Happy Facts
Melody loses at least one personal item per day: these items are (almost) always found. (there is that great mystery of the single pearl earring...) According to Melody, she gets help from her "angels of lost items". Glen is vocally skeptical about this (unless he himself is her "angel", as it is he who frequently finds things), and demonstrates a certain amount of eye-rolling; however, he frequently relies on Melody to call on her traffic angels and parking angels in times of need. Oddly enough, they come through for her most of the time…
Glen wastes some time watching "wedding disaster" videos on YouTube. He feels this will prepare him for his own wedding, which can't help but go MUCH smoother, and may help mitigate his guilt in the likely event he should do or say something inappropriate. He swears he will be on his best behavior, but... He claims that having these videos in mind keeps it all "relative".
Meanwhile, Melody is losing sleep and stressing about wedding details. This drives Glen crazy. He chants to his love this mantra: "it will be what it will be". (Glen is evolved enough, however, to know that it isn't Melody driving Glen crazy, only Glen's own reaction to Melody's apparent insanity that is actually driving Glen crazy.)
Glen has a very loose attitude toward the proceedings. Just this morning, he suggested that they wake up early on their wedding day to go to the Ojai Farmer's Market to pick up some delicious fresh duck eggs for their mini-honeymoon, to which Melody replied, "GO TO THE FARMER'S MARKET ON OUR WEDDING MORNING?? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR F***ING MIND!?!?" Glen therefore assumed that this would not be a very good idea after all...
Melody, uncomfortable with Glen's "aggressive" driving, opts (when travelling with Glen) to do the driving while Glen reads Harry Potter to her to keep her awake. Something like a "live" "book-on-tape. They are currently into the 5th book, "The Order of the Phoenix."
Glen likes to eat, and eats too much. Melody knows this and tries to "help" him by providing "helpful" reminders which trigger Glen to eat more out of spite (for himself?). Glen is working on this.
Melody is the world's finest soother of Glen's parenting soul, assisting always in reframing the relationship between him and the product of his own parents' curse that he should only have a son like HIM (which, in Ben, he miraculously does - he thanks his parents regularly for this with colorful language). Glen insists that the fact that Ben has survived Glen to this day is primarily due to Melody's influence.
Every Thursday morning, after Melody goes off to work, Glen makes the bed and leaves a little poem under Melody's pillow. Melody keeps all of Glen's poems in a book by her bedside.
Melody has a supreme case of "Sweeping Things Under the Rug Prevention". Glen, left to his own devices, would probably find the rug to be a perfectly acceptable location for temporary housing of uncomfortable issues (until such time as the BIG HOOVER can be brought out to suck it all up), but knows deep in his heart of hearts that Melody is right about this (and, truth be told, is extremely grateful for her perseverance in that regard!).
Glen told his friend Melody, long before they were lovers, that what he really wanted in a relationship was emotional intimacy. Melody delights in reminding him about this every (less and less frequent) time they have to discuss issues that arise between them.
Melody and Glen enjoy their Friday morning walks, hand-in-hand, to the gym, where Nicole, their personal trainer, does her best to inspire them to reach their full physical potential despite their endless kvetching (oy! this hurts! that hurts! enough already! are we almost done?, etc.).
About six months or so into their relationship, Glen's son Ben astutely noticed some of Melody's idiocyncracies rubbing off on his dad - some minor mannerisms, increasingly unleashed curly hair, even a new pair of glasses somewhat similar to Melody's - and thereby dubbed him "Glenody". Ben said: "my dad is a poser". (see photo, above) It should be noted that Melody also acquired some of Glen's finer attributes, such as a resurgence of her use of the "f" word.
Melody & Glen have set aside Thursday nights for reading the book "Conscious Loving" to one another.
In Melody's endless quest to improve their communications and their relationship, she has carted Glen off to various events Glen would never, on his own volition, have even imagined being a part of. USM couples workshops, Council trainings and meditation retreats are all things Glen has gained (and he would say, grown mightily) from his relationship to the ever vigilant Melody. Glen acknowledges Melody for her kindness and patience with him, as he blossoms from out of his past life of being a curmudgeonly old cynic.