"It beats a piece of moldy bread out of the garbage, doesn't it?" David asked me yesterday afternoon. We were sitting in the front row of a luxury suite at the Network Associates Coliseum, watching the Oakland A's beat the sweet screaming Jesus out of the Tampa Bay Somethingorothers.

I had a Chicago Style hotdog in one hand, and a little paper basket of garlic fries sitting on my lap.

David's arm rested at the back of my chair, and he was stroking the nape of my neck with his index finger: leisurely little swirly strokes ... around and around ... around and around ...

All of this was exquisitely pleasurable.

"Nmmph," I said ... my mouth full of sport peppers, kosher dill and bright green relish. "Thish ish grmph." And it was true. Thish really wsh grmph. And I don't even like baseball ... OR hotdogs. At least, not that much.

David beamed.

This is a favorite *theme* of his: pointing out the difference between the way my life is today -- sober, functional, happy, filled with interesting experiences [and mostly-nutritious food] -- and the way it was just two years ago, when I was sleeping on a leaky air mattress, waiting for my roof to collapse ... and pulling stale food out of my trash.

[David loves The Stale Bread Story. Of all my tales of misery and goofy dysfunction, during those pre-recovery days in the Tree House, he loves this one the best. And he uses this one the most often to illustrate his point. Maybe because it's so poignant. Or maybe because it's so ridiculous. Or maybe because he was on the phone with me long-distance that morning, when I was hungover and hungry and broke ... and desperately craving a scrambled egg sandwich ... and I plucked the old slice of bread off the top of my kitchen trash and asked him, "If it's green around the edges but not in the middle, can I still eat it?" And he gently, with an absolute lack of judgement in his voice, asked me how it was possible that I'd been able to afford a box of wine the night before ... but couldn't spring for a loaf of bread the next morning? That was a watershed moment for me. A few days later I was dumping that last bottle of Mountain Chablis down my kitchen sink.]

I don't mind. I know that it's just as important for David to do the reminding as it is for me to be reminded. It reinforces two recoveries at the same time. It makes him feel all validated and proud and stuff.

Plus he gets to hear me talk with my mouth full.