doing is to work harder honoring my own intellectual pursuits and, more to the point, managing my time better. I won’t be disappearing from the games and Facebook front; I’m just going to be regulating my time more. If Sarah can sacrifice so much time and emotional energy for something meaningful to her, I can sure as heck do this for myself.