The Anniversary Do Over | Fort Bend Focus Magazine

Even the candles for the candlelight dinner were a bit askew – honestly, the less Mr. Kaminski could clearly see, the better. But at least I got an A for effort.

By Patti Parish-Kaminski, Publisher

I will be the first to admit that I did not bring my A game this year for our anniversary. I attended. I showed up. I was present. But I was exhausted, had lost my voice, my feet were killing me, and I was the epitome of unprepared for our weekend getaway.

Beautiful card with heartfelt sentiment in tow? Nope. Fancy new negligee ensemble packed at the ready. Not hardly. I wasn’t even certain I had packed undergarments, which turns out, wasn’t really an issue with Mr. Kaminski. After the hurricane of the week I had experienced along with gale force winds, I was lucky to be vertical, which didn’t last for long – and not in a good way.

Mr. Kaminski, on the other hand, absolutely brought his A game. Our room was decorated with gorgeous flowers – thank you Lucas – and we had a full itinerary of brunch, massages, pool time, dinner and much relaxation. It was divine, and I was a dud. It’s a miracle I’m still married.

I was feeling a certain kind of way about my lackluster preparedness for a lovely weekend when we returned Sunday, so Monday, your girl was on it. The house was clean as we hadn’t been home over the weekend, and the house hadn’t been filled with five plus young adults and two dogs as it had the weekend before. Yes, your babies still come and leave a path of destruction even though they’re grown apparently. Of course, there was no food in the house – that’s nothing new – and then I realized the major error in my plan of a nice, romantic dinner. All of our favorite restaurants were closed on Monday. Feeling overly confident, I searched the internet for an easy-ish recipe, made my grocery list – clearly omitting items that seemed too challenging – and headed to parts unknown, otherwise known as the grocery store. My fatal error, of course, was that I got busy and waited until later in the day as time was ticking to accomplish this Herculean task, and as I was walking into the store, I ran into a friend. Ten minutes later, I dashed through the aisles procuring items for said recipe and rushed home frazzled.

Now I didn’t realize that this particular recipe had multiple steps. I mean, how hard could Baked Ziti be? I’m a four ingredient kinda girl, meaning if a recipe calls for more than four ingredients, I’m out. I fought the urge to call Ron Brandani on his day off and forged ahead. I got something resembling the picture on the recipe in the oven; the kitchen was a crime scene, but my beloved housekeeper was coming the next day, so it was all good. I set a lovely table – this I’m actually good at – and commenced to getting dressed.

It was warm, and I had actually purchased a super cute red halter dress preparing for summer. It was one of those wrap, backless things that’s supposed to be extremely flattering in a flowy, light fabric. That was the first issue: your girl needs more than a flowy, light fabric. I’m more of a thick, heavy material and starch doesn’t hurt to hold things in their place. I began to wrap and twist and twirl and no matter how much of this madness ensued, the girls, who in my younger days resided farther north, just couldn’t get above the Mason-Dixon line if you know what I mean. They sing “Dixie” on the daily these days, and it takes a bit to get them to move up to cooler climates. Unable to don the appropriate undergarments as they would be unsightly and quite garish, I problem solved with the one item that every Southern girl knows fixes everything: duct tape.

I will say that Mr. Kaminski came home to a lovely candlelight dinner complete with a card and home cooked meal. He ate it – that’s all I have to say about that. He said I looked pretty, though I did have to concede that the dress was not for public consumption after I saw the look on his face. Duct tape can only hold so much for so long. And let me just say, it fixes just about anything, but when removed, it does smart and leave a sticky residue. Plus, there are places Goo Gone should never go.

See y’all next week – on the porch!

Patti Parish-Kaminski