The wedding ring saga continues, with yet another disappointment.  Trying to find something we like in our size that’s reasonably priced has become not a lot of fun but rather a bloody bore.

Yesterday, while Mr. Fluffles was being groomed, we checked out a furniture store in Teaticket and then went across the bridge to a jeweler in Buzzards Bay to look at wedding bands.  Our generous friend Candy gave us her old ring for trade.

Unfortunately, we weren’t impressed by the offer we got or the selection.

We did get cheap gas in Wareham, some nice gourmet treats at Mazilli’s, and a few more items at Job Lot.

Back on Cape, we picked up Fluffles, had lunch at the house, then hustled over to Edgewater to load up the truck for a transfer station run.  Made it with about four minutes to spare.

On the way back, we stopped at Town Hall so we could see what the Mass. version of a marriage license application and certificate look like.  Our excellent Town Clerk offered to phone her counterpart in Washoe County to see if anything could be done to get me a document with my first name and Ron’s surname.

By evening it had started snowing again, but we went out anyway to deliver Mary’s Black & Decker jar opener and Cathy’s bowl.  We picked up a a pair of bedroom slippers for Ron, too.

I’m afraid Ron won’t move here from California, that whatever is here won’t be good enough, or that Malevolence or the Fates will keep us separated.  It’s like being crushed by a glacier.  And every so often, he’ll say something that is so uniquely Ron that it tears into my heart because I might never see him again.

It’s an adoptee thing.

Ron and I packed a lot into yesterday, the shortest day of the year.

I was up at 4 and got oatmeal started in the slow cooker.  After breakfast, Ron shoveled out the driveway while I cleared the back stairs and the truck.

We drove to the Sheraton in Hyannis for a Blue Cross/Blue Shield seminar on Medicare and their plans.  The speaker was excellent and we picked up a stack of printed plan descriptions and applications.

We stopped for lunch at Lambert’s, then dropped by the Sears outlet on Phinney’s Lane and the Sears store.  We found a great bathrobe and flannel pajamas on sale for Ron.

After that, we drove to the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds & Probate Building to pick up the can opener I won in a raffle for Mary.

I wanted Ron to see 6A.  We stopped at Sturgis Library, the oldest public library in the country and at the Friends meetinghouse in Sandwich, the oldest continuous Quaker meeting in North America.  We saw Lori at Lavender Moon and got cider and apples at Crow Farm.  We drove through Sandwich Center and picked up chicken pie at the Sandwich Lamberts, then shortbread at MacKillop’s in Forestdale.

I fell asleep very early.  We skipped supper.

Ron flew in from California to this.

Ron is here!

We’re in the midst of a snow storm that started around 6 last (Sunday) night. And rather than being in Berkeley or on a plane, Ron is here; I’m waiting for him to wake up.

I was able to book him the last seat on the US Airways red eye from SFO, landing at Logan at 6 am yesterday.

It was a clear day and an easy drive to Logan and back to Mashpee.  Needless to say, I’m absolutely thrilled to not have to do that run this morning.

I’d planned a Christmas luncheon for “the girls”, and Ron graciously agreed to let me go ahead with plans.

As always, we had a terrific time with lots of good conversation and great gifts, and everyone got home well before the snow started.

Later, we dropped by to see Candy and John, cleaned up the kitchen and set up Ron’s computer.

  We are all set for Christmas and Ron’s arrival tomorrow!

Not to toot my own horn (well, maybe a little), I’ve done volunteer work every year of my life since I was about 15.

This year, the main projects were my personal STEM initiative Mentor TechWorks, Highfield Hall in Falmouth, Hope In Bloom, a Microsoft-sponsored event New England Give Camp and judging for NCWIT‘s Aspirations in Computing and Odyssey of the Mind.

Right now, I’m working on a database project for a terrific local organization that cares for stray and feral cats, NESAA.

I only wish that Ron and I were wealthy enough to be able to give money as generously as we’d like to these and other very worthy organizations.

No, not as in Muslim or Mormon, but rather, wife of a divorced man.

I am told it’s normal to feel one is being compared, and probably not always favorably, to wife #1, as well as to old girlfriends.  This has nothing to do with the way Ron talks to me or treats me but rather, to the insecurity that all American women feel about anything relating to our bodies.

Let’s face it: none of us ordinary women are happy with how we look.

To exacerbate this, Ron’s first wife evidently was an expert in the art of lovemaking.  Their first encounter, on the day they met, was on the back of a truck, and from the way he describes it, it was pretty spectacular.  He also had a three-year love affair with a Japanese law student.*

I on the other hand, perhaps foolishly, have prided myself on being a chaste woman for many, many years.  That kept me healthy mentally and physically in some ways, but it’s a tremendous disadvantage in others.

I am also, to put it gently, homely.  To put it in completely honest terms, I am probably the ugliest woman in North America!  The fact that I’m married continues to surprise me, especially being married to someone who I like, respect and, okay, love as much as I do Ron.  The fact that I am ugly has greatly limited my opportunities for the kind of practice that would me a proficient bedmate.

I’ve agonized over this and I’m sick of looking at this ugly face when I comb my hair.  So recently, I suggested that we plan on taking a medical vacation in 2011 to Costa Rica, where Ron could get the dental care that he needs and I could get cosmetic surgery.  I’d like to be able to take a good picture, or even a decent one.  It seems like a small thing to ask when for most human beings, that’s a simple given.

I remember Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis saying that you marry three times: for love, for money and for companionship.  I’m keeping the thought that Ron’s first marriage was a practice run and that this one is for love.

I’ll have an easier time believing that when I become more lovable in my own eyes.  And whether you want to call it superficial or materialistic, that’ll very likely happen when my own eyes see a face that the camera loves as much as Ron does.

*The director of a local non-profit couldn’t understand why ticket sales to a concert by a petite Chinese violinist weren’t selling well.  Oh, come ON!  What middle-aged Caucasian woman is going to be stupid enough to bring her husband to a venue where he can spend an evening ogling a gorgeous young Asian girl?

Even though Tiger is persona non grata in some circles, I still think his advice back in 2002 was excellent. http://www.oregonlive.com/info/tigerwoods/index.ssf?/info/tigerwoods/buildingblocks.html