Ah, the marital duties.

Things have been somewhat grim in that department for quite a while now. Our house is kind of open plan and when the daughter comes home the spousal unit refuses to engage in the marital duties because he claims I make too much noise.

Noise? Me? I'm sorry, but that's impossible since, like most Canadian women of my generation, I busily conjugate irregular French verbs in my head during the marital duties. But the man has his notions, and so the marital duties ceased shortly before Christmas.

Then right after the holidays we had the chest pains incident followed by the painful arthritis like attack on my joints, pushing the whole notion of marital duties down to #1,422 on my List of Things I Really Wanna Do.

Just when I was feeling humanoid, he came down with a 'flu. Not that that would hold him back. Frankly, the man could quite easily be on his death bed and still be willing to perform the marital duties, but I was not willing to swap my creaky bodily fluids for his disease ridden bodily fluids until he shook the pestilence.

Which leads us to late last week, a day which dawned with the two of us in relatively good health. And thus, somewhat tentatively the marital duties were accomplished, not without a certain amount of trepidation because my joints are still tender.

"It's been a while," I remarked afterwards in the warm, happy post-marital duties glow.

"Three weeks and four days," was the reply. "Not that I would count or anything because that would be pitiful."

There was a pause.

"Not that I'm against pity sex."

There was something in the way he said that that made me laugh so hard that my ribs hurt.

I've seen enough divorce among my friends now to know that if sex is the engine of a relationship then the relationship won't last. But sex can certainly oil a relationship, make things run smoother.

When I was sick one of the many things I worried about was what would happen if I got so sick that sex wasn't an option anymore.

My spousal unit is a loving and loyal man, but he also has, uh, needs. When you marry, you promise each other "no matter what" but if one partner gets very sick, is it fair to ask the other to live in celibacy?

Well, fortunately, I don't have to answer that one right this minute. No, I'm still in the realm where conjugating irregular French verbs in my head will be a regular occurrence. But it might not always be that way, and that gives me pause.

The spousal unit hates it when I discuss intensely personal things such as the marital duties here. In an effort to curb me, he insisted that I append the words "wangitude, stamina and prowess" to any writing on the subject because he thought that would embarrass me into silence.

Embarrass me into silence. Tee hee. Really, you have to love the fact that a 50-something man is still capable of that level of naivet�.

--Marn

P.S. � A big thank you to the wondrously kind Nicole who in the midst of a very busy life took over administering the 500 mile posse when I was sick. Without her, there'd be no posse this year because I could not set up the page myself.

P.P.S. � On a day when I was feeling extremely blue a parcel arrived from bride-to-be Carrie containing a trophy inscribed with the words "Winner Ridiculously Obscure Weblog 2004". I still laugh every time I look over at it. Thank you for that, Carrie.