Their Home Will Be a Pleasure Palace

Shortly before Tara moved in last year, I christened my townhouse the “Pleasure Palace.”

This raised a few eyebrows, and had my mom admonishing me for “writing about such stuff” back when I was unemployed and desperately searching for work. (She also chided me anytime I mentioned raising a glass of alcohol to my lips or talked about my disdain for Corporate America, fearing those things might interfere with my ability to find a job. I proved her wrong, though – after a mere 20 months out of work, I was employed again. Ha!). Apparently, the Pleasure Palace moniker sounds much more exotic than it was ever intended. It does not refer to anything involving dungeons, leather, whips, blindfolds, or handcuffs, you perverts!

There’s simply no room for a dungeon, for one thing. I suppose we could use the closet beneath the stairs, but we’d be bumping our heads on the ceiling every time we went to flog somebody. Talk about a mood killer.

Actually, the name came about when I was reading the horoscopes. Early in our relationship, I wanted to know how compatible Taurus (me) and Leo (Tara) were, so I started looking up astrology information online. For the record, I don’t believe in that stuff, but back then I had lots of time to kill, being unemployed and all. When I wasn’t guzzling booze or rallying against Corporate America, I had to find some other pursuit to while away the hours, you know?

So I did some internet research, and one passage in particular caught my attention. It read,

Both Taurus and Leo are sun signs that are fond of the finer things in life. Both have refined sensibilities and will be great connoisseurs of good food, music and art. Their home will be a pleasure palace with exotic things and their match is good.

And just like that, a name was born. It’s technically the Leo Taurus Pleasure Palace, if you’re ever visiting and decide to “check in” on Facebook or Foursquare or whatever your check-in place of choice is these days. By the way, astrological skepticism aside, that description does sort of fit us to a T. We do share a love for good food and music. As for art, well…my coveted dogs playing poker tapestry met with resistance from Tara before she moved in, so the jury’s still out on that one. But she did get me a beaded peace curtain for my birthday last year, so I’m thinking our tastes aren’t too drastically far apart.

Either that, or she really knows how to humor me.

As for the rest of that particular article on compatibility? One section says, Taurus is an earth sign while Leo is a fire sign. The passion of Leo will be the perfect foil for the sensuality of Taurus. However, both will also have a streak of childishness. I don’t like that very much, so I’m going to stomp away angry and hold my breath until I’m blue in the face. It’s so not true! IS NOT!!

Anyway…

We’re expecting guests in a couple of weeks. Our friends from Sacramento, Monica and Matt, will be coming up for a visit. Even though I’ve known Monica for 12 years now (!), we have only ever spent a grand total of one hour together in person. Such is the power of the internet. They’ll be here for three nights and two days, and we’re eager to hang out and show them around our beloved city. I’ll write about our friendship more when they come up to visit.

Tomorrow though, we are taking an impromptu trip to Ely, Nevada. We learned on Monday that a very close friend of Tara’s family had passed away unexpectedly, and they’re holding a memorial-slash-barbecue for him on Saturday afternoon. Tara didn’t want to miss out, and I wanted to give her my support, so we scrambled to take Friday off, and will be driving the 840 miles to offer condolences and pay respects. And then, turning around Sunday and coming home. I haven’t been to Ely since before Tara moved in. It was last March, to be exact. And while this is hardly a pleasure trip and will be a very quick there-and-back visit, I’ll admit the lure of the open road is enticing to me, at least a little bit. Born to travel, baby.

I’ll check back in next week, when we’re back home and settled in.

Related articles

• Relationship Astrology 101 (sagmind.wordpress.com)