有声 | 《炼爱》第11天—看婚姻如你自己的手或脚，不要一出问题就砍掉

第11日挑战

今天的挑战是：摆出“我珍惜你”的姿态，并微笑着去实践。

问题一：你选择以什么样的方式来表示你珍惜对方？

这次玩得很有趣。今天我们准备迎接飓风Patricia肆虐和随后的严重洪水（结果只是结结实实下了一场好雨，电闪雷鸣都没有），我的女儿女婿近来没有车开，所以我们就邀请他们来我们家过夜。

Anya准备来给我们烧顿Borsht（俄国菜），5岁的Angelina和2岁的Eppie就准备满屋子乱跑了。但是Helen有很多事儿要做，所以我们就安排她去图书馆，我和其他的孩子和Anya负责采购、烧饭、与外孙女儿玩耍。

这里要讲的其实和“炼爱”没有任何关系，我就是想讲讲外孙女儿好玩的事：早上我去接他们一家的时候，我把Eppie放进婴儿座椅，Anya把Angelina放进她的座椅，然后我们上车，关好车门。当我们刚刚全部坐定，Angelina（她叫我Ken，因为俄文的外公太难发音了，她说不来）用非常坚定的强调的口吻对我说：“Кен, в машине нельзя пукать! (Ken, v mashinye nilzya pukat!)” 意思是，Ken，你在车里不许放屁！！

真希望你能看到Anya的表情——只要有小小孩的父母都很熟悉那个表情，因为我们自己在某种场合下也曾有过那样的表情。你真是无从知晓，你的小小孩会在什么场合，对什么人，说些什么话。

我努力保持严肃，用同样一本正经的语气强调，“Совсем нельзя!绝对不会！”然后很明显，她觉得立场清楚地被表明，对话结束。我们一路上再也没有说这事了。

无论如何，我们到家，Anya开始烧饭，但是发现还需要买几样东西。我就让Sally（收养的最小的女儿）负责看顾小孩，我自己去超市。这，就给了我一个机会完成今天的挑战。

超市很大，里面除了生活用品，还卖很多漂亮的花。买完需要的东西后，我顺带买了一束美丽的红花，然后开车去图书馆。

开始有点迷糊，因为有三辆车长得很相似，都像Helen开的车，我又没记住车牌。总算找到她的车，我打开车门，用她的方向盘当花瓶，把花塞了进去，花的底部正好放在驾驶座的前端。然后我小心关上车门，开回家。

下午，Helen给我狂轰乱炸一大堆短信，都是关于花的，看来，我成功了！不过，我想满分是没有的，因为我是偷偷给她的，她没有看到我的微笑。

问题二：你从这次经历中学到什么？

我了解到，原来Helen是那么喜欢惊喜，以至于我给她真花而不是塑料花都没有关系，只要是惊喜。（舒舒注：其实他错了，不是“只要是惊喜”，得有亮点才行呀，从上班的路上带回来的还不算今天下大雨，悄悄去图书馆摆在我车上，这是亮点。）

THE DARE: Choose a gesture that says, “I cherish you,” and do it with a smile.

Question1：What did you choose to show that you cherish your mate?

I had fun with this one. We were expecting to get hit by Hurricane Patricia and to have terrible flooding (in the event we just got a nice lovely steady rain without even any thunder and lightning). My son-in-law and daughter don’t have a car at the moment; so we invited them to spend the night with us. Anya was going to make borscht for all of us, and Angelina (who is five) and Eppie (who is two) were going to be running all over the house. But Helen had a ton of work to do…so we arranged for her to go spend most of the day in the library while Anya and the other kids and I dealt with grocery shopping and cooking and playing with the grandchildren.

The next bit doesn’t have anything to do with the Love Dare; I just like telling stories about my grandchildren.

That morning I drove to Roma’s and Anya’s house to pick up Anya and the girls. I put Eppie into her car seat as Anya put Angelina into hers, and then Anya and I got in and closed the doors. And the moment we were all inside, Angelina (who calls me “Ken” because when she was very smalldyedushka, which is Russian for “grandfather,” was too hard to pronounce) informed me, very firmly and with great emphasis:

“Кен, в машине нельзя пукать! (Ken, vmashinyenilzyapukat!)”

Which is to say, “Granddaddy, in the car you’re not allowed to fart.”

I wish you could have seen Anya’s expression — but then, any parent of small children is familiar with that expression, as each of us has worn it himself on many an occasion. You just never know what a small child will say, or when they will say it, or whom they will say it to.

I managed to keep a straight face, and agreed with equal emphasis and solemnity, “Совсем нельзя! [Sofsyemnilzya, Absolutely not!]” And as she apparently considered the point made and the conversation over, we drove away with no further words on the subject.

At any rate, we got home and Anya started cooking, but there were several more things needed from the store. I left Sally in charge of Angelina and Eppie and headed off to the grocery store. And this gave me the opportunity to carry out the day’s assignment.

Our local grocery store is a very large store with a lot of things besides groceries, including lots of lovely flowers. So along with the groceries, I bought a nice big bouquet of redflowers,and drove to the library. There was a little confusion at first because there were three cars that all looked the one Helen was driving, and I didn’t know the license plate. ButeventuallyI figured out which one was hers. I got the door open and used the steering wheel like a vase — I threaded the stems through the steering wheel and rested the base of the flowers on the edge of the front seat. Then I carefully closed the door and drove back home.

Late that afternoon, I got a barrage of text messages from Helen about the flowers; so I was largely successful. But I don’t think I can get a perfectscorebecause since I was being sneaky about it, she didn’t see me smile.

Question 2：What did you learn from this experience?

That Helen likes surprises so much that I can even get away with wasting money on live flowers instead of plastic ones as long as it’s a surprise.