Bob called to tell me he'd had a rough day.
When he took my car in for an oil change, he had to wait nearly three hours.
Rushing home, he put the dogs, Plotinus and Antonio Damasio, in the car to keep his appointment for one of them to get hydrotherapy; Tinus badly injured his knee and twice a week a canine therapist puts him in big vat of warm water so that he can strengthen the surrounding muscles and lead a fairly normal life. Bob took Damsi just because Damsi likes to ride along. Because Damsi loves water, Bob decides he wants to pay the therapist just to let Damsi in, too.
On the way home, Bob stopped for gas and one of the three-gallon, glass water jugs (he was on his way to get them filled at the local spring) rolled out of the car and broke into a jillion pieces.
That's when Bob called me to tell me he was not having a good day. "Hold on," he said, as I started to sympathize. I could hear him talking to a couple of homeless people and handing them a couple of dollars. "They said if I know of anyone who's getting rid of a sleeping bag to please let him know," Bob said when he returned to my call. "Can I call you back?"
Sometime later Bob called me back. He had driven about 20 miles back home to Lyons to drop off the dogs, then returned to Boulder, went to Sports Authority to purchase not the cheapest sleeping bag, but the nicest one (Sports Authority, by the way, always gives us a discount when we purchase items for the homeless), then drove around Boulder looking for the couple. It took awhile but he found them and "you should have seen the look on their faces", Bob told me when we met for dinner.
What did Bob do with his day off? Went to get my oil changed. Took the dog in for therapy. Pondered paying the therapist just so our other dog could swim, too. Put gas in my car. Was going to the spring to get water but ran out of time. Bought a sleeping bag and then hunted all over Boulder until he found the couple who needed the sleeping bag.
Bob, however, was a step ahead of me.
"You know," he said, "I guess I'm not frustrated any more. When all you need is a sleeping bag so you don't have to sleep on the still snow-covered ground in Colorado, it pretty much puts everything else in perspective."
Yes, I thought, and when you're married to a man who spends his day off doing stuff for other people, it kind of makes you fall more deeply in love.
Feeling grateful,
Mary