Surprise...For Me

June came home from work today with a surprise to help me chill out during this whole wait and see what happens to me stress festival. She walked in the door. I nearly melted with excitement to see her face (she always calms me, almost always reassures me), and she hugged me, and then flipped out some vinyl valium.

She scooped me the Grateful Dead's "Wake of the Flood," the band's first album released under their own label after leaving Warner Brothers in '73...a super smile inducer. Immediately on the heals of that awesomeness came the Dead's "In The Dark," a similarly exciting and timely gift, and one that gives me the band's only single to reach the top ten (and, for that matter, top 40) on the Billboard Hot 100. Geeky, I know, but exciting.



She didn't have to bring me a present like that. She knew that I was feeling bad, and knew that there wouldn't be much to stir me to smile, but that did the trick. It made me feel fourteen, and I quickly pulled the records from their sleeves and took in a deep whiff of all that nostalgia and vinyl smell. Now I feel better.

How cool is your wife? Mine is cooler than Eddie Vedder, and that's awfully damn cool.