The husband, the beer-can fish and the perfect sandwich

I think my husband is pretty close to perfect (sorry to gush but I'm still a newlywed so I have to savour the love). How do I love thee? Let me count the ways (but I don't have much room here so I'm going to count only to three).

1. You leave love notes in my car.

2. You've taken up running so that I have someone to accompany me on my five-kilometre loop.

3. You (happily) went to the movies to see Sex and the City with me - which, by the way, was almost two and a half hours long. And it was bad. So, so bad.

See? There's a lot to love.

But he also has some major flaws.

My No. 1 pet peeve is the kind of thing that can kill a relationship.

Ladies, I know you're with me on this one: A steak sandwich and its chopped-up, saucy sister sandwich, the Philly cheesesteak.

We like to spend our money in local, specialty restaurants, but sometimes, if we're travelling or out with family, we eat at chain restaurants and that means he's going to order The Sandwich of Doom.

This is how our conversation goes: "Ready to order?" the server asks.

"I'll have the steak sandwich," my husband will say.

"Yeah, um, could we actually have

a minute?" I'll snark. And then I berate him.

"Why are you having that? It's never good. You always say it's tough and chewy. It has no taste. It's full of gristle. The bun is like cardboard."

And then he gets it anyway. And he doesn't like it.

"I don't know why I got that. It's never good. It was tough and chewy. It had no taste. It was full of gristle. The bun was like cardboard," he'll say.

So you can understand my horror when he ordered a Philly cheesesteak from a little hole in the wall called the Lakeview Tavern and Restaurant in Erinsville, a town about 45 minutes northwest of Kingston.

From the outside, it looks dumpy. But inside? It's fantastic. There's a bar with red vinyl swivel seats. The restaurant's tables and chairs are mismatched and many chairs are brown-flowered vinyl, just like the kind my grandmother used to have in her dining room.

There are arcade games - Ms. Pac-Man, Terminator 3, and, my favourite, Big Buck Hunter III, which lets you shoot animals with a massive gun. (My son thought this was incredible, even though we didn't put any money in it.)

There are stuffed fish and deer heads on the wall. (My son thought these were incredible, too. It was like going to the petting zoo and not having to actually touch the dirty things.)

And then the piece de resistance -a fish hanging on the wall made out of Molson Export beer cans.

"Nemo!" my 23-month-old son shouted.

"Hi Nemo! Hi! Hi! Hi!" he squealed, just days after discovering the animated fish movie Finding Nemo.

And then it was time to order. I asked for a chicken wrap. My son got chicken fingers. My stepson ordered a burger and my stepdaughter ordered breakfast - eggs and bacon.

All simple roadhouse staples. "And I'll have the Philly cheesesteak," my husband said.

Once he got it, he took one bite and then shoved it at me.

"Taste this," he said.

"I know, I know, it tastes like cardboard," I said as I bit into the -

Tender strips of melt-in-your-mouth steak, sauteed onions and green pepper dripping in a sweet barbecue sauce and blanketed in mozzarella, on a warm, toasted bun.

A fish made out of beer cans and a delicious steak sandwich. What more could a girl want? A glass of Shiraz.

And Lakeview has that, too. My husband. Such a genius.


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Sex and the City and refried beans

I remember five years ago when my best friend popped by my apartment for a visit.
I’ve always been messy – (but it’s an organized mess) and I never know where anything is (I would, my husband and my mother tell me, if I’d just put things back in their proper place) - but I’d sunk to a new low.
I’d become a prisoner on my own couch. In a semicircle surrounding me were 10, 15, maybe 20 cans of opened refried beans with a fork stuck in them. Yes, I’d been eating the beans out of the cans. I’d washed the beans back with a case or two of Diet Coke. I’d eaten myself into a corner.
“Oh, Sarah,” my friend said, surprised, shocked, saddened at what my life had become.
A few weeks earlier, my live-in boyfriend had left our “love nest” and me. About half a day later he had a new girlfriend. The one-two punch gutted me. The days that followed were about survival. Wake up. Shower. Go to work. Come home from work. Cry. Eat dinner. (The only thing I could eat that didn’t make me throw up was refried beans and Diet Coke.) Cry. Go to sleep.
My friend lovingly scolded me and told me it was time to pick myself up and get outside and do something.
“Yes!” I told her.
“I’m going to go do something!”
After she left my home, I had an epiphany: I had nowhere to go and nothing to do.
I lost myself in that relationship. I did what too many girls do: I made myself all about my relationship and I’d become one-dimensional.
I did really need something to do – but what? When I wasn’t working, I’d been a girlfriend and now that I wasn’t a girlfriend, I had nothing to do when I wasn’t working.
I stood on my apartment balcony and looked out at Kingston. The sky was licorice black that night and the stars were sparkling. And in that night sky, I saw it. I saw a sign. It was a sign from the heavens.
OK, it was actually a sign from Blockbuster.
I lived just a few steps from the downtown video store on Queen Street. It was there I found something to pick myself up. It was there I found four new friends. It was there I found Sex and the City on DVD.
I didn’t get HBO so I’d only seen bits and pieces of the cable show when I was visiting my parents’ house but every time I turned it on there, one of the show’s star’s breasts were on display and I didn’t want my parents to think I was into porn, so I always quickly turned the show off.
Here, in the comfort of my own pigsty, I could watch the sordid adventures/affairs of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte without feeling guilty. In fact, I could watch the episodes over and over and over again.
Soon, my routine changed. For the better. Wake up. Shower. Go to work. Come home from work. Watch Sex and the City. Eat dinner. (I started buying my dinners at Blockbuster when I picked up the DVDs – convenient or what? – so I was now on to nacho chips and the bright orange plastic cheese nacho cheese dip and Diet Coke.) Watch Sex and the City. Go to sleep.
Truly, I credit the show for pulling me out of my slump.
These four friends did cool things: Charlotte hung out in art galleries. Miranda ran a marathon. Samantha did yoga. Carrie wrote newspaper columns – for a living.
Like millions of women, I’m dying to reunite with my girls now that Sex and the City: The Movie is in theatres.
Carrie and company always celebrated with Cosmopolitans.
I’ll have a Diet Coke and maybe some nachos.
For old times’ sake.

(This column appeared in the May 31 edition of The Ticket, inside The Kingston Whig-Standard)

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