The Heavens Open Every Time She Smiles

Grief Turns to Hilarity

One of my dearest friends from college has taken her life while I am on an important work trip in New York City in the fall of 2016. The funeral is on the same day as the owner of my company’s daughter's wedding. Despite my grief and after much deliberation, I come to terms with celebrating Lisa's life by attending the start of a new life. So instead of attending her funeral in St. Louis, I attend my boss’s daughter’s wedding in Austin.

No one at the wedding knows that I am grieving the loss of my friend, except for Deborah. The heaviness of my friend’s tragic departure from the world will momentarily lessen the next day when Deborah and I attend the wedding brunch at my boss's beautiful home.

Our gracious hostess, the co-owner of the company I work for and a woman whom I adore, greets us with a smile and hugs, none the wiser that Deborah is wearing two left shoes, each one a different size.

Just before I leave my house to meet Deborah at her house and drive together to the wedding brunch, Deborah calls and asks me to grab the black suede heels she left in my guest room while getting ready for the wedding the evening before.

I grab her shoes and run out the door.

Almost to our destination, Deborah, who has schooled me never to wear nice shoes while driving, decides to put on her dress heels at a red light just before turning onto the county road that will take us to the subdivision of my bosses’ home. She struggles a bit, steering wheels and small sports car floorboards being significant barriers when attempting to place a size ten shoe upon a size 10 foot. Her struggle, however, soon turns to hilarity as she laughs, grabs my wrist, and breathlessly points to her feet.

I lean over the console as she mimes something I don’t understand. She can’t breathe; she is laughing so hard. I look down below the steering wheel to see a deformed right foot similar to Eugene Levy’s Best In Show character, Gerry Fleck, with his two left feet.

“What the hell?” I say under my breath.

Between gasps of laughter, Deborah says, “I think you grabbed your shoe. And it’s the left one.”

“Oh my God. You’re kidding me!”

When I emptied my New York City luggage in the guest room, I must have dumped my black suede shoes next to hers.

“Oh my God, Babe, we cannot turn around!” I wail, thinking selfishly that I cannot be late to an event hosted by a boss who depends upon people (especially me) being on time.

God love her. Deborah, whose size 10 foot is being crammed inside a size 8.5 shoe (on the wrong foot, no less), is taking this way better than I am.

She calmly responds, “I know. It’s okay, Love. I will just play it off. No one will be looking at my feet anyway." We both die laughing, and I apologize profusely. I’m shocked at how well she is taking this. I’m not sure I'd be quite as cool. I'd likely make her speed home to get the right shoe. She is way nicer than me.

She was right. No one was the wiser about her two left feet during the brunch. I credit her gleaming smile and the fact that she speaks to people as a journalist, asking a litany of questions about them, so the focus will not turn to her. This is her usual style, but it was in overdrive today as social self-preservation requires mitigating the possibility of anyone getting a close look at her feet.

We grin as we catch each other’s eyes between our conversations with other guests, and I laugh quietly when she discreetly turns to her left and makes a half-circle, then stops and smiles at me. Man, she’s a good sport.

Finally, most of the guests have departed. We are seated together with the family after the delicious catered brunch. Despite Deborah crossing her feet and pushing them beneath her chair, one of the bride’s cousins looks down and exclaims, “Oh my gosh!”

I take a large gulp of my drink in preparation for an explanation for Deborah's two mismatched left shoes (since it is my fault) when the cousin further exclaims, “That is such beautiful suede!”

Deborah extends her left foot in the appropriately-sized shoe and states, “Thank you. They are also incredibly comfortable.”

I do my best not to spew my mimosa into the air.

“I Don’t Mind If I Do.”

At times, Deborah is quiet and unassuming. At other times, she walks very tall, as if she owns the place.

This walking tall is most evident when we take a self-guided realtor open house tour that we’ve mapped out in west Austin to view houses and dream of our one-day together home.

We come to a beautiful west Austin residence. Deborah enters the house, spots bottled water on the granite countertop, grabs a bottle without breaking her stride, and says, "Thanks so much!” heading toward the back of the house.

Looking directly at the woman dressed in a business suit, whom I’m surmising is the realtor, and the couple to whom she is talking, I can tell something is off. The couple talking with the realtor looks slightly panicked, and the realtor looks rather stern as my girlfriend saunters by, unscrewing the water bottle cap and chugging water mid-stride. Deborah is headed out to see the pool just beyond the French doors leading to the backyard.

The realtor turns her annoyed face from Deborah and looks at me. I am taking up the rear of this grand entrance, and seeing as Deborah has beelined it to the back door, the realtor looks at me and states emphatically, “Excuse me, but this is a private showing for my clients. May I ask what realtor you are here with?”

My eyes widen. The gentleman looks at me with inquiring eyes as the woman beside him turns to follow Deborah’s every move. Deb pivots upon hearing the realtor’s proclamation, closes the back doors, and begins walking swiftly back toward me with a face I’ve seen many times before.

Deborah walks past me so fast that I feel a breeze. She is about to spit her water out as she attempts not to laugh. I slightly bow (like a dork because the effect of our accidental invasion catches me off guard and because all three people are looking to me for an explanation while also seeming slightly worried that we might be up to no good).

”I’m so sorry. Our sincere apologies. We read somewhere online that there was an open house here today.”

”That’s tomorrow,” says the realtor matter-of-factly, nostrils flaring.

As I begin slowly backing toward the front door like someone who’s been surprised attacked by a swaying cobra, I apologize again and wish the couple luck. The man smiles. The woman beside him looks at the realtor, and as I turn to continue toward the door, now more swiftly, I whack my wrist (hard) against the end of a brass stair rail and exclaim, “Ow. Shit!”

I turn and smile and say something apologetic. I can't recall what; it sounded dumb compared to my piercing wail of pain echoing through the front foyer. I close the door behind me, my wrist throbbing.

As I descend the stairs to the street, I see Deborah in the driver’s seat of her Land Rover, seized in laughter, her head thrown forward on the steering wheel and her entire body heaving uncontrollably. I start to laugh as I round the car's hood to climb into the passenger seat, wondering where I can find some ice and thinking to myself, “There is never a dull moment with this woman.”

Tomatoes and Basil

In the spring of the following year, Deborah decides she will flex her green thumb. She buys a plethora of plants, intending to turn her front and backyard into an oasis of food-generating foliage.

Excited to share her garden plan with me, she walks me to the driveway, where she has the plants laid in rows. Noticing something amiss, she says, “Oh, yeah. Hold on. I forgot,” at which point she picks up two potted basil plants, walks across the driveway, and places the pots of basil next to the pots of tomatoes, about three inches apart, “I read on a gardening blog that it's good to put basil only a few inches from your tomato plants.”

She stands, turns to me, brushes the dirt from her hands, and says, “There. Aren’t they incredible? I’m going to keep the starters in pots for a while before I plant them,” and walks past me into the house.

Confident I’m missing something but also sure she is interpreting the garden blog instructions slightly wrong, I state, “Yeah, honey. I think they mean to plant the basil a few inches from the tomato plants. Like, when you do put them in the ground.”

Deborah turns around and looks at the four potted plants (2 tomatoes and two basil), considering until she utters, “No. It just said to place them a few inches apart.”

I look at her. Then back at the plants. Then back at her.

She's looking at me with her matter-of-fact face and asks, “Do you want to go out to dinner or stay in?” She continues toward the house.

“Babe. Hold on. You're not serious, are you? You know, the gardening people were indicating that you should plant the basil a few inches from the tomato plants. Right?”

She looks back at the plants. I look back at them, too.

When there is no response, I look back to a furrow-browed girlfriend, whose wheels are turning in that beautiful head, until a smile begins to form on her face, and she slowly looks my way.

“Oh. Maybe that is what they meant,” as she does her best to stifle laughter.

I nod agreeably, “Yeah. Maybe.”

At which point she bursts out laughing and goes toward the house.

“Good lord,” I mutter as I turn to follow her into the house. Once inside, she turns to me as I close the door behind us. With the smile fading from her face, she inquires, half flippantly and half concerned, “Seriously, Babe, sometimes I worry about how my brain works.”

“Well, at least it's only 'sometimes.' It is definitely an interesting brain, and all of these moments are quite memorable, Love. By the way. I’m giving you a fair warning. This is going in my blog.”

We spend about 30 seconds arguing about whether this is going in my blog. You can see who won that battle.

20 Questions

I’ve mentioned that Deborah has a journalistic mind. She should have gone to J-school and become an investigative reporter rather than to Vanderbilt to get an economics degree. She’s, frankly, a bit like the absent-minded professor in many ways. She is brilliant, yet I can’t keep count (nor record) all of the “OMG, WTF?” crazy moments I’ve experienced with her.

Remember the neighbor kid, Mitch Murphy, in Home Alone 2, who comes by the McCallister’s house just before they are piling into the van after sleeping through their alarm yet again. He’s the neighbor kid who asks question after question, rarely with a breath in between.

This is Deborah. She’s an investigative mind on steroids. Though she composes herself less annoyingly than little Mitch Murphy, she asks about the same amount of questions in the same amount of time. If you don’t like questions, you might feel compelled to stab her in the eye, but to her credit, she is usually genuinely interested in hearing the answers to her questions. So there’s that.

A Beautiful Mind

I wasn’t present for this moment, but what I would have given to be a fly on the wall when it took place.

When Deborah was in college, a reporter interviewed both Deb and her dad about the new drinking and driving laws that were going into effect in Texas.

Her father, Cornell, speaks eloquently from his perspective as a medical doctor about the importance of such laws for mitigating driving accidents.

When the microphone turns to Deborah to get her perspective on the new law, she responds in all seriousness, “Yes, I think it’s a good thing, too. Drinking while driving is a tricky thing. I mean, how do drivers even see over their beer cans or bottles to drive?” she says, as she simulates tilting her head and holding a beer can to her mouth.

As does Deborah, I later find, I wonder if her onlooking father watched that interview and suddenly had second thoughts about the money he was spending on her Vanderbilt education.

Plop. Plop. Fizz. Fizz.

Her degree from Vanderbilt aside, this woman's brain keeps me in stitches.

After a day volunteering at the YMCA one afternoon, Deb shares another one of her “moments.”

While rummaging for Neosporin in the Y's medicine kit, she spots some Alka-Seltzer. Not having had Alka-Seltzer in a while, she grabs a glass of water so she can revisit its effervescent deliciousness.

I'm confused by this desire, but I continue to listen. Besides, I sniffed Fun Dip up my nose once in college, so who am I to judge her sudden urge for Alka-Seltzer?

She notes that her tummy had been upset during the swim lessons she taught that day, so she delighted in the synchronicity of running across this remedy. She proceeds to tell me how she thought the pellets must've been old because they didn't fizzle much, and she wondered if they now make Alka-Seltzer in flavors because the liquid began turning a vivid blue.

Excited about her fizzy blueberry treat, she takes a sip without waiting for the rest of the pellet to dissolve.

This next part of her story makes her begin to laugh. She turns to me with watery eyes, and I can tell she wants to burst out laughing, which makes me laugh.

She does her best to recover and continue her story, conveying to me that the taste of Alka-Seltzer has undoubtedly changed in the many years since she last had it.

As she continues searching for a tube of Neosporin, she sips her medicinal blue drink. Telling me that she's convinced that the package is likely expired because there's about as much fizz in the glass as in a flat can of soda, yet there's an ever-growing blue foaming head billowing over the top.

She finally lets out the laughter she's been restraining. Unable to speak, but attempting her best charades hand gestures, she pantomimes what looks like holding something square. She runs the index finger of her other hand horizontally over the invisible “box” she is miming and mutters something I can't decipher because she's gasping in silent laughter. I’m belly laughing at this point too, and I have no idea why.

She sounds like Wesley in Princess Bride as Billy Crystal's character forces the final word from Wesley's dying lungs to find out why life is worth living. Deb's utterance isn't quite as decipherable as Wesley's, but she finally gets it out.

Deb: “Efferdent!” she forces from her lips.

Me: “What?"

Deb: “I drank Efferdent! You know, that stuff people use to clean their dentures!”

Me: (silent, staring at her in disbelief and with a furrowed brow she has seen a million times)

She composes herself and defends, “I mean, come on! Who puts Efferdent in an emergency kit?”

Me: “Who downs medicine without reading the package it comes in?!”

I grab her face, kiss her mouth, and revel that the next 50 years of my life could very well be rife with moments like this. Oh, little do I yet know.

Inverting Idioms - Part I

Deep conversation is something Deborah, and I do well. We can talk about anything in an over-arching manner or equally dig into the nitty-gritty details of any subject, including uncomfortable things. I love this about us.

I also love moments like this when our conversation is going at a pretty good cadence, and in summation, my girl calmly realizes, “Well, I think I know what I need to do in this situation. I think it's best that I just turn a deaf cheek. Don't you?”

Combining clichés is something we all occasionally do. My girlfriend, however, frequents phrasal faux pas with a vengeance.

I remain attentive as I sit facing her on the other side of the sofa. My face shifts as I look at her in familiar puzzlement. Though it might be entertaining for me to point out her inverted idiom, I continue to think she might, at this moment, stop and correct herself. She doesn't. She simply looks to me for affirmation since she knows how I feel about this subject.

“I do agree. But you mean, 'turn the other cheek,' right?”

“What did I say?”

"Turn a deaf cheek," I respond, deadpan as a Wes Anderson character. “Cheeks don't hear.”

Her mouth forms a smile. So does mine as I move my head in nodding and shaking rhythm simultaneously. We laugh for a second; then, she heads to the kitchen to make breakfast tacos. I pet the cat and pray for the best outcome for her in this turning of a deaf cheek.

Poop Emojis are Confounding

Many of you reading this have heard about our poop emoji conversation. It is what endeared many of you to my girlfriend right off the bat. As you can see, that was the tip of the iceberg.

For those of you who don’t know this story, enjoy.

Me: “Julie sent me a "poop" emoji in a text this morning. It was cute.”

Deb: “A what?”

Me: “A poop emoji.”

Deb: “There's no such thing as a poop emoji.”

Me: “Yes, there is. It's a pile of poop with a face.” 

Deb: “No, it's not. Show me.”

I pull out my iPhone to show her exhibit A: 

Deb: “No way, Jenée! That is a baby owl!”

Me: (hysterical laughter) “Um, no, that is a poop emoji.”

Deb (hand over mouth): “Oh my gaaawd, you have no idea how many people I've sent that to thinking it was a baby owl!”

I laugh while pondering what sort of text conversation even requires the use of baby owl emojis.

Summer Lovin’

While driving with my convertible top down this past weekend, air conditioning blasting to provide comfort for the triple-digit heat from the Texas sun beatin’ down on our baseball caps. Deborah suggests we sing summer songs. She means songs with the word ‘summer' in them.

We instantly belt out Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta's famous "Summer Lovin’" from Grease, singing a few verses until we fall silent as we try to think of other such summer songs. We whip up some Beach Boys and Don Henley. I speed through “Hotel California” verses attempting to locate the word 'summer' somewhere in the song, but I don't find it.

After several minutes of wracking our brains, Deborah shifts in her seat in pure enthusiasm and turns to me as excited as a little kid. I realize she has figured out another song that contains “summer.”

“I’ve got one with summer in the title! 'Summer Lovin'," she screeches with enthusiasm.

As if the matrix shifts with a noticeable glitch or I enter a moment of De Ja Vu, I turn to her to see if she's serious.

She is beaming as if ready to begin the song.

“I can’t believe we haven’t thought of this one yet!” she exclaims.

“Babe, we already sang 'Summer Lovin’. It was the first song we sang… from the Grease soundtrack.”

Her massive smile turns down a bit. “Oooooh. Is that what that's called?”

I turn back to the road, then take my eyes off the road again to look at her. She’s mouthing the words under her breath, then looks at me and smiles, “I never knew that’s what that song was called.”

I nod and drive, strangely not surprised in the least.

Um. No.

It’s the holiday season, and we are in full Christmas-movie-watching mode.

Deborah looks up from her phone and says, “Babe, let’s watch your favorite funny Christmas movie,” (my favorite funny Christmas movie being Christmas Vacation), which she follows up with a theatrical, “Staaaaanleeeyyyy,” in a Rocky Balboa voice that mimics his post-fight outcry of “Aaadriaaaaanne.”

I look at her, confused.

“Who's Stanley?” I say skeptically.

“That’s one of the lines in the movie,” she says confidently.

“No, it’s not. It’s not even one of the characters.”

“Yes, it is. It’s the uncle.”

“No, it isn’t. That’s Uncle Lewis. And no one yells, “Staaaaaanleeeyyy,” I say, mimicking her.

She pauses, then responds, “Well, let’s just watch it, and I’ll point out the part I’m talking about.”

I know every scene and every line of this movie by heart. This will be fun.

Inverting Idioms - Part II

Upon waking one Saturday morning, Deborah exits the bed and makes her way into the bathroom. I hear her pick up the cats’ water bowl.

“Babe, Mischa is drinking so much water! I think she has a wooden leg.”

I’ve just woken up. I slowly look up from the bed in familiar bemusement and wonder if I should even say anything as I watch her take Mischa's empty water bowl to the bathroom sink. As Deborah is refilling the bowl, I state, “I think you mean that Mischa has a hollow leg, not a wooden one.”

I hear laughter mingling with running water as my girlfriend realizes she has yet again mangled an idiom.

I look down at Mischa as she stares at me with her Grumpy Cat face.

“She thinks you’re Pinnochio, Mischa. Why are you drinking so much water?”

Mischa looks away from me with a face that begs, “Why are humans so stupid?”

My Frugal Lollygagger

Wow. I’ve never seen anything like it. My girlfriend can move at a sloth’s pace and still manage to think I’m rushing her.

I can’t count how many times I’ve begged her not to lollygag because we will be late for something. Simple tasks like locking a door, which to a non-lollygagging human takes (at the most) 3 seconds, will last an eternity with Deborah. Witnessing this painfully slow pace requires that I do deep-breathing exercises after head-scratchingly pondering what in the hell could take so long to put a key in a hole and turn it.

This doesn’t count the times she becomes distracted. We will be running out the door to make it to something in the knick of time, and I will turn around to find her turning on the hose to water the outdoor plants or running back into the house to get food for the neighborhood cats she feeds, all of which have their own homes.

Sure. I know. “Chill out, Jenée,” you’re thinking. What a beautiful thing that she cares so much for plants and feline lives, but what is confounding is that we have had all day to do these things in most cases, and now that we are late, she decides the plants will perish unless they are watered right now.

Her lollygagging is equally matched by her frugality. This is a beautiful trait that runs in her highly accomplished family. They should all be applauded for their ability to find or create a great deal or get the absolute most use out of all they purchase. My girl, however, has inherited the most extreme version of this skill.

Exhibit A - I walk into her bathroom to grab some jojoba oil and am met with her leaning over the sink with a toothpaste tube in one hand and scissors in the other. She is cutting the length of the tube so she can grab the two sides and open it to expose the toothpaste she can no longer squeeze from the tube. She is determined to use every bit of the paste she has paid for.

Exhibit B - The hand soap dispensers in her house have been filled with water to make sure she gets full use of the gel sticking to the sides of the bottle so many times that the liquid inside doesn’t even lather anymore.

Exhibit C - A container of lotion that has been cut with scissors, much like her toothpaste tube, so she can scoop out the remaining lotion that is too difficult to squeeze from the tube. The container contains lotion so old that it looks like hardened cookie dough. I have no idea to what measure she will go to be able to use the hardened lotion bits, but I have no doubt she will find a way to use every speck until nothing remains.

Someday

Deborah: “Babe, I’m excited for my next boat to come in.”

Me: (confused) "What boat are you referring to?"

Deb: “You know, ‘Someday your boat will come in. I'm excited about mine."

Me (eyes ricocheting left and right): “Oh. You mean ‘Someday, your ship will come in.'”

Deb: “Well, okay. But what about the saying about a boat? There’s a saying about a boat, Jenée.”

Me: “Yes, there is. It's ‘You've missed the boat.’ Those are two different sayings with two slightly, if not vastly, different connotations.”

Deb: “Oh. Well, I’m excited for my ship to come in."

Me (thinking) “I sure hope your brain is on that ship.”

C-4, C-6, or C-8?

While shopping at Target:

Deborah: Babe, what C battery should I get? C-4? C-6? Or C-8?

Me: “How many do you need?”

Deb: “I think only two.”

Me: “Then any of those will work, Babe. I don’t understand the question.”

Deb: “I’m trying to figure out what size I need.”

Still confused, I turn to look at her, puzzled.

“What?” I utter, wondering if I want this conversation to go any further.

“What size of C battery should I get. Four, six, or eight?" she says slowly as if I’m deaf and hoping I can read her lips.

Looking her in the eyes. ”Babe.” The monotone of my voice is an indicator to her that she is missing something very obvious. So she looks away from me and back to the battery display.

She suddenly gets that all-too-familiar purse-lipped smile that indicates she is doing her best to stifle laughter, realizing that the number indicates the quantity in the package, as clearly understood by being able to see into the transparent packaging, which reveals either four, six, or eight C batteries inside.

Still restraining from laughter, she composes herself and reaches for a pack. “Okay then, I’ll get four.”

Lettuce Pray

We are sitting in Deb’s car in the Austin airport cell phone lot, waiting to retrieve an out-of-town guest. We drove through P. Terry’s for some food we’d eat as we sat waiting for a delayed flight.

P. Terry’s messed up Deborah’s “protein style” veggie burger, and instead of wrapping it in lettuce, they gave her a nonprotein style white hamburger bun. They got my order right. So right, that I have an excess of lettuce, which I offer to Deborah so she can toss her white bread bun and wrap her little nut patty in some iceberg.

“Babe, would you like some of my lettuce? I have a ton here,” I offer.

She replies, “No, Babe, I don’t like Swiss cheese. Though I did recently find that I like it on Reubens.”

I have no idea where to take this conversation, so I just continue crunching my chicken patty swaddled in iceberg, wondering what in the hell Deborah thought I’d said. Mostly I’m baffled at how a grown woman (and a chef no less) is just now realizing that Reubens are best with Swiss cheese.

I silently pray and ask God to please take us both before we lose our minds. I wonder if my prayer is too late.

Left Turn Only

"Hang a Louie up here, Babe,” I say, also motioning with my left hand for her to turn left.

“Ewww, a Louie??”

"Yes. Go left at Elizabeth Street. Why ‘Eww’?”

My peripheral vision shows that she is still looking at me, and when I turn her way, I’m greeted by a perplexed face.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

She contemplates for a moment, then asks, “Then what’s that thing when someone clears their throat and hacks something up?”

“Gross. A loogie!?”

“Oh right!” followed by explosive laughter that almost makes her miss the left turn.

Lift Here

The cup pictured below represents a perplexing puzzle for Deborah.

We stopped at Hruska’s in Ellinger, Texas, to use the restroom and get a coffee on our journey home from her family’s beach house on the Gulf Coast in the tiny surfing town aptly named Surfside.

After we fill our coffee cups, I watch her try to find something sharp to penetrate the thick plastic indention so she can drink from her paper cup with a plastic lid. The indention she is attempting to perforate with a coffee stirrer is the one with the word ‘LIFT’ just below it.

I walk to her and whisper, “Honey,” at which point I reach and lift the flap that reveals the opening for sipping. She laughs and says, “You’re not putting this in your blog, are you?”

They’ve Got Rhythm

Driving down Congress Avenue, we pass the guy who dances outside South Congress Café with two dummies affixed to parallel horizontal poles that he hoists onto his shoulders. In puppeteer fashion, as he moves, so do they.

“Oh wow. That is so cool,” Deb states, watching the dancing trio as we drive by.

“He’s pretty cute. I see him there all the time,” I respond.

“They’re all really good,” says Deborah.

I pause, thinking she will laugh. She pauses too, then says, “They’re so in sync.”

Oh my God. “Babe. That’s one guy. The other dancers are two dummies attached to him by poles. Those other two aren’t real people.”

Once she lets this sink in, she tries desperately not to spit water all over the dashboard of my car.

Houston, We Have a Problem

A couple of years ago, we went to Houston with Deborah’s Aunt Harriet to meet another of Deborah’s aunts (Harriet’s sister, Margaret) and cousins to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Deb’s aunt points out a processing plant on one of the highways and shares a story about it. This processing plant’s distinct, with its smokestacks billowing into the air.

After her aunt has shared her story, Deborah announces, “Wow, I always thought that was a nuclear plant.”

Her aunt and I are silent for a moment. When I casually mention that nuclear plants don’t produce billowing smoke, Deborah laughs and says quietly, “Gosh. Sometimes I feel so sorry for my parents.”

To which I respond from the backseat, “Your parents!?”

Dinosaur Park, Here We Come!

The oil light comes on in Deb's car on our way to the Dinosaur Park for one of our camping expeditions with Deb’s sister’s family and several of her cousins.

We are only 13 miles from the last town we passed versus 40+ miles to the park. We turn back once we realize the city has an auto parts store.

Once at our destination, I find the dipstick on her Mercedes motor and pull it out to explore just how much oil she has while she opens up what looks like a cap where you’d put anti-freeze, not oil.

“Babe, what are you doing?” I ask.

“Well, it’s weird. The light came on about a week and a half ago, and I only put in a half quart because it wouldn’t take more than that. And look, it’s still full.”

Oh no. This isn’t good.

“Honey, that’s not where you put the oil,” I say, searching the motor for the actual oil lid. Once I find it, I turn the top and open it. Deb’s eyes get big. “No. Oh my gosh. We need to ask someone for help.”

We flag down an unsuspecting young man to help us ascertain the damage because we are both becoming slightly terrified by the genuine possibility that Deborah has put oil into a tank not intended for oil. Since I don’t know anything about engines, and certainly not Mercedes engines, I am not helpful except to reiterate the obvious. That is not the oil tank.

Our suspicions are verified. This is the radiator tank. It is for coolant and anti-freeze. Our new friend cannot alleviate our fears by telling us we won’t have a problem driving to our campsite, and though he is gracious and kind, I can tell he wants to get into the store and leave the two crazy women alone with their motor-oil-cooled Mercedes. We thank him. He leaves.

“Babe, how long have you been driving with oil in your coolant reservoir?”

“For over a week,” she says as she bites her lip.

She purchases oil, and the car takes two quarts (in the proper tank). We decide to take our chances. Deb thinks on her feet and grabs paper towels from our camping equipment, and shoves wads of them into the coolant tank to soak up some of the oil. The paper towels come out chocolaty brown (oil), and we both make that “oh shit” face. She attempts to soak up more, but it seems futile after a few more attempts. There’s no way she’s going to soak up a half quart of oil with paper towels. We get back on the road.

I think of my mom, who worries that electronics will cause cars to explode. I’m a passenger in a car driving 70 miles an hour down a highway with petroleum as coolant. I pray.

We make it to Dinosaur Park just fine, and we make it back to Austin just as fine. Deborah takes her car to the Mercedes mechanic she knows and trusts and asks for a radiator flush. She doesn’t share with the mechanic a thing about what she has done. They flush the radiator, and all is right with the world again.

Though all of these accounts are true, and she does indeed have a flighty side to her (which keeps me entertained), what I haven’t yet mentioned is that Deborah is one of the brightest lights and most beautiful spirits in the world. She is kind and loving and a selfless caretaker and confidant to those in need, especially those she loves. She loves and cares for animals with the same whole heart as she loves humans. She is incredibly creative and a fantastic chef. Her love for me is expressed in words and action. For most others, her passion is conveyed in a delicious meal. She is often struck by moments of gratitude that make her cry with joy, usually coming in the most unsuspecting moments. She works daily to become a better and better version of herself. She has a gift of wisdom that I am often amazed by and a dedication to her faith that I admire. Her family means the world to her, which means the world to me. Not to mention, she is stunningly beautiful. And, best of all, she keeps me laughing.

She is my Crazy Love.