XXXVII

 Happy Anniversary to my best girl, Shugaluvs.

It’s been 37 years now. Since raising 3 kids, including housebreaking 1 scoundrel of a husband, she’s had 2 heart attacks, 3 stents, and 4 grandkids ranging from 1.5 to 20 years of age. 

She is the Matriarch, the Sister, Aunt, Mom and Grandma. The Queen Bee, the Momma Bear, and as my buddy Mark refers to her, the Rooster. 

She can whip her weight in wildcats. 

She attends medical appointments and leads the medical professionals in dialogue. She questions everything and then questions it again. She makes them earn their money and I’ve seen them leave an exam room sweating. She advocates for anyone and everyone she comes in contact with. 

She gardens with the intensity of a thousand suns, which is how it feels when she makes me help. Her endurance puts mine to shame. Her everything puts mine to shame, cause I ain’t even got an everything. 

She cans vegetables, crochets, and sews on a machine, and recently taken up watercolors so she can utilize her free time. 

She drives a car like she stole it, although her transmission has no neutral or park. She’s written several gardening articles in 2 newspapers. I’ve accused her of being on dope at the pace she goes.

I still don’t know how she can cook a meal for a dozen folks in the same amount of time it takes me to scramble an egg and toast some bread. She offers me plenty of critiques to my limited menu items, too. I ask her to “taste this and tell me what it needs” and she says “salt and pepper” before she even comes into the kitchen, then adds the salt and pepper before she tastes it. 

And, she will, on a regular basis, start a conversation with me when she’s in another room. 

Those are the moments when I love her the least. 

She still doesn’t laugh at any of my jokes, save for one time in 1993 when she saw me flexing in front of the bathroom mirror. The fact I had just stepped out of the shower helped. 

These days, I’m a full time house husband, I now do a fraction of what she used to do while raising 3 kids and working full time. Honestly, I don’t know how she did it. I’m exhausted at the mere thought of it. 

She’s top tier, top notch, top shelf, and tops on my top 10 weekly countdown.

Like Barney said about Thelma Lou, she’s “the cats.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me,

that laundry ain’t gonna fold itself. 

Happy 37th Anniversary Suzu Shugaluvs— from Me to Thee.