Can’t Help Loving That Man of Mine

One night we were sitting at the big table in the beach house playing The Game of Things.  (An excellent and always hilarious game—we highly recommend it.)  The format is easy and always funny.  The reader reads a prompt that starts “Things that…” and then it continues with something like “you shouldn’t do in a cemetary,”  or “you shouldn’t say to your boss,” or “will keep you out of heaven.”  And on and on.  I’m sure you get the idea.  Then you try to guess who wrote each answer.  One of the interesting things about this type of game is that themes develop over the course of a game.  We’re still laughing about the time that everyone’s answers included some variation of Dick Cheney shooting someone.  Or the time the good answers included Lindsay Lohan and/or (probably and!) viagra.

I can’t remember what the first prompt was that night, but someone’s answer was “Can’t help loving that man of mine.”  It was repeated over and over again in different variations for the rest of the night.  The highlight was probably when Mahon (who was trying to figure out if he knew who had written a particular answer) asked Jason, “Jason, are you ‘Loving that man of mine?’”  Awesome moment.

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I was just looking through some pictures from the beach this year that I hadn’t looked at before.  In the middle of a group shot with everyone doing their own version of crazy, I saw this:

And when I saw it, I promise you I thought, oh yes.  That is who he is.  Sweet.  Cute.  Slightly mischievous.  And that is exactly how I feel about him.  Entertained.  Amused.  Delighted.  Because I really can’t help loving that man of mine.

It doesn’t always feel that way, of course.  Life gets in the way so much of the time and and we feel more business than bliss.  But then we have a moment like this long weekend, where we end up getting to do a lot of things together.  We talked and laughed and planned and dug bamboo.  It was a great two days, and I felt exactly the way that picture shows me looking at him.  Can’t help it, you know.