A Happy Life: Moments with Denny and Rosie

By Tina Friesen

It is surprising how extraordinary an ordinary life can be. Denny, a banjo picker and self-taught computer geek, can roast and brew a perfect cup of coffee. Rosie, the love of his life, is coping with full-on menopause and grappling with the fact that an editor told her to scrap the novel she’s been working on for fifteen years. They find it’s really the simple things that make for “A Happy Life.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tina Friesen
• Release date: Dec 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201303631

Tina Friesen

Tina Friesen is the published author of a number of short stories and articles. She won first prize in a Christmas Story writing contest for her short story, A Different Kind of Christmas.When she is not writing she can be found indulging her love of photography, gardening, interior design, art, painting and playing guitar. She particularly treasures time spent with her family and coffee or tea times with friends.Tina resides in the Pacific Northwest where the coast and the mountains are a source of inspiration for her.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

I want to acknowledge my faithful readers on ahappylife.ca where I originally tested the waters with A Happy Life. Thank you for letting me know you enjoyed reading and for encouraging me to continue. Thank you to Verna Warner and Gail Sattler who stood by me in the writing process, making edits and offering suggestions. Thank you for asking, When can I read it? Thank you to my sisters who believed in me and loved my stories. Thank you to my mother who remained unwavering in her confidence that anything I set my mind to was possible. Most of all, thank you to my husband, Sheldon, for being my inspiration and supporting me in more ways than I can count.

Dedication

In loving memory of my father.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

1 OK Google

2 Ticket to Ride

3 Spanakopita

4 The Vacuum Cleaner

5 Wild at Heart

6 One Good Book

7 Volunteering

8 Relatives

9 Shoes

10 Water Shoes

11 Halva

12 After Christmas Shopping

13 Not Much is Changing

14 Happy Writing

15 Skeet Shooting

16 Vanity

17 Higher Education

18 Storage

19 An Old Spark

20 Smiling

21 A Mouse Story

22 God is Smiling

23 Blinkers

24 Prius

25 Leg Press

26 Five Guys

27 Vicks

28 We Live Till We Die

29 No Cheating

30 Understanding

31 Target

32 A Perfect Rainy Day

33 Cute Ears

34 Google Docs

35 Fleece Pants

36 MacBook Pro

37 White Spot

38 Boundaries

39 Redneck

40 The Jogger

41 Focus on Victories

42 Thrift

43 The Entertainer

44 Incompatible

45 Archival Quality

46 Valentine’s Tomatoes

47 A Hard Copy

48 Embarrassing Surgeries

49 Cross-Cultural

50 My Mother

51 Reports

52 The Nexus 6

53 Virtual Files

54 A Phone Watch

55 Unity Candle

56 Domain Name Server

57 Play Some More Banjo

58 Let’s Party

59 Fences

60 Ordinary People

61 Listen to the Birds

62 Impression Management

63 Best Auntie Ever

64 Hash Browns

65 Celebrating

66 A Girl Dreams

67 A Waste of Money

68 Phone Plans

69 Car Dent

70 Mr. Denny, is That a Purse?

71 Calipers

72 Not Costco Jeans

73 Think Happy Thoughts

74 Don’t Look Back

75 Looking Good

76 No Ordinary Water Bottle

77 The Log

78 Unscented

79 Car Wash

80 Free Flowers

81 Gullible

82 I Really Quit

83 Sisters

84 Clean Glasses

85 Good Times Camping

86 Speaking of Forgetting

87 A Gift Card

88 A Happy Life

About The Author

Dedication

In memory of my father.

A Happy Life:

Moments with Denny and Rosie

1 OK Google

OK, Google. Remind me to buy a turkey tomorrow.

What? I call from the bathroom as I rinse toothpaste down the sink. It’s bedtime. Denny doesn’t hear me. I bend over and put my toothbrush in the cabinet and realize he is not talking to me.

I remember now that Denny asked me earlier if he should buy a turkey. Turkey is on sale. It’s the week before Christmas. Denny is talking to his new toy, a computerized watch.

I turn off the bathroom light and walk into the living room. Between the bathroom and the living room I’ve decided—tomorrow I am going to start that book.

At a writer’s conference I showed an editor an excerpt of my manuscript, well, actually three excerpts. I had three segments with me so I thought I might as well go for broke.

She looked up at me over her reading glasses. I’m sitting there, not sure what to make of her, but I’m looking at her grey hair and thinking she should change hairdressers.

You know what I’m going to tell you?

Well, no, I don’t. I wait.

Forget the book.

I stare at her. Fifteen years of work. She wants me to forget it.

Start over. Start something new.

Simple. Just like that.

Just write.

In the living room I break the news to Denny about my plan to start a new book. Maybe I’ll start writing a page a day I tell him.

If you’re really serious about writing, Rosie, it would be a good idea to set aside a specific time each day to do it. If you write a page a day, you could have a book finished in one year. It’s good to be consistent and write at the same time each day. You’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish if you do that.

I acknowledge his suggestion and start for the bedroom. Then, impulsively, I break my routine. Instead of going to bed, I walk back to the living room, sit down in the corner in my favorite upholstered chair and open a book.

Denny is turning off the lights. He asks me to close the window blind behind me. He turns off my reading lamp. The room goes dark.

I’m going to read for awhile.

Oh, the light goes back on.

Denny sits down with his laptop, across from me, on the sofa. There is a faux leather ottoman between us. We both prop our feet up on the ottoman.

After awhile Denny interrupts me and asks if he can show me a two minute video. He angles his computer so I can see. Two guys sit on coolers opposite each other and take turns putting an elastic band around the middle of a watermelon. Suddenly the watermelon explodes and they go flying off their seats. Denny laughs heartily.

A few minutes later I ask Denny if I can read something to him. It’s a funny part but he doesn’t even crack a smile.

Can you read that again?

I read the two sentences again. Now he breaks out laughing.

I try and focus on my reading but before long I get up and go sit with Denny on the sofa.

It’s bedtime, he tells me as I lean against him.

I know.

He puts his arm around me. I rest my head against his bare chest and feel the soft coarseness of his copper and white chest hair on my cheek. I look over at his computer and see a picture of a phone.

How long can you look at the Nexus 6? I figure he has been doing this all evening, all week. He’s been talking about the Nexus 6 for over a week now.

It’s not the Nexus, it’s the case, he snaps shut his laptop. OK, so he was studying a case for a cell phone.

I snuggle in and get cozy next to him.

We might fall asleep here, he says.

Wouldn’t this be a great way to fall asleep? I just want to let those little endorphins kick around for awhile.

Two seconds later a hot flash hits me full force and I forget all about endorphins, or snuggling, or even sleeping. I head for the bedroom and strip.

Hot flashes make me desperate. My friend calls them flushes. Whatever.

Denny follows me.

I need to find my laptop, I look around the room in desperation.

Denny goes to the living room in search of my laptop. I’m pulling my nightgown over my head when he returns and holds out my laptop to me. I put it on the bed. My body feels like I’ve over-stayed my time limit in a hot tub.

Denny stands still in our tiny bedroom where there isn’t even room to pass and I realize he is waiting to kiss me goodnight.

Dutifully I turn to him and he kisses my forehead. I am not too distracted to notice. I kiss his lips.

He says goodnight and walks into the living room. Denny has taken to sleeping on the sofa due to my hot spells and erratic sleeping patterns.

It is December and the Canadian west coast feels like the tropics to me. I prop pillows behind my back as I sit in bed and open my laptop. I picture the woman with the hair that looked like she cut it herself and wonder about her credentials.

2 Ticket to Ride

I am in the shower, trying to rinse off the aches in my back, my neck, my hips. Mornings are like that.

Going back to work, after Christmas, I have so much on my mind.

Above the noise of the shower spraying I hear tinkling in the toilet. Denny is up. He doesn’t have to go to work this week.

I turn off the shower and squeegee down the wall tiles with a firm grip on the rubber handle.

A few minutes later my hair is dried, my make-up is on. I have a million thoughts running through my head for my story.

Would it help for you to record them?

I don’t think I have time to do that.

In Denny’s life there is always time for the things he wants to do.

I sit down in my chair and pick up my laptop. I will quickly get some notes down. It will only take a minute.

Denny says something and then stops himself. I shouldn’t be interrupting you. He is sitting on the sofa opposite me. He pulls a fuzzy brown blanket over his head. He is still in his underwear and I can see his large white legs sticking out from beneath the blanket.

I’m not here, I hear Denny’s muffled voice from underneath the blanket. Of course I’m not distracted as he continues to sit there, his ankles crossed and his feet wiggling.

His looks up and now he is wearing the blanket as a toga. I grin.

I’m going to write a silly book, like Miranda Spence. I point at the book I was reading yesterday.

You’re laughing already and you haven’t even finished the book.

I’m not really laughing, but almost.

I tell you, if you can make people laugh, they’re going to love it, Denny tells me. That’s what people want. They want you to make them laugh.

I smile some more. I get back to typing. Only now I have forgotten the main thing I wanted to remember to write, the reason I risked turning on my computer in the first place.

I get up and walk to the kitchen, where the thought originated, thinking this might help.

The bananas you bought yesterday are already over-ripe, I tell Denny. His doctor advised him to eat a banana a day for potassium.

I look in the fridge for something to take for lunch. Yesterday evening I polished off a tub of rice pudding and there is one more chilling in front of me. I reach for a carrot. Lutein, for my eyes. They have been burning lately. I grab a celery stick and a couple of radishes to go with my carrot and stuff them in a container and snap it shut.

We’ve long ago given up having normal breakfasts together, except on weekends, when Denny cooks. Denny could do one of those YouTube videos on how to cook breakfast.

I glance at the table. On the table is the Ticket to Ride game we played last night.

Denny sees me looking at the game. You won again yesterday. You’re better than I am.

No I’m not.

Yes you are. You’ve won every time except once.

I just have a strategy that works.

That’s why you’re better than me.

Not really.

Because Denny is not working today I have asked him to come to my office, later, and help me with my desktop publishing. Denny is a self-trained computer tech.

I also need him to do a couple of odd maintenance jobs.

If it’s ok with you, I think I’ll plan to put that thing up on the wall on Friday, instead, and anything else you need done on Friday.

Umm. Uh huh. That thing refers to the paper towel dispenser in the kitchen. He also needs to put waste receptacles in the ladies’ bathroom stalls. A lot of things have been neglected in the last decade at the non-profit I work for, including waste receptacles in the women’s bathrooms.

Denny agrees to come to the office today after lunch to help me with my computer. On Friday he will do kitchen and bathroom maintenance and replace finicky fluorescent lightbulbs that require the use of a stepladder. Denny likes to have a clearly laid out plan.

When I was hired in the summer it was assumed Denny was part of the package. So far he’s cool with it.

I go to the door and glance at the time on the microwave—9:40 a.m. I grab my things, kiss Denny goodbye and hurry down the hallway to the elevator without a minute to spare. This writing life will take some adjustment.

3 Spanakopita

I am cleaning out my purse and dumping stuff on the dining room table. Denny walks by and rubs my back affectionately. I stuff a fistful of receipts, Kleenex and handi-wipes into the garbage in the kitchen and return to the dining table. I pull a booklet I picked up at work out of my purse, Finding Peace at Christmas. I open it and read a line here and there and put it in recycle.

I take the passports out of my purse. They are still in there from the last time we crossed the boarder to visit the kids and to buy gasoline. Gas is cheaper there than in Canada. I put the passports safely away.

I fill my water bottle and I’m ready for work again.

Don’t forget your lunch, Denny says cheerfully as he brings me a tiny bag from the refrigerator and holds it out for me. The bag contains a spanakopita. Yesterday he came home with one spanakopita and a Butter Chicken samosa for me. Denny likes to surprise me with food treats.

It’s minus three out there, Denny warns me. I just about froze my fingers off yesterday when I went for a walk.

I forgot to get the keys made, I exclaim in dismay as I remember I was going to make duplicate keys yesterday for new tenants at work.

Can you get those done on the way to work?

Yes, but I’ll be late then.

Well, it’s part of work. It should be your hours.

Denny is right.

That’s the part I haven’t figured out—how to get paid for the extra hours I put in. Never mind the extra hours Denny puts in working for me.

The thing with a non-profit is that it runs on volunteers. With all those hours put in by volunteers, what’s an extra hour of free work here and there?

I decide to take Denny’s advice and I text my boss to tell him I’ll be half an hour late because I’m getting keys made. I grab my spanakopita and smile as I head out the door. Not a bad idea, Denny. The spanakopita and getting paid for working.

4 The Vacuum Cleaner

You want to see something really cool? Denny holds up his watch and starts talking to it. ‘I have a really cool idea of something to write. It’s all about a taco.’

Denny looks at me as he talks to his watch, the one he got for Christmas that connects to his Android phone.

And then I can go to my phone later in the day and it will have all those notes for me. Pretty cool, eh? He shows me his phone and sure enough, there is a message about a taco!

"Kind of like Star Wars, he says. I can go to Jason and say, ‘Agent 763489. This is 76. Nice stash.’" Denny is pretending with his watch, as he talks into it. Jason is our grandson. He’s at the age where he loves make-belief.

I follow Denny’s conversation as I sit in my chair and wait to begin my writing. It’s Saturday morning. Denny knows I want to start writing.

What do you mean by ‘nice stash’? I ask him.

Moustache—’stache.

I smile. Denny is proud of his own ‘stache.’ It is fairly prominent.

It wasn’t about the moustache this morning, I say, coyly.

Denny laughs merrily. He trimmed his moustache after he got out of the shower and came into the bedroom to show me.

He carries his cup of tea into the living room and walks up to me and wafts it under my nose.

Do you want to smell this?

Wow.

Makes you feel like you want to eat something. Denny is a coffee and tea connoisseur. I take a wiff of peach spice. It’s a specialty tea and a bit pricy, so Denny found it online and ordered a bag of loose leaf tea for a deal. We have a lot of peach spice tea now.

My computer is on my lap. I am waiting for Denny to finish talking to me.

When I was a teen my uncle Tom would pull