I was sitting on the couch, deeply involved in a television drama; Neal was reading in our bedroom. At the height of the characters’ emotionally fraught discussion, Neal strolled in, crossing in front of the TV to get to his bookshelf, quite absorbed in his task. One character emoted to another, “You can’t adopt a child the way you buy a head of cattle!,” and without looking up, Neal, focused on his shelves, responded nonchalantly, “You can on eBay.”

I fell off the couch, laughing.

How to make a little fun at home: Supposing your spouse or partner is in the living room, oh, say, at the computer, and you’re in the kitchen making final dinner preparations. When announcing to said SoP the time remaining until the meal is ready, walk in and say loudly, “Six of your Earth minutes left until –” and then stop abruptly and look stricken before recovering your smile and saying with a blank smile, “I mean, six minutes ’til dinner.”

He howled.

So I’m watching the DVD “Creating The Lord of the Rings Symphony,” featuring Howard Shore and his making of the LOTR score. As the orchestra started playing the Shire leitmotif and the camera focused in on the string section, I said to Neal — who was just entering the room — “There’s the first violinist!” He instantly replied in a proper British accent, “Oh, is it spring already?”

I was reading an article in this morning’s paper about the US Supreme Court debate over strip-searching of school students. When the argument turned to the issue of students hiding dangerous drugs “in their underwear,” my first thought was, “Oh so that’s why they call it ‘crack cocaine.’”

In the past few days, these conversations have taken place at Chez Attinson:

We’re watching “Jeopardy” and one of the questions refers to a “Berkshire Hathaway” as if it were a geographic feature. I turn to Neal and ask, seriously, “What’s a ‘Hathaway’?” and he responds, laughing, “Oh about 4 or 5 pounds!” I fall off the couch laughing.

We’re watching a “Star Trek” re-run and one of the red-shirt actors is just awful, awful. Neal, knowing I love theatre, asks me how I would ‘fix’ him and make him a better performer if I were in charge. “Seriously,” he asks me, “what would you say to him if you were the Director?”
I replied, “I’d say, ‘Son….’” and waited for Neal to get it. It took him a second, then he fell off the couch laughing.

We were in the kitchen just now, rinsing dishes, and Neal asked me if I’d heard the news story about the “naughty octopus,” and then goes on to tell me that an octopus in some aquarium somewhere turned on all the water and flooded the joint. Expressing amazement, I asked, “How?!” Neal said, “I don’t know, I think he turned a valve.” I replied, “Well if it was an aquarium it must have been a bi-valve.” He didn’t fall off the couch because we were in the kitchen, but hilarity did ensue.

Neal and I were bustling about in our tiny kitchen this morning when he accidentally ran into me. He was apologetic and I hastened to assure him that it wasn’t his fault….”We’re two large people living in a small space,” which I then riffed on by starting to sing the “Wish You Were Here” tune, “We’re just two large souls….” and then Neal picked it up and added the second line, after which I added the ending, until we developed our theme song:

“We’re just two large souls crammed into a fish bowl….
rear next to rear.”

Tonight we were settling into our couch positions to watch “The Colbert Report” — he at the far end sitting up, and me at the other end, trying to plump a stiff pillow. “This pillow is too hard,” I complained, punching and bending it. Now, in our household, almost anything can prompt a joke. Neal immediately responded with, “It’s–” and then abruptly halted. Sensing that he had run out of steam short of forming a humorous retort, I sort of giggled and said enticingly, “Y-e-e-e-s….?” With a knowing look in his eye, totally getting that I was on to him, he responded self-assuredly and triumphantly, “I think I’ve made my point,” at which juncture we both exploded into the joyful simultaneous laughter which comes only after twenty years of blending two wildly wicked senses of humor.

Neal and I, in bed last night.

Me: So you have a medical appointment at 4:45 p.m. tomorrow?
Neal: Yes.
Me, not knowing whose office he’d be going to: “Which doctor?”
Neal: No, I think he’s just a regular M.D.

Neal and I were watching Andrew Zimmern on “The Food Channel” – the guy who travels around the world eating pig’s testicles, blood pudding, and frog’s hearts, among other delicacies. I was commenting on the unusual spelling of his last name, telling Neal that it looks like the guy left out some letters. Neal looked at me brightly and replied, “Yes – he eliminated the middle ‘ma,’” pronouncing it with a flat ‘a’ as in ‘man.’ Oh, he’s quick.