Hope4us struggle, part 9 or 10 or whatever

[Hope4us]

LOL Pup. Hey, we went to Victoria's Secret. That's the closest I've been to a pair of women's underwear in 14 months now! I'll take it where ever I can get it!

So, I hope I'm not getting set up, but man, yesterday was good. And your comment from a couple days ago Pup about W trying to be transparent with me, I think you may be right. Yesterday on our drive home from shopping she took out her cell phone and said to me, "do you recognize this number xxx-xxxx?" I said no. She said "I had a missed call from that number, but I don't know who it is". I think this was her way of letting me know if I checked the cell website and saw this number that she didn't know who it was. Of course, with what's gone on, she could know who it was and is trying to snow me, but it didn't seem that way.

Ok, so we go shopping. V.S. first. It about freakin killed me. But it was GOOD. W looked at a couple of Teddy's and made some comments to me on our way to the bra's. She actually asked my opinion on whether I liked a couple pair of undies she bought! HOLY CHIT. Now maybe I'm just a GF by proxy to her, but I don't think so. On our way out of the mall we were walking through Dillards and we looked at a few things. I stopped to look at the Coach Purses. I know W loves them but she's never had one before. She made a comment about her old boss buying his wife one for her birthday. So I filed that away. Sounds like a good Christmas present idea to me. So we left there and went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and spent a good deal of time there looking at stuff for the house. Then to Best Buy for a memory stick for our camera for the upcoming trip. While there she wondered over to the chest freezers and asked me if I thought we should get one since we always have a struggle fitting everything in our normal freezer. I told her I thought it was a good idea and when we got back from vacation we could look at getting one.

When we got back to the car to head home I looked at the car tire (her car) and saw where the tread was in bad shape and told her she was not allowed to drive her car until I could get new tires put on. She commented that she looks at the tires periodically because we've had 6 flat tires in about an 8 month period, so she's always checking to make sure she doesn't have a flat, but that she never noticed the tire being in bad shape. Score one for the "Man" of the house. I think she really appreciated it. The whole time we were shopping she was just different than she's been. Laughing, joking, talking like couples talk. On the drive home we talked about my division of the company reorganizing and how there was still a position that has not been filled and how cool of a job I thought it would be and how it would be right up my alley. Kind of my way of preparing her for the possibility of my transfer. I'm going to the home office on Tuesday and will talk to my boss and the manager of the department for the job I want. And I know this manager quite well and he likes me. We've worked on a couple projects in the past and had a pretty respectful relationship. My W used to work in the same department as his W, so I'd say I have at least a 50/50 chance of getting the job. But we'll see.

We got home and sat down to watch our beloved Buckeyes and talked and talked and talked. I asked her about this one guy at her work that is waiting to hear whether his transfer is going to come through or not. He's in line for a job in Ft. Lauderdale for our company. He has a retirement home there and wants to transfer for this job so he can finish out his last few years of work there. Perfect for him. He and his wife move to their retirement home on the company dime. W makes a comment that we should go see him and his wife sometime while we're in Florida. I tell her that's a good idea. We watch OSU win ugly (hey, a win's a win), talking and talking the whole time.

At one point, S16 comes downstairs and he and W start playing around and he makes some good natured comment to her and she playfully slaps him on the leg and it pissed him off. He went upstairs and W tells me about their experience of earlier this week where W smacked him on the way to school. She tells me the whole story. I just sat there listening like I didn't know the story. She tells me when she got to work that she told the EGF that she's never hit him like that and how bad she felt about it. I said "Did you tell S16 you were sorry"? She told me she did. I said, "I can tell he was really affected by that. I knew something had gone on by his attitude this week. It seems like he was really hurt by that. Do you think it would be a good idea for you to apologize to him again"? W replied "yes". I said ok.

I thought I played that well. I didn't betray S16's trust, but got it out there to W that S16 WAS hurt by it and if she recognized it she should patch it up with him.

Later in the evening W asks what I want to watch. I know there's a number of football games on, including her OM's team, LSU, so I say to her, "I don't care, you pick". I wanted to see which game she would want to watch, kind of a test. She says "let's watch Penn State/Wisconsin". I tell her ok. We watch that for a bit and it's a blowout so she flips to Okla State/Missouri. We watch that game which was pretty entertaining and at one point they showed an update of the LSU/Florida game and I made the comment "I NEVER thought I'd be rooting for Florida, but I am" and didn't say anything else. She looked down at the floor and then got up and went outside to smoke. When she came back in I told her about having lunch with one of my peers at the refinery she works at and how he is from Louisiana and he was telling me that in the past the LSU fans have blocked the opposing teams bus at the stadium and have rocked the bus back and forth. I told W "That's just bullchit. What kind of fans are they to do something like that"? She just replied "I know".

Ok, so maybe I shouldn't have said that stuff, but F it. OM I'm sure would think that is cool to do to an opposing team. That's the way he is. So I wanted W to get another little truth dart about the POS. I know some of you may say I shouldn't even mention anything close to OM in conversations with W, but I feel like these things need to be thrown in there periodically. If W thinks that's love, she needs to hear what a POS he was and the contrasts between us. I'm a good guy and the sooner she recognizes the A for what it was, the better chance we have, I think.

Ok, that was our day. What does everyone think? Am I getting my hopes up too high again?