The Day In The Park

The day in the park starts the night before (this past Thursday). We were discussing plans for the weekend and scheduling. Now in last week's post Love and Anniversaries I discussed Mrs_C's suggestion of a day together. She had talked about Friday (Good Friday) as a day we both had off as a possible time/date. When we were discussing scheduling I happened to say that I would go work-out on Friday. OOPS. Bad move. Inadvertent bad move, but bad move none-the-less. Mrs_C froze at my comment - I realized what I'd said even as the words escaped my lips and immediately said "No, that won't work, we're going to be spending the day together." But the damage was done. Apparently if spending Friday together was not at the top of my mind, then I didn't care about it, and didn't care about her, and so we wouldn't bother spending the day together.

Much verbal dancing later I convinced Mrs_C of the truth of the matter. I had been working the days in reverse from Sunday - a day fully booked with family visiting. You see when I build a timeline in my head I always start from the time I have to be somewhere and reverse out all the activities that have to be done prior to it in order to come up with an accurate estimate of when I have to do or begin preceding activities.

I had made the assumption that Sunday was full with visiting already. On holiday weekends Mrs_C likes to visit with her family, so I made the assumption that Saturday would be fully occupied with shopping and visiting as well. I didn't want to interfere with that, so I plopped my workout on Friday in the reverse schedule. Had I been going forward from Thursday, the day together would have been item number one.

Did that make any sense? I then described the details and various plans I had made in my own mind for how the day would work. Anyway, after awhile she believed me. I suspect because the bizarre explanation (short form above) was just so me that she couldn't help but believe it to be truthful...

We went shopping on Thursday night for the various grocery items required for the weekend.

Friday was a warm, bright, and sunny day. We slept a little longer. Took the morning relatively easy. I made the items for our lunch. We left.

Some of the day is described here.

The day together was idyllic. Couldn't have come together better. And only thought about our troubles a few times - I tried hard to banish and ignore such thoughts. At one point things got tense. The park is near where I work - you can see the building from the park. That started a conversation about my career and some opportunities for advancement and a change in position. We discussed that for about an hour of the walk.

I realised that it was rude to be yammering on about me for such a long period during a "togetherness" day, so I asked Mrs_C about some of the things she had said she planned to do. I asked her about the art classes she said she wanted to take.

She got really mad at me. I had no clue as to why. 20 minutes later and much discussion and delicate handling, she apologises and tells me that she felt insecure when I asked her because I had these exciting job prospects and then when discussing her, I chose only to ask her about her "self-improvement" activities and there was apparently some underlying implication of inadequacy on her part.

I still don't quite get it, but she said that she apologised and asked for my understanding and forgiveness of her feelings of insecurity in our relationship.

We went out for the evening as well and had a very good time - no hiccups.

It occurred to me along the way, that I have done the "special things" deal before and it worked for awhile. But as I note in the other blog - I worry about it becoming stale.