Lochlan was up and eating oatmeal at six this morning and out the door by twenty-five after and so the remainder of my day was claimed in short order by the early risers. All of this will eventually be cancelled out by the late risers and I'll be nodding into my turkey soup by eight tonight, back to waiting alone for Lochlan to come home.
Sam brought me to church (ha, seriously a line from that song that is stuck in Lochlan's head that he NEVER stops singing/whistling/humming lately) with him for the early service. Matt will come to the late one. He isn't feeling well. I'm the substitute husband as much as Sam functions as my substitute wife and it's a little funny and kind of nice to be in his sphere of activity sometimes. Sam has turned out to be far more quirky and funny and sweet the older he gets and we mesh well. We mesh too well but no one minds. I sat up front and made faces at him so he could practice his stern but fatherly reverend gaze. Sam's about as fatherly as I am. It doesn't work but he's good at not reacting now. He used to be terrible and it was fun.
During collection I loaded up the plate with chocolate coins from our Christmas stockings, the fifty-dollar bill hidden in the middle just to be a brat and passed it on.
After church I went to say goodbye to Sam and ran outside to meet Caleb, who had pulled up right in front of the doors. He opened the car door for me and as I got in he said we have a breakfast reservation so off we went toward the city. When we arrived he rattled off an order to the server before they had time to properly greet us and I broke in with a warm Good Morning and a revision. Hash browns, fruit, bacon and tea. No to the coffee, egg-white omelet and roasted spinach. Caleb hates to be corrected in public and glared at me and once the server made his escape I pointed out how much I hate egg white omelets, I hate being ordered for because there's no way he could possibly know what I want to eat and also we gave up coffee for one of our biggest resolutions and he knows that.
Diner-manners don't fly in this sort of place, Princess.
Neither does overstepping your boundaries.
If you want to see what I look like overstepping my boundaries, then let's go home and I'll show you.
My glare would have melted the ice jams off a Winnipeg house in March and he actually reeled his evil back in for once. I figured the minute we get to the Boathouse I'm dead in the water anyway so I may as well make my protests loud and early but he surprised me. Not only did he steal half of my hash browns which is a cardinal sin because you don't TOUCH Bridget's potatoes, but when we got back to the boathouse he clearly detailed what he needed as far as work, then he asked me to put on some music of my choice and that if I was efficient I would be back home before lunch.
And here I am. Because I'm efficient. I'm the best damned executive assistant/Analyst/Partner he's ever had, frankly and he knows it. He reminded me that since we have switched to logging hours worked for 2015 instead of me being paid on a per-day basis that I was to input my hours before I left and that if I needed money before payday to let him know, but that my belated holiday bonus was already on deposit.
Oh. I got a bonus?
Yes, you did, Bridget. Because you work like a dog for these companies and expect nothing.
Oh.
So here I am with my banking website open and my Christmas bonus making the balance run off the page because I have to scroll to see all of it and I think he made a mistake so I call him and he laughs as he always does and reminds me that icebergs are usually much larger under the surface (AKA you thought I gave you everything but you were wrong) and not to blow it all on cotton candy and new spark plugs or library fines from towns we have fled or new shoes when Loch burns his or gas or deep-fried food. How easily he can fall with us back into the past. Such a soft place to land these days, isn't it?
Well then what should I spend it on? I ask him as if I know nothing at all now. Nothing at all.
That sort of amount isn't one to be spent, Bridget, it's one to invest.
And how.
But I would like to track what you invest in, if that's okay with you.
You do anyway, I'm sure.
You're so smart. Sometimes it scares me, Babydoll. When I think you're missing key details, you've already absorbed everything. Good girl.
I hate it when he says that. Screw cotton candy, I'm going to buy a factory that makes cotton candy.
