Right after I turned in next week's Games of our Lives this morning, I turned to my rather long list of things I want and need to write about. I was prepared to have a very productive and creatively satisfying day.
Yeah. That lasted as long as it took me to glance out the window.
"Man," I thought, "it's beautiful today. The last thing I want to do is sit here and write."
"Then you should go outside and enjoy the day," Bad Wil said.
"I don't know," I said. "I spent my entire day yesterday playing poker, and I should really get some of this stuff done."
"Why are you a freelance writer if you can't completely blow off for a few hours and enjoy a truly beautiful day?" Bad Wil said.
He had a point.
Anne came out of the back of the house, half-asleep, and nuzzled my neck at the breakfast table.
"Is there coffee?" She said, in a tiny not-quite-awake voice.
"Yeah," I said. "There's coffee."
She rubbed her eyes and walked into the kitchen.
"Did the kids get to school okay?" She said, while she poured herself a cup.
I sipped my own and said, "Yeah. I told you I would take care of it so you could sleep in today."
"Did you --"
"Anne. They're fine." Man, you take the kids to the racetrack instead of to school one time, and you never live it down.
She took her first sip from the Crabby 'till I get my Coffee mug, and sat down across from me.
"Dude." Bad Wil said. "You should take Anne to do something outside today."
I looked at her. She blinked at me and held the mug close to her nose. It steamed up her glasses. She looked --
"She looks pretty goddamn cute, doesn't she?" Bad Wil said.
"Dude!" I said.
"What?" She said.
"Er, nothing." I said. "Do you have to work today?"
"Nope." She said.
Before she could tell me how she planned to spend the entire day doing crap around the house that neither of us wants to do, I said, "Will you go out with me today?"
"You mean like on a date?"
I smiled. "Yeah. A date."
"Don't you have to work?"
"I'm entirely stircrazy, and sick to death of being stuck in the house. Any 'work' I do today is going to suck because I really don't want to be here." I said. "Besides, why am I a freelance writer if I can't completely blow off for a few hours and enjoy a truly beautiful day with my wife?"
Bad Wil pumped his fist silently in the air.
"Well, I was going to do some stuff around the house," she said.
I may have pouted, just a little bit.
"But I would love to have a date with my husband, especially on a beautiful day like this."
I closed up my computer, and finished my coffee. Anne finished hers, we both got ready to go, and we drove up to San Marino, where we spent the afternoon at the Huntington Library. On a date.
