It's the Small Things

Chud said something tonight worth blogging about. He said, "I'm just not used to your enthusiasm for such small things." At first I took offense, thinking we've been together for fouryears, how can you not know me by now? But then he explained that just when he thinks he has figured out what makes me happy, there's always something else that I end up getting excited about. I took that as a compliment. Here are the small things I got excited about tonight:

We were sitting on the front porch, on the hideous wicker furniture that we share with three other apartments. We were chitchatting about the days events, enjoying an evening drink before going inside to watch our TV shows on DVD. Just as I was about to get up, I saw a flicker of yellow light in the yard across the street. I gasped and Chud thought I saw something truly spectacular. "Oh my god!" I shouted. "I just saw.....the VERY FIRST LIGHTNING BUG of the summer! This is so exciting!" He laughed and shook his head. I guess he doesn't understand that the first lightning bug means alot to me. I remember catching them in a jar when I was a kid and putting them on my dresser while I turned out all the lights so they could light up my entire room. I remember sitting on Grandma's porch after dark and looking out at the trees at the edge of the woods, but you couldn't see the trees at all, you could only see the glittery glow of a thousand tiny lightning bugs. I also remember the summer I spent in Colorado, when I realized in the middle of July that I had not yet seen one lightning bug at all and when I asked someone if there were any lightning bugs in Colorado, I was met with this response..."What the heck is a lightning bug?" I almost cried. So, yes, lightning bugs mean a lot to me, and I get very excited when I see the first one of the year.

The second small thing isn't as nostalgic and exciting, but any drunken housewife can probably relate. We were sitting on the couch and watching TV - nothing exciting was happening at all. I leaned over the coffee table to pour myself another glass of wine and I turned the bottle after my glass was full to prevent that little annoying drip from sliding down the bottle and staining my table. Then, like any good backwoods, redneck girl would do, I pulled the bottle to my mouth so I could lick the drop off the top of the bottle before it hit the floor. It's a disgusting habit, I know. Then, as I went to put the bottle back on the table, I looked at my floors and realized - they're hardwood floors! I can't stain them with wine! Halleluiah, may the heavens rejoice! How many tiny drops of wine fell on our old carpet between the coffee table and the couch? How many times did I frantically scrub with the Resolve Carpet Cleaner to get out those teeny red blotches? No more, my friends! A drop of wine on old hardwood floors requires nothing more than a mere swipe of a paper towel!

Life is so good.