Anniversary for us… for you… or for me?

Last week was my two year anniversary with my husband and I had this plan in my head that I could master an elegant dinner, candles, wine and the whole nine yards… playing make-believe that I could pull off a Hot-Housewife routine with my tight schedule.

Who was I kidding?

I arrived to our home after work and made a quick stop at the supermarket to buy ingredients to cook something meat-related (my husband was born a vegetarian and transformed into carnivorous, I assume, a well played move from the cosmos, considering that he’s married with an Argentinean, who her meal by default is cow-related)… I already had the wine bottle (a treat from my father who has achieve the hard task of exporting our Malbec wine to NY) and I was only missing the ambience.

I got home and quickly decided to take a shower and transform my persona from an ordinary working woman into a spectacular cooking super-hot-mama-wife (black dress and high heels included). After some light make-up, I headed for the kitchen, arrange my apron and started the preparations.

I first set the table, lit some candles, turned-on the music… so far so good; I started getting a bit hot (surely because of the anxiety), buy not a big deal.
Thanks to being in the XXI Century, A/C’s are a commodity in every house, so I started them full blast and continued my tasks.

I chopped veggies and made some fresh salad… some cheese to start… I was getting hotter by the minute and while chopping I took resting minutes and I fanned myself with a napkin.
Then I started the meat on the Cuisinart electric grill; and I could feel my brow getting wet, sweat running down my back, my hair getting all messed-up and entangled, humidity running my make-up… definitely not a good portrait.
At that particular moment, my husband decided to appear… I don’t know how Lucy or Angie or Kim or Jenny can manage a Super Model Housewife act, but I assure you, that they never tried the routine while cooking real food!
A headache, made an assault in my temples at that same instant, and I stopped dead still against the counter hoping that a spinal realignment might ease the squeeze in my skull… no luck, maybe a cranial amputation would work an I could have the excuse not to present myself to my husband as a sweaty (not at all appealing) wife.
However (and that’s why I love him like crazy), just one glance from him and I knew he was planning something different…I could smell the gourmet meal being cook by a chef at a fancy restaurant by just looking at him; he wanted to go out… and so do I!

I’m so hard-headed, you could have hit my frontal lobe with a crowbar and made no impression whatsoever; but just that one stare resigned me completely to the dumb idea that I could manage to cook while avoiding sweating like a pig in the middle of the summer. I mean, surprises are well deserved and enjoyed, but for an Anniversary, it’s better if the surprise it’s for both of us.

Closing my eyes, I sent up a prayer to anyone who was listening; asking please, for God’s sake, keep sending me signals that we were right for each other.
I’d read the books, seen the movie.... I knew every reason that aligned us, and I was so damn happy that; stubbornness and all; I am still perfectly loved by him.

Needless to say that after another shower, I was Hot-Mamma again and ready to head out…
Who knows…? I might have even gotten lucky… or him… or both.

Wine: Fabre Montamyou Malbec 2007 (www.67wines.com)