April Fools'/Fool's/Fools Day

As a linguist, I've always been intrigued with the various ways of spelling this day's official moniker. But tonight, I really don't care whether or where the apostrophe is placed.

April 1 has held a special meaning in my life for the past two decades—mas o menos—because it was on April 1 that Judy and I got married.

If you expected another travel-logish post, skip this one. It's about more important stuff than flying around the globe and experiencing cool stuff.

We were married on April 1, 1989, after living in sin for more than three years. What did you expect? We were friends first, buddies second, and then there was the marriage thing. We always joked that we could renege since we did it (no, we did it much earlier, after those ominous seven dozen oysters!) on 4/1.

Why do I bring this up, you ask? Well, tonight, I had a bit of a tough time dealing with not having Judy around. You see, tomorrow night Alan and Martha and Wes and Susan and the two lil' ones will come over for dinner, and I had to prepare my Argentine steak and chimichurri sauce and a few other things. Some of you may think that Judy was a hell of a cook. Well, you're just patently wrong, because she simply was one of the best out there: Seriously, I would have wagered putting her up in a cook-off against the likes of Emeril and Wolfgang, and it would have been a tight one. Really. Those of you who knew her intimately (and intimate always meant "close to her food") know that I'm not bull-shitting. But—and few people know this—I've always been far superior in cleaning the dishes! Oh my—some of you may know what I mean.

So, tonight I prepared tomorrow's dinner by driving the Cuisinart, as Judy would have called it (and cleaned up), had myself a beautiful little mojito with the mint that has just come back from winter's attempt at general herb genocide, and was getting ready to fix my own Friday night dinner (remember, we're in Lent, so it's gotta be fish) when it suddenly all hit me. Damn. Guys are not supposed to cry.

You may think I have the world's greatest life. With all that jetting around, working truly cool races, meeting exceptional people, having reconnected on so many levels with someone very dear in Europe and having established a great relationship with someone equally important on our shores, riding my bike, being retired, being (thankfully!) fairly healthy and fit—hell, you might even envy me. Don't. Don't if you have at your side the one who is your mate, the one you chose to be with in the first place. I'd give anything to be with Judy. Anything. So, please, don't envy me as you're the one who has it all, maybe not even realizing it.

And that's it for the message.

My promised post about Puerto Rico, in general, is still going to happen. But his one was more important, because this blog is a journal, of sorts, for myself, and I wanted to remember. I hope you'll do the same, remembering the truly important things in your own private way.

Jürgen