::: i picked her up at seven and she looked so fine :::

So, I was thinking today about the things in my life that create strong moments, and I was applying that line of thinking to my marriage. What do I do with my husband that makes the time fly? What do we do together that creates a strong moment in our relationship which, in turn, builds our relationship into something stronger? As a result, I sent my husband an e-mail at work that went a little something like this:

Dear Bo,

Hi. My name is Thicket Dweller and I live in a little town called Somewhere, Ohio. I've seen you play bass a few times here and there, and...well, I don't usually do this, but I was wondering if you'd like to do dinner and a movie. Maybe tonight, if you don't have other plans. There's this great Italian place in Somewhere Else, Ohio that serves homemade pasta, as long as you don't mind a long wait. There's also a little indy movie place not too far from the restaurant that's playing a movie about George Hamilton taking his mother on a road trip (loosely based on a true story). It looks like it has decent reviews. Anyway, I should probably find out if you'd like to go before I go on and on.

You can e-mail me and let me know, or you can give me a call on my cell phone, whichever is most convenient for you. 330-867-5309. I was thinking you could pick me up around 4:30, if that works for you.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Thicket Dweller

He picked me up around 4:30, and we spent the evening together eating pasta and watching a movie that was very, very loosely based on George Hamilton's life. It was a pretty good movie, by the way, but not fabulous.

During the course of the evening's conversation, while eating deep-fried breaded provolone cheese sticks (absolutely the bomb) the subject of Parker Stevenson came up (don't ask). And then, of course, the subject of Shaun Cassidy came up. One of us felt that Parker Stevenson was the hottie and one of us felt that he was the consolation prize.

And so, friends, it's up for a vote. What's your opinion? Did you have Parker's posters or Shaun's snapshots plastered on your walls?

A Cheap Profitable Date

Go on a date, get free pizza, and get paid twenty bucks. How cool is that?

I, for one, thought it was pretty cool.

See, every weekend, Bo and I try to decide what we'll do for a date. We generally end up going to a movie and out to dinner where we either share a meal or eat cheap. Then we wander around the Bigger City, which is about 25 miles away, and try to figure out what else we can do with our time together. Then we spend a half-hour trudging through Stuf*Mart discovering things we didn't know we needed.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran into a neighbor while coming out of the library. Don't worry; he was fine. During the course of our very enjoyable conversation, he told me about his part-time job--delivering pizzas. He said that he and his family go out on Saturday nights and deliver pizzas for a local independent pizza shop. He also told me how much they make a night. He said he enjoys it, that he and his wife or one of his kids will take the evening and drive around, spending time together, listening to books on CD (or maybe I'm embellishing here. Maybe I just thought that would be a good idea), and they make their hourly wage, plus mileage, plus tips, plus half-price food.

So I asked him to put in a good word for us, and, soon enough, I got a phone call from the pizza guy.

Tonight, Bo and I went in to the pizza place to get acquainted with the system and we ended up delivering pizzas for the evening. At one point, it started to get a little stressful because of the tip situation. While the Amish may be great at barnraising and baking, they are not good tippers. Some of them aren't tippers at all. So, while we had to search pretty hard to find some of their houses (the addresses weren't posted on their houses and some of them have more than one house on a lane) and several of them had six or more pizzas, totalling over $100, only two of them actually tipped us. For about ten deliveries, we made exactly three dollars and fifty cents in tips. And the Amish make up about 95% of the pizza shop's business.

Still, when we took into account the three pizzas that we got for half-price and how we would have driven the same distance tonight in order to spend money on pizza and a movie, it really started to sound appealing. We were done in three hours, had three pizzas to show for it, and had twenty bucks on top of it. Plus, we got to listen to a book-on-iPod while we drove.

We have plans to deliver a few more weekend-nights. The other employees said it was a slow night because of a couple of basketball games and being the New Year's Eve weekend. But it went pretty quickly for me.

I may even use it for an incentive when we start lessons back up. Do all of your schoolwork and chores, and you get to help deliver pizza.

You might even get to keep the tips. All three dollars and fifty cents of it.