Dear Mom,
I wish you could meet Mooster Rob. That's what I called him. He is all that Frank was not. He is kind, caring, loving, and giving. I am convinced that he would give his last penny to anyone who would ask for it. Today, he spent the day helping me put things on Ebay. Is he crazy? He must be.
Boyfriends are supposed to be playing poker and drinking beer but night after night, he is here with me, lording over the kitchen, making things with way too many calories that are delicious beyond measure, that I fear to measure... but I love and adore him so much!
If I had a fantasy, it would be that you were on the cruise we just took to South America! It was a slice of heaven! We were on the Holland America Zan Daam all the way down South America from Vancouver to Chile and I think he must have been the most patient man on the cruise because I happened to mentioned that I had grown up in California and Hawaii and not once had I seen a dolphin or whale above water. So how does this make him patient?
From that moment forth, Mooster Rob kept watch, day in and night for those dolphins and whale. I am not kidding! The ocean was an expanse of blue on every side and who would see anything but whitecap after whitecap? And for me, with my imagination, every whitecap was a whale leaping in play! Every trace of foam was a dolphin rising from depth! But nowhere was any cetacean life in real life. It was all playing under the seas, Mooster Rob and I agreed.
Each day, we had come up on the big bar-b-que pool deck which I think was deck number eight to watch for whales and all we saw was bright sun and challenges for our sun screen. And then we would eat too much. I heard me tell my beloved, "When I try to catch your attention, you give it to me, bien sur, but then it goes back to the horizon!" I saw him smile. I fell asleep on his smile and when I awakened it was to a seagull's squawking and the squawks came repeating one after another but there was no sea life around! Life! So Cruel! I drifted back to sleep.
I was deep in sleep. Was it the beauty kissing the beast? The beast kissing beauty? I don't know what I was dreaming mother but it was something romantic and fairytale-like. He kissed me, mother! I think? Wake up, darling! They are here! Black whales! I don't know what kind they are, but they are here for you!
I popped up no differently than a Jack-in-the-Box. I saw the black round nosed whales. They were gorgeous. Breaching. One at a time. Happy. Free. Again and again. I couldn't believe it. This was no dream. These were live real stone cold blue whales jumping for joy in the middle of the sea. Rob had found them. We had to strain to see them. But there they were. Beautiful blue whales. It may have taken me thirty-five years of dating to find Rob but it was worth it! This man was mine.