Tunesday : Friday I'm in Love

Friday I'm in Love

Written and Performed by The Cure

I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday I'm in love

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday I'm in love

Saturday wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday never hesitate...

I don't care if Monday's black
Tuesday, Wednesday heart attack
Thursday never looking back
It's Friday I'm in love

Monday you can hold your head
Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed
Or Thursday watch the walls instead
It's Friday I'm in love

Saturday wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday never hesitate...

Dressed up to the eyes
It's a wonderful surprise
To see your shoes and your spirits rise
Throwing out your frown
And just smiling at the sound
And as sleek as a shriek
Spinning round and round
Always take a big bite
It's such a gorgeous sight
To see you eat in the middle of the night
You can never get enough
Enough of this stuff
It's Friday
I'm in love

I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday, I'm in love

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday I'm in love

Despite my slow meanderings through my timeline, I realised that I had gotten ahead of myself and that there was a story from 1992 that I wanted to share; and going over a list of the hits from that year, this was definitely the top song that I wanted to add to my discography here. Today, I have a nineteen-year-old daughter who half believes that she rediscovered The Cure out of obscurity, but of course I knew them way back when - looking at a bunch of their videos with great nostalgia just now, I had to smile, recognising that all my friends and I back in the day looked just like these New-Wave-Goth-Punk-Rockers - but I was never really a fan until Friday I'm in Love came out: This was a much more accessibly poppy tune, and by 1992, I was much more accessibly poppy myself. 

As a short bit of background: When Dave and I got engaged, he had bought my ring by himself, choosing the cut and style with no input from me. Even at the time I understood that this is just the way it was done, but even so, he had made some particular decisions. If I could remove my rings, I might take a picture of them, but I'll just note that from a head-on view, my diamond is mounted on two cut out hearts, and the band itself isn't circular, but has two points meant to keep the ring from spinning. When Dave gave it to me, he explained that what most impressed him was how this ring looked in a set - the wedding band has the same mount and a smaller diamond, and as the salesperson had explained to him, it would look even better with a third ring - identical to the wedding band - which it would be appropriate for him to gift me for, say, our 10th anniversary. When we went to order our wedding bands together, I could see what the set was meant to look like, so I told Dave that he ought to have a wedding band with three diamonds on it to match mine: and as my diamond chip wedding band cost something like $120, and he was immediately set up with three stones, I warned him that I would be sorely disappointed if he expected me to wait ten years for another diamond chip. I explained that it would be much more appropriate for him to get it for our first anniversary, and he laughed like I was joking. I made sure he knew that I was not.

When our first anniversary came around in 1992, we decided to spend it in Vegas - the first time either of us had been there. I was still working at the bar and Dave was working at the theatre, so we had money, but we still did it on the cheap and if I remember rightly, Dave did all the planning. We didn't even have a direct flight from Edmonton: we stopped over in Salt Lake City, and then boarded a prop plane (yikes!) for the final hop. Our immediate impression of Vegas was crazy - with the clanging slot machines and the buzzing neon lights in the airport and then the palm trees (the first that either of us had seen in real life) lining the boulevard away from the car rental company - and we cruised along, gaping like yokels and craning our necks up to look for familiar casino signs. Dave had booked us into the Excalibur - which at the time was brand new and the very last hotel on the strip - and we parked the rental and I went for a nap; this had been a long day already with the stopover and an early morning takeoff and I wanted to be fresh when the night came alive. I slept for however long while Dave went to check out our hotel and when he came back, he woke me sadly and said that he had lost big at the casino - something like twenty dollars, and that was enough of a warning for him to stay away. (I tried some slots and some blackjack later myself, but that's a boring way to lose money; gambling has never had appeal to either of us.)

We were there for basically a long weekend, and I'm sure I don't remember everything we did, but I do remember going to some Legends concert, I think an amateurish standup show, we saw an Elvis impersonator in a pub, and hunted down 99¢ shrimp cocktails; cheap buffets. We drove out to the Hoover Dam, but didn't go on the tour. We walked through every hotel and casino we had ever heard of - marvelling at the ugliness of the gamblers, their sizes and outfits, their cigarettes and oxygen tanks, their impassive faces even as their machines spat out piles of coins - and played nickel slots ourselves for the free cocktails. A definite highlight: We walked out to the International Hotel because Dave needed to see where Elvis had his Vegas show, and as we were sitting in the bar, we noticed some hub bub not far away, and that's when we realised that they were filming a movie on the other side of the same big room. We saw the cameras and the crew, and followed the buzz of people to where Robert Redford and Demi Moore were just entering - and while we can't be seen in the background of Indecent Proposal, we know we're there.

So, whichever day was our actual anniversary, we got all dressed up and went out for a (likely discount) steak dinner. I don't remember what Dave actually gave to me, or what I actually gave to him, but I know I did not get my diamond chip anniversary band. And when I pointed that out to Dave, he was surprised: he had already told me that I would need to wait another nine years for my not exactly expensive third band. I pointed out to him that if I needed to wait another nine years, it had better be more than a chip. And while this was nowhere near a fight - it was much more playful than I'm making it sound - it just felt unfair to me: Dave had three diamonds already because I was supposed to have three diamonds, and while completing my set wasn't expensive, I was supposed to wait for it. Why? I needed to earn it somehow? With the years of my life? Let's see: $120 over ten years is $1/month; that's what I'm worth and that's on a layaway plan. And here's what was most frustrating: I made so much more money than Dave, yet some unspoken but binding patriarchal tradition dictated that I needed to wait and be presented with this ring instead of just going and getting it for myself. I had no say in what I would wear on my finger for the rest of my life and now I had no say on when I would get it. The whole thing sucked, but we did continue to have a great trip and a happy anniversary (he would never know how this upset me).

I could end my story there, but I may as well add what came later. When my brother Ken got engaged, he already knew exactly what Laura would want (they had discussed it, which was a good thing because she has unique tastes) and Ken went to a local jeweller and had a beautiful white gold ring with a central pearl and diamonds - it looks like a flower with the diamonds arranged in leaves around the pearl - custom made. When they were planning their wedding, Laura went to the same jeweller and had him make a wide wedding band with more diamonds that nests into the first ring, and the whole thing is beautiful and very her. When my other brother Kyler got engaged, he went out and bought Christine a huge rock on a platinum setting - hard to go wrong with that, and as expected, Christine loved it. We were kind of friendly with our neighbours in the second house we bought in Cambridge, and when we were over there one night, the wife was showing off the diamond encrusted eternity band that her husband had just given her for their tenth anniversary. The wife of another couple showed off her eternity band and said, "I told Mike I wouldn't wait ten years for mine, so he got it for me for our eighth." I looked at Dave to see if he was paying attention to what people actually do - spend the money on a tenth anniversary ring that they didn't have when they were first starting out - but it was hard to tell if the message was getting through.

When our own tenth anniversary arrived, we went away for the weekend (to Stratford to see some theatre this time; a bit more grown up than Vegas, Baby), and before we left for dinner, Dave handed me a ring box. He was so pleased, and I was so anxious, and when I opened the lid, my heart fell: there was the cheap diamond chip ring that Dave had always assured me would be mine one day. There's no way he knew I was disappointed, and he excitedly told me about how proud of himself he was for remembering his promise to me, how he went to the Spence Diamonds in Mississauga and they were able to access his original purchase order from their Edmonton location and make me an exact replica - right down to stone chip size and former finger size - and I beamed and forced it onto my finger; it hasn't been off since; couldn't pull it off if I wanted to.

That summer, when we made our annual pilgrimage to my parents' place in Nova Scotia, I was sitting on the dock with my sisters-in-law, watching my girls swimming in the lake,  and Dave came down and said, "Did you show them your ring yet?" Laura and Christine both squealed, "Oooh! A ring? Show us the ring!" And I was so embarrassed - for me, because it made it look like a stone chip was all I was worth after ten years of marriage; for Dave, for just not knowing any better - and I held out my hand and there was just the slightest of evaluative pauses before my lovely sisters-in-law said all the right things and let Dave tell them about his success at being able to exactly recreate my wedding band; the execution of his happy plan that was in play for over eleven years.

Maybe even ten years later, the pearl in Laura's engagement ring started to loosen, and as she had inherited some of her grandmother's loose diamonds after her Dad died, she went back to the jeweller she had used before and reworked her entire engagement ring; it is now 100% of her own design, and it's beautiful as a set with her wedding band, and very Laura. And of course Ken didn't mind: he just wanted Laura to be happy with what she was wearing on her hand every day. After that, Dave asked me if I would want to go have my own set reworked - we could certainly afford bigger diamonds now, and sheepishly, he noted that I could finally have a say in what I'm wearing every day. And know what? It just doesn't matter any more. I was unhappy about it for a very long time - and as the fashion over the years led to bigger and bigger rocks for what seemed like everyone else we ever met, I would usually keep my hands out of view in public - but I've come to accept that I will never own anything flashy; that it was shallow of me to ever think that my own value was reflected by the size of the diamonds on my finger. When Dave made this offer, I assured him that it was more important to me to have what he gave me (which, for the engagement ring anyway, was the best diamond he could afford at the time) instead of what might impress anyone else. And I mean that, completely.

And yet...there's something awfully old fashioned and patriarchal about a guy doing all the choosing for an engagement ring; by proposing for that matter; why so one-sided? I don't know how traditional my girls will want such things to be, but wouldn't it be better if they and their future mates could just decide, "Hey, we should get married. Let's go pick out some rings together." In a perfect world...

But let's go back to 1992: Dave and I were young and in love and spending our first anniversary in Las Vegas. We couldn't know at the time how our lives would play out - what good things would get even better, what bad feelings would cease to matter over time - but Dave has stayed just exactly the same: sincere and oblivious, with zero clue about what really goes on in my head. Which is actually a good thing - on a few occasions, I have nearly mentioned to him how disappointed I was on our first anniversary when I didn't get my ring; how more disappointed I was to wait all that time and then actually receive it for our tenth. That would serve no purpose but to hurt his feelings, and despite what I may sound like here, that is never my intent.

Monday you can fall apart

Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart

Thursday doesn't even start

It's Friday I'm in love