Survival without my wife - Day # 1

I never look forward to this ... the business trip ... I mean the wife's business trip. She calls this my "wife-cation". She is in San Francisco.

San Francisco, by the way, is the primo business trip location. Since I've been with Wells Fargo I've been to Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver (since I've moved here), Minneapolis (before I moved here), Charlotte, San Diego, Milwaukee, and Des Moines. And San Francisco! Oh what a destination.

Memorable trips: slamming my finger in a door in Des Moines! Falling in the hotel room on another Des Moines trip. Getting heat stroke on a Phoenix trip. Massive dust storm (Haboob) while I was driving about in a rented Mustang on another Phoenix trip. Almost being hit by a bus (I was riding in a car with a co-worker) on my Los Angeles trip. Debilitating back pain on another trip (forgot the city). On my first trip to Minneapolis about 19 years ago, I came in March without an overcoat. Fool!

Day # 1:

• I worked from home
• I filed an amended MN tax return (actually just did the paper work and printed. Kathee will need to sign so awaits her return!)
• I made the very painful appointment to have a dear pet euthanized and had a cry (Saturday)
• Cat vomited in the dinning room!
• Peanut butter sandwich for lunch ... Wendy's chicken sandwich for dinner
• I watched the film Argo on Xfinity
• At 9 pm I went out to to Caribou and brought home a large latte. It's now almost 10:30 and I know I will pay for this late evening caffeine extravaganza.

On life without the wife ... I think of the very funny 1965 Jack Lemmon film How to Murder Your Wife. The protagonist (Lemmon) is a cartoonist. He falls in love and marries the gorgeous cake lady, Virna Lisi. The film is a farcical comedy about marriage.

Here's a brief recap of the plot:

Adjusting to his new marital status, Stanley changes his Bash Brannigan cartoon from the exploits of a secret agent to a household comedy, The Brannigans, again drawing from his real life.

The strip turns Bash into a bumbling idiot and is wildly successful. However, Mrs. Ford continues to intrude on Stanley's lifestyle.

Increasingly irritated by the restrictions of married life, Stanley calls a meeting of his associates at his all-male health club. When Edna learns of the meeting, she telephones Mrs. Ford and arouses her suspicions about Stanley's activities. Mrs. Ford then sneaks into the club, with the result that Stanley is banned from the club for violating its "no women" policy.

Feeling a need to vent his frustrations, Stanley concocts a plot in his comic strip to kill Brannigan's wife by drugging her with "goofballs" and burying her in "the goop from the gloppitta-gloppitta machine" at a construction site next to their home.

As always, he enacts the events before drawing the strip, but after drugging his wife, he uses a department-store mannequin for the burial.

Mrs. Ford sees the cartoon describing Stanley's murder plan, realizes that her husband does not want her, and leaves without a trace.

After reading the cartoon in the newspapers, the police conclude that Stanley actually murdered his wife. Stanley is arrested and charged with murder, and his cartoons are used as prosecution evidence at the subsequent trial.

When the trial appears to be headed for a conviction, Stanley takes up his own defense and pleads justifiable homicide, appealing to the all-male jury's frustrations regarding their own wives, and is acquitted.

Stanley finds his wife in bed when he goes home. He has come to appreciate her, and, after he puts her wedding ring back on her finger, they are reconciled. Meanwhile, Charles meets Mrs. Ford's attractive mother who, like Charles, has a space between her front teeth. The film ends as Charles closes the door to her room in front of the camera so they can share an amorous moment alone.

Below are some images related to the film. Tonight I find myself the Stanley Ford without his bride! And I miss her. Please caffeine ... wear off!