What Love's All About

He stands over her grave.  It's Christmas.  This is the first time in fifty-two years that she won't celebrate with him.  He twirls the rose in his rough, tanned hands.  Every day, he goes to the floral shop and buys her a red rose. Every day, he comes here to give it to her.

He places the delicate flower on her newly-dug grave, just like he has every day since she left.  Then he walks over to the bed of his pick-up and lifts out a chair.  He places the chair beside the brown clumps of earth.

 He starts to talk, just like every day since she left.  He tells her what happened yesterday; he shares news from people he saw the day before.  She needs to keep up on the family.

Everything said, he gets up from the chair, leans down and scatters the petals from roses of other days on top of the dirt.  He's making a blanket of roses for her.

"I love you, babe."

He walks slowly to the truck and places the chair back in its place.  He'll need it again tomorrow.  He gets into the cab, turns on the engine, glances at her resting place, and silently promises to return tomorrow.

We took him home-baked cookies a few weeks after she went away.  He said he had lots of food in the freezer from the funeral.

"Do you want to see her picture when she was 19?" he asks.  She was a beauty.  No wonder he misses her.

"Here's an aerial view of the house we built together," he offers.  It's a pastoral scene with outbuildings and a modest home.

"You mean she did construction?" I inquired.

"Yes, right along with me.  Raised four boys, too," he offered.

We leave, somber for his loss.

Greatest Job in the World

I have nearly worn myself to a nub this week. Why? I got the wild hare to apply for the greatest job in the world. If you don't know about this job, go to islandreefjob.com. In essence, the Australian tourism bureau is hiring a person for six months at a meager salary of $100,000 to do media relations for the islands outside the Great Barrier Reef. You get a 3-bedroom house, plus you have to do a bit of work, like go snorkeling, fishing, white-water rafting, biking, jet-skiing, etc., then write about your adventures in a blog. I think they invented this job for me.

E-mailing my friend, Judie, I asked her to help me create a 60-second video for the application. The video is supposed to be entertaining, while explaining why I am the ideal candidate for this job. Well, aren't I?

Judie is an expert on creating i-movies. She has a digital camera that is also a video camera, and she enthusiastically agreed to take on this project.

Here's the storyboard for the movie: a woman is looking at a pictorial travel atlas and happens upon photos of the Great Barrier Reef. She jumps out of her chair and starts pulling outfits from her suitcase that she could wear while doing the job.......all the while dreaming of being in Australia. She puts on her bikini, sun hat, and unfolds her hippo-playing-golf beach towel, ready to go white-water rafting. Then it is time to go hiking, so she dons her hiking boots and finds her walking stick. Next, she yearns to play golf and finds golf balls, a golf glove and golf attire in the suitcase. Biking is a favorite activity and she discovers a helmet, gloves, bike shorts, and a bandana in the suitcase. Tennis is next up, and she runs off to the court in a chic outfit. She can't wait to go horseback-riding, and just so happens to find a western hat, cowboy boots, and chaps in her suitcase. Finally, in order to relax after her long days of sports, she puts on a yoga outfit, grabs her mat, and is off to do yoga on the beach.

Cut back to the woman in the chair reading the travel atlas. Suddenly, she jumps up and starts packing the suitcase to go to Australia. Only problem is, her suitcase is bulging from all the sports gear she's taking. She tries to pack it down in fast forward. Frustrated, she starts throwing things out of the suitcase, again in fast forward. Finally, at the last second, she is able to close the suitcase, but most of the sports equipment is still on the bed.

Entertaining, shows why I would be good at the job, 57.8 seconds, and right down to the wire on the deadline.

Judie had the idea of the dream because she can make the movie look like clouds rolling in and out of the action. She also had the idea of playing the song, "Dreams", as in Dream, Dream, Baby....like I said, she's an expert.

We added a few action photos, filled in the application, and pushed the "Submit" button. By nightfall, I had confirmation from the tourism office that they had received my application and will be getting back to me by next week to say if the video has been approved to be published on their web-site.

Dum-de-dum-dum. Stay tuned!