LABOR-SAVING APPARATI

Caitlyn got my KitchenAid mixer—that I had for, like, three years and used maybe ten times—leaving me the opportunity to get a merrier hue than gunmetal. Cornflower blue won my heart. So now I have a cornflower blue KitchenAid mixer. I’ve decided to initiate it with snickerdoodles, crispy ones, sweet James’ cup of tea. Maybe tonight. Probably tomorrow, based on projected yoga-class conclusion times.

Now that I’m thinking of it, here’s how Caitlyn got my mixer: Whitney accosted me at a family event and told me that while I don’t need a stand mixer, Caitlyn does, so I should give mine to her. I said, “Uh, no,” giving Whit her cue to launch into a pressure-full, logic-laden pitch after which she closed me, saying, “Will you commit to giving Caitlyn your KitchenAid mixer?” Baffled about how Whit was able to best my years of corporate sales training worth thousands of someone else’s dollars, I sort of said yes and then a couple weeks later I was mixer-less, which didn’t matter at all until I realized that there were cornflower blue ones, and I was therefore in sore need of a new kitchen contraption.

There’s some other new cooking gadgetry ‘round here too these days. There is a kitchen torch because I should get to brûlée sugar atop lemon curd on my English muffin in the morning. There is an immersion blender that won’t be useful until soup season, and even then will get used maybe three times all winter but will be worth it since I won’t be pouring portions of hot soup into the blender and thus risking the kinds of burns real cooks suffer from and subsequently display as soup merit badges. I got a kitchen scale because using my postal scale for baking was weird. Oh, and a cast-iron skillet. I finally have one of those.

If Jim did so at all he did it covertly, but my husband probably shook his head as all these kitchen things arrived. It’s not like I cook or have turned over some new leaf in the home’s heart. All these instruments were just things I’ve been wanting for a while, and now seemed like a good time. So if I decide to crack open one of my many cookbooks and use it as more than reading over breakfast and actually make something other than a big salad, I have tools.

Reconsidering, maybe Jim didn’t shake his head, because the garage is stocked with tools that don’t get used regularly, but are great to have when he needs them. Eh, but he’s actually fluent with those tools—I think he really got a kick out of the look on my face when he showed me how to use the glass cutter; Whoa, I say—and I, on the other hand, am a self-admitted kitchen dunce.

That’s another something about Jim that’s great. He “lets,” so to speak, me do whatever I want. “I’ll support you” comes out of his mouth even before I finish saying what I’m thinking I want to do. I think he trusts that whatever it is that I'm planning is something I've considered with my bright little mind and so is at least not the worst idea.

It’s not lip service either. An example: I’ve been thinking I want to do a local yoga teacher training workshop, and yesterday I sent him the link asking what he thought. “I’ll support you” was what he thought. But he doesn’t just divorce himself from the conversation either. When I was deliberating on a new computer I was all over the place on which one I wanted. We talked it through, he made sense, I went with the one he thought would work best for me, and, as I type these very words on it, I’m happy with my choice.

Happy with my choice in regard to laptops. Happy with my choice in regard to a second husband.

It feels odd and sensational to be so dizzily enamored with my spouse. I didn’t feel that way before. When my first marriage happened at 20 I treated the marriage as a strategic achievement, which it was, and a failed one at that. This is different. I’m itchy to have Jim hold me. I always can’t wait to talk to him. I respect the hell out of his mind. He’s someone I feel that I need to live up to not make excuses for. 

I keep wondering when I’ll get past the differences in my new life as compared to the old. Time will do it, I’m sure, but I’m not there yet. The contrasts are too stark, and they come out in such simple things. At five this morning Jim went mountain biking with some friends. After ten years married to the other “man” I’m still so blown away that Jim a) exercises, b) does so outdoors, c) does so before work, d) has a for-real job, and e) has friends. It’s such a simple thing to him, going mountain biking before work with friends, but to me it’s a pile of ways that he’s an improvement on what I dealt with before.

How in the hell did I get so lucky? I ask that a lot.

Also, Sophie has taken to having crabapples from the backyard as her second breakfast. I’m guessing that will lead to some puppy gastrointestinal upset that will bum me out. At least she was unsuccessful in opening the food coloring that she dragged out of the pantry yesterday. Mine is a very rotten little dog.