Just ordinary events to tell a friend

Nothing earth-shattering has happened in the Kling household. We bought a new stove with some of our tax-refund money. It's a really nice professional-style one, but is stainless steel, so eventually I'll have to swap all the other appliances out to match. I've been going to the gym. I made it through another cardio-circuit class Thursday without keeling over (which at one point seemed a likely scenario while I was hopping up and down on a BOSU balance trainer.) It snowed one of the nights last week and we got about 4 inches of thick wet snow on the ground. My poor crocus didn't know what to do! All things that make me miss Jimmy. I didn't realize how much we called one another and told each other every day stuff, until the phone connection to his office and his cell weren't there anymore.

I seem to have moved into different circles over the years. I have some really wonderful friends, but none of them are carry-overs from growing up. I see some of my old friends every once in a great while - a Christmas card or an e-mail here or there. It's wonderful to see them and hear about their lives, but it's sporadic contact at best. My friends are set in different times of my life - with very few of them wandering from one time to another. (For example, there's no high school friend who's still an integral part of my adult, married-with-children, life.) I've come to realize that Jimmy fulfilled many roles in my life - the one I'm missing the most lately was long-time friend. Someone who knew just about all my stories from then until now. He knew just about everyone who ever crossed my path. I could say "Hey - Greg's in Portugal now at the University of Lisbon." and he knew just who Greg was and that it was very much like him to be an academic in Lisbon. Jimmy knew why I'd want to know what Greg was doing almost 20 years after my circle moved to include a different set of friends. Don't get me wrong - I have Mark and I tell him just about everything, but things about people and places from before I knew him, just aren't of much interested to him. (Although sometimes it's a small world, as I found out Mark dated a friend of mine from Junior High...long after Jr. High!)

Life goes on, but I feel I've lost my historian - the person who tracked the details of my life. Almost like there was a book "The Marventano Children," which included interwoven chapters of our lives. We created that book together, each of us aware that the other one was adding to the book. Adding our interpretation of events in the other one's life. Hearing about a fight with a spouse and knowing they reacted the way they did because of growing up with our parents and grandparents. I've said before that Jimmy called me cheap in NYC when I refused to take a taxi from JFK to Central Park because the subway was so much cheaper. It's a funny story, but when he called me cheap, there were so many pages of our book that jumped out with those words that made it a good inside ribbing between the two of us.

There's no one that transcends time in my life like Jimmy did. Even going forward, if Mark and I live until we're 100 and 104, there will always be a good 27 years of my life that are dark for him. 27 years that really made me who I am and who he married. Chapters in the book written in a language only James Robert and I knew - things that made us the quirky, odd birds that we are. Now I'm just an odd bird and no one really understands why! He at least knew I was an odd bird and couldn't help it...it was Mom & Dad's fault! ;-)

Today is Easter Sunday

Easter...one of my favorite holidays. There was such a build-up to Easter in our house. My Grandmother Swayne always made me a new dress for Easter. When I was old enough, I got to go with her to the store to pick out a pattern and material. My family used to go to my grandparents' house every weekend, so it was exciting to come down each Friday night and see how my new dress was progressing. I'd get to try it on for fit before she moved on to the next steps. Then she'd take me down to Nolan's in Auburn (the shoe store). Jimmy & I loved Nolan's. They had a teeny, tiny, little merry-go-round right in the store that you got to ride. Gram always bought me a brand new pair of paten-leather shoes. Every year, I'd BEG for the black ones and every year she bought white. There may have been one or two years that she gave in and bought black, but she was bound and determined to buy white to match the dresses she made me.

Then Easter arrived! The Easter bunny hid our baskets and it was so much fun to find them. I always found Jimmy's first - it was so big compared to mine that there weren't very many places to hide it! I'd get all dressed up in my new dress and shoes and we'd go to church. This was the best because on Easter I got to stay in church and not go out to Sunday school. I made sure I sat next to Grandma and not my mother. Mom would shush me if I got fidgety...Gram handed out candy! We went to a old church in the Village of Owasco where everyone sat in the same exact spot in the pews. I knew exactly where I belonged. We'd head over to my Dad's parents for dinner some years. My grandparents hard-boiled four eggs, then taped a silver dollar to each one and hid them around the house. Jimmy, my two older cousins, and I would have to find one each. It was only one egg with a silver dollar taped to it, but to me it was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

After Jim & Kate moved South (and then later to Wisconsin), every year we traveled to his house for Easter . Sometimes it was just me and the kids. Sometimes Mom, or Mom and Dad, went too. It was at Jimmy's that I became the "egg hunt queen." When my niece and nephew were too small for candy in their plastic eggs, I hid age-appropriate toys. We were there last Easter when Jimmy was recovering from cryoablation surgery on his liver. I video-taped the Easter egg hunt and got a bit of Jimmy helping out Rachel by directing her to the eggs. I'm grateful to have gotten him on film - it was quite by accident as I was really just following the kids around.

This year I'm home thanks to the HF-L school district. Instead of an Easter break, my kids got a week off in February and another in April. I was pretty disappointed. Especially this year, I wanted to be with my niece and nephew. My sister-in-law was wonderful and let me send out the eggs for the hunt, even though I couldn't be there. I can't wait to see pictures.

I miss Jimmy a lot today. Our paths in life came together at Easter more than any other holiday. It might seem strange that I would feel his absence the most on Easter, but I do. Easter was kind of our thing, now it's just kind of mine.

It's not In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

I'm trying to follow doctor's orders and cross-train. It's pretty difficult from the house, as there's only the snow covered road outside and my treadmill inside. So seven weeks ago I signed up for a Pilates continuing education class at the high school. That first night was a hoot - as I watched my muscles shake and fatigue very quickly. Who knew I hadn't used my abdominal muscles since before I had kids 16 years ago???! Seven weeks later, I'm doing pretty well in my Pilates class. I can roll down using my core and can almost roll back up slowly and smoothly...I'll admit there's a little bit of throwing my weight forward to try and get past that first little bit of a lift on the way back up. I like it and signed up for the next session, but it's only one night a week, so I decided to join a gym.

Yesterday, I went with my friend Cheryl and we signed up for a one-month membership to a place called "The Iron Butterfly" in Victor. Then we blissfully wandered ourselves in a "CardioCircuit" class. Oh my god - what a sweaty, out-of-shape, middle-age woman I am! And so helpfully, the room is lined with mirrors, so I get to enjoy watching how sweaty and out-of-shape I am for the entire 45 minutes! I'm certain that once my upper body muscles stop screaming at me for the abuse, that this will be great for me, but right now my head is thinkin' "How in the world can you run 5 miles, but not be able to rotate around a room for 45 minutes alternating between lifting 10 lb or less weights and doing cardio for two-to-three minute intervals?" It's amazing to me, but I can't. Thankfully, my friend Cheryl isn't an über-athlete, so I'm not totally shamed.

Today I'm going to get back on my good old treadmill and give my upper-body a break. Monday we're planning on taking a kickboxing class. I'll remember to put on the compression shorts for that one so the mirror doesn't mock me quite as bad.