Playing Forts

For the better half of this week my wife has been saying that, since I had the entire weekend off, she wanted to play forts. What is playing forts you ask? Well, when you were a kid, did you ever lie in you bed under the covers and pretend you were in a cave? This is the basic idea. We were going to lie in bed and play all day (her words not mine - well, maybe they are a little). 

I had 24 hr. duty on Friday so once I showed up to work I would be staying there until 8:00 Am Saturday morning. I had the last watch, which was from 11:30 PM to 7:30 AM, so I was up all night and into the morning. To compound my tiring duty day, I couldn't sleep because my berthing was the temperature of the sun. Oh yeah and I was relieved a good forty-five minutes late. On my wife's side of Friday, she had probably the worst day she's had since I’ve been back from the last deployment. She did a lot of crying and self-loathing, which is a really exhausting task for all you non-criers out there. Needless to say, Saturday was a sleep day. No real playing to speak of.

So Saturday comes and goes as many Saturdays before it. Then Sunday came. This is our chance! Nothing but playing under the covers... or so I thought.

It's about 8 o'clock, and my eyes open. What do I see? I see the light pouring in because the blackout curtains we bought 2 years ago are still in their packaging in the closet. I see my wife on her side, her hair spreading into a beautiful (in the eyes of the beholder) mess on her body length pillow. I lie on my left side and snuggle into my position as the big spoon. I can smell the Pantene pro-v shampoo we use. OH the smell of clean. I place my right hand on her hip and begin to slide it up and down her leg. She stirs slightly. 

Believe it or not this is a ritual. This scene has happened many times in the few years we've been married, and it changes depending on who wakes up first. I can't think of what she does exactly, mostly because I’m in a state of pure zombie-fication in my pre-wakefulness. I tend to start with this move of excessive caressing of the legs and hips. Then I start playing with her panty line. She really likes that. That last statement isn’t true though. My wife isn't much for fooling around in the morning. You may be thinking this is a bummer and that I got jibbed. It's actually comforting to me, because I don't like it either. Two words will describe my apprehension, morning breath. The ones in disagreement are the ones who haven't been married longer than a couple of months or are really desperate, horny college kids. 

Okay so what was I talking about? Oh yeah waking up! 

So I’m playing with her elastic and she then turns over to face me. I will say this about my wife. She may have horrible morning breath, but I won't trade her looking me in the eyes and smiling slyly for all of king Solomon’s gold. This is exactly the same position we were in back in 2007 when I asked her to marry me. Really it was more like "so you wanna get married?" This is what I get every weekend I get to wake up to her. I get to relive the exact moment when my love for her was so great that I had to have her for the rest of my life.

Now here I am it's morning and I’m reminiscing, giggling with her in this early hour like a gay schoolgirl, when she hears it. The sound is so soft that I can't hear it at all. My wife has super hero style hearing. Then I hear it, it’s our dog ninja, who also has super hearing, being a dog, whining in her kennel in the dining room. Lakin asks if I can hear that. I say what the birds - there were in fact birds chirping outside. "No" she says, "the ninja". I say I don’t hear it. Lakin says she's probably hungry. "Yeah"

She gracefully gets out of bed and I know we are up for the day. Responsibility and the real world are stealing my wife from me. I lay there for a while staring at the white stucco ceiling right behind the ceiling fan blades. The fan motor is only set to medium but, after sometime of concentrating on the same spot, the illusion that they are spinning backwards at light speed takes effect. Damn dog! This was supposed to be my morning! Jealousy isn't the word - but it fits. 

Then I get out of bed and go into the kitchen where my wife is watching Ninja. She is pushing her green, hollow rubber ball, which is filled with food, across the wood floor. Kibble falls out of the two holes on the top and bottom (we bought this so she would eat slower). She asks if I want to go to house of eggs for breakfast. I say yes. Then we go about our day. Then I think to myself, as much as I would have loved to stay in that bed with my wife all day, I love to walk around and go out and experience life with her equally. 

We have the rest of our lives to play forts...