SEVEN YEAR SCRATCH

About a month ago my wife and I went on a 32 and a half hour trip to the Santa Barbara wine country of the Santa Ynez Valley.  Why?  Because we had not  spent a night alone together in 7 years…yes, 7 years!

One set of grandparents lives halfway across the country and the other all the way and due to life circumstances to boring to enumerate, we hadn’t made time for us in all those years.  Our kids have benefited immensely but the strain was taking its toll on my wife and me.

So I told my Beloved it’s time.  She organized tag team baby-sitters and I took care of the rest…

We both love nature and photography and the Santa Ynez Valley in October light is splendid.  I had a loose plan but fortunately, like me, my Love likes to see where reality wants to take us and we followed the pull from our chests…  (which mostly pulled us together) and it lead us to wonderful sites and experiences in the shortest time imaginable.

We were like Honeymooners and everywhere we went the sparks of Amore bounced off of us like tracers of pleasure and people would engage us in conversation and servers would pour us an additional tasting just because they liked chatting with us.  Some locals told us of their favorite non-tourista cafe and we had an incredible lunch.

 

It wasn't long before the wine was going to have detrimental effects on our ability to get around.  So we headed for the hotel.  I planned a sunset drive so we could take pictures in the golden light.  We missed the good light by about thirty minutes because, well....  Let's just say that's all he wrote.  Suffice to say an itch needed scratching.

Scratch before a nap.  Scratch after a nap and before dinner.  Scratch on a fully belly after dinner.  Scratch upon waking.  We didn't realize how itchy we were.  We all know how good it feels to scratch an itch.

After a little more wine tasting we headed back to LA and the kids.  They survived without us all 32 and a half hours.  Imagine that !  Ray had a bit of a rough time at night because he still nurses and Molly got sad, we were told, for only ten minutes.  Jeez, just ten minutes.




Needless to say we've seen the light and how obvious it is that we as the heads of our little family must take care of our needs and interests as a couple if we are to be our most loving selves.

Lordy, I'm itchy already!!!

Love One Another  (especially those you are married to...)

p.s.  My apologies to other occupants of the Buellton Marriot.  I hope our scratching was more inspiring than disturbing.