Tag: Husband

Family, Friends, History, Humor, Husband, Weekend

How to Look Creepy in Front of Strangers

“When all of a sudden, people say, ‘Wow, you look nice,’ and carry on, it’s shocking.  Really awkward.”
– Nikki Cox 

Hey kids! Let's learn about history from your bizarre Aunt C.!

If ever you are participating in a group game night with a bunch of people you have only met once before and with whom you share absolutely no history, conversation, or shared interest (because they are part of your brother-in-law’s set and that one time you met them before was over a year ago), and you a playing a game in which you have to describe a person from history…who might not have been a palatable choice for a conservative crowd… 

…do not, under any circumstances, try to get your teammates to guess the name on the card you chose.  Skip it and go to the next card.  Trust me on this. 

Dear, dear. Now we're all uncomfortable, aren't we?

Example:
“Ok!  He’s an 18th century French writer who was extremely controversial.  Got locked up for years because of what he wrote, both in the Bastille and an insane asylum.  To be fair he was basically a filthy, vile pornographer who wrote about horrible things.  Word “sadism” comes from his name.” 

Example Response:
“Um, wow, C., you know a lot about this weirdo…”  

Blast.  I look a pervert.

Family, Humor, Husband, Marriage, PBS

Viewers Like You. Thank You.

“So Amanda stays with Darcy and Elizabeth stays in the modern world?  Why does she want to do that?”
“Birth control, indoor plumbing, and women’s rights?”
– J. and C.

Whether against his will or not, J. is slowly getting dragged into my PBS obsession, and it’s been fun to watch.

Pictured: a post-modernist moment. You may close your mouth now.

For someone who dislikes Jane Austen pretty strongly, he liked Lost In Austen quite a bit (granted, we both loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).  He laughed just as loud as me when the main character asked Mr. Darcy to take a dip in his pond so she could enjoy a Colin Firth-esque “post-modernist moment.”  He found the fact that Caroline Bingley was a lesbian hilarious, liked that Wickham was a good guy after all, and that Jane and Charles run off to America together.  One Sunday night he called back to where I was in the office and reminded me that Masterpiece was on in a half hour and asked if there would be another LIA installment.

She heard you, J.. Beware.

And when Dorcas Lane (of Lark Rise to Candleford fame) stated she doesn’t like to judge people, to the face of the man she’s refused to marry for having a scandalous, mistress-mongering past, and said man snaps back, “You’ve never had a problem with sitting in judgement before.  Good-day,” … it was incredibly satisfying to hear my red-blooded, football/basketball loving, hamburger devouring, man’s man, all-American husband cry, “Oh no he didn’t!  Burn!”

I’m sure he’d like me to reciprocate by learning to love basketball and Sports Center, but I’m not quite there yet.  I’ll work on it.

Family, Humor, Husband, Marriage

Money Honey

“Are you buying lunch, or am I?”
“I will.”
“Thanks.  Oh!  You also need to write me a check to replace the savings we used for car repairs.  Wow…I sound like a gold-digger.”
“You are a gold-digger.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You’re expensive.”
“I am not!”
“Well, someday, you will be expensive, so someday you will be a gold-digger.”
“No I won’t, I’ll be a trophy wife.  They aren’t the same thing at all.”
– C. and J.

Gold-digger!  The nerve of him!

Health, Holidays, Humor, Husband, Working Out

Self. Denial.

“You should give up hamburgers for Lent.”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“Well, I’m giving up something bad for me, so you should too.  Be supportive.”
“I’m giving up smoking.”
“You don’t bloody smoke!”
“See?  I’ve improved myself already.”
– C. and J.

I’m at a loss.  New Year, the time for such bursts of ardent revamping passed without so much as a guilty twinge.  The number on the scale creeping upwards gave me pause, but not enough.  The subtle tightening of my trousers was acknowledged, but then dismissed (though oddly enough my shirts displayed no such variance).  No no, friends.  What gets C. back into the gym, swearing off junk food and dedicating herself anew to salads?  

Alright, I'll work out. I'LL WORK OUT!

Lent. 

Of course I’m not going down by myself so J. has been bugged, hounded, and generally harassed until he agreed to give up Mountain Dew (though not all sodas, he would like it noted).  He’s also being dragged to the gym with me to keep me on the straight and narrow.  I got on an elliptical machine today for the first time in six months and clocked nearly three miles before doing a half hour of weights, so I forsee the traditional Lenten feelings approaching tomorrow: sorrow, remorse, and reliance on prayer to get one through. 

I’m already craving sugar.  Keep me strong, friends!

Humor, Husband, Marriage

Puppy Love

“Happiness is a warm puppy.”
– Charles M. Schulz

Fig. 1

Watching the Westminster Kennel Club dog show has had an unintended effect.  Out of nowhere, J. has told me he likes scruffy-furred dogs with beards (see Fig. 1).  He also showed a distinct fondness for large dogs with dragging jowls.

Fig. 2

On the other hand, I go for the more streamlined and sleek looking dogs (see Fig. 2). 

In fact the only things we can agree on is that we both like border collies, and both are seized with rampant puppy lust.  It’s a good thing we don’t live in a flat that permits animals, otherwise can you imagine the raging fight we’d have?

Editor’s Note: 
Fig. 1 now updated.  The first “scruffy dog” I displayed was insufficiently scruffy, according to J.  This is my point.

Family, Holidays, Humor, Husband, Marriage

Young. Love.

“I don’t understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine’s Day.  When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.”
– Unknown

We spent St. Valentine’s Day at church, scrubbing meat juices out of the fridge after a pot roast thawed and dripped everywhere, throwing away leftovers from (seemingly) nearly twenty years ago, leaving nothing but milk in fridge, celebrating Sadie’s birthday, eating red velvet cake at my godfamily’s house, playing games, and watching Masterpiece and the NBA all-star game.  I gave J. a gift certificate for a massage, he gave me this pretty thing I’ve been coveting.  Tomorrow we’re going to the Cheesecake Factory for the official wining-and-dining. 

I was never long on this holiday, nothing against it particularly, but thought it wasn’t the big deal some people make it out to be.  I’m coming around.

I think I'll keep him.
Family, Humor, Husband, Marriage

Pillow. Fight.

“A ruffled mind makes a restless pillows.”
– Charlotte Bronte

Apart from the subconscious boxing J. and I seem to engage in while asleep, it is not the only adjustment to be made sharing a bed.

Though we have little awake experience to corroborate this, morning evidence suggests that we also play blanket tug-o-war on an almost nightly basis.  Admittedly our second best set of sheets is pretty flimsy and doesn’t grip the bed well, but many is the morning we have woken up nearly smothered by a fitted sheet sprung free from its mattress corner.  We also must toss and turn a lot because some mornings we awake to find blankets kicked off to the floor, or gathered so tightly around our heads that our feet are poking out.  I suspect myself of secret malice because some mornings I wake up, completely overheated, but piled with most of the blankets, as if to keep J. from getting at them.

J. however, has sunk to a whole new low.  A few nights ago, I was deep in slumber when he started moving around a bit and woke me up.  Just an eyelid flicker, nothing too serious.  I’d just closed them again when suddenly…

Thunk!  My head dropped back and plunked on the bed.  I scrambled up in confusion but a quick glance to my left explained all.

J. had stolen my pillow!  Right from under my head!  In his sleep!

I dragged it back, which of course woke him up, disgruntled I might add.
“You stole my pillow!” I accused.
“No I didn’t,” he returned.
“Yes you did,” was my witty rejoinder.
“No I…oh…”
His own missing pillow surfaced, shoved up in the corner of the bed.

Jerk.

Humor, Office, Stupid People, Weird

A Slice of J.

“I love being married.  It’s so great to find that one person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.”
– Rita Rudner

The other day, J. came to my office earlier than usual and so he went to the break room to study for a while before my lunch break.  A bunch of the student officers congregate there between shifts or to eat so there was a group of them there at the time.

Helper, a notoriously unobservant young man, was among them. 

Helper is an interesting kid.  He spent several months trying to flirt with me, mostly by slinking up to my desk, lurking behind me for a while, and then informing me of what I was doing quite suddenly.
“You’re reading CNN.”
“Where’d you come from?!  Um…yes.  I am.”
The weirdest thing he did was hover silently one day while I went online to my bank account to pay my credit card bill.
“You use [name of bank]?” he drawled.
I jumped, as I’d had no idea he was there, and demanded why the hell he was looking!
“No reason.  Is that your email too?”
I shut my windows and pointedly asked him if he was on duty.
“Heh, yeah,” he gave me a ‘I-get-it-we’ll-talk-later’ look and meandered off.

This was two months after I’d gotten engaged and had this nice rock sitting pretty on my left hand that was supposed to protect me from the over-amorous attentions of clueless men. 

It never registered.  It wasn’t until a couple months after that he must have figured out I was getting married in the near future because he came to me while I was reconciling a report, lurked behind me for a couple minutes, and finally muttered, “So, you’re engaged.”
“For about five months, yes.”
“I see.”  He sat looking at me for a few more seconds before sighing and murmuring, “I won’t bother you anymore.”

He wandered off while I sat with my jaw slack, wondering where he had pulled this supposed relationship out of.  I don’t think he’s spoken to me since, though I have caught him glaring furtively before he whisks himself around a corner.   And once I overheard him once complaining to a co-worker that I had flirted with him, and the ensuing guffaws.
“Are you kidding?  She’s married, and she was dating the guy before she ever worked here.  Besides, she thinks you’re creepy.”

The reason for this back story?  Well, there J. was sitting in the break room for quite a while before Helper realized he had no idea who J. was and enquired.
“I’m J., C.’s husband.”
“C.?” Helper asked nonchalantly, “Who’s that?”
“You know,” Lexie said, “she works at the front desk.  Dark hair, green eyes, pretty?”
“Short?” offered J.

I still much prefer him to Helper.

Family, Holidays, Life, Marriage, Travel

Six Month Anniversary

“So, every once and while I look up and go, ‘Oh, hey!  We have a fan in our kitchen,’ because I forget about it and you have these short little arms that can’t reach.”
“Shut up!”
-J. and C.

We spent January 1, 2010 flying in from London at 2am, crashing at my in-laws so we wouldn’t have to drive home at that ungodly hour, sleeping until 10 (jet lag), and lounging around waiting for nieces and nephews…who didn’t show up until ten minutes after we left, reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (which I couldn’t put down, go read it at once!), and crawling pitifully back in bed for a fitful night’s sleep.

It was also our six month anniversary. 

Now, J. might have an awful penchant for cracking short jokes, think that me getting furious is about the funniest thing possible, and not do the dishes as often as I would wish, but he also tolerates my stupid TV shows, kisses me at every opportunity, and flat-out orders me to a masseuse when my jet lag weariness won’t abate.

And that, my dears, is a very nice sort of husband to have.  I am terribly fond of him!

(Editor’s note: YES!  England trip updates are coming, I just keep forgetting to upload the – very sparse – photos we took!)

Family, Home, Humor, School, Shopping

Why Yes, I Am Awesome, Thanks

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.  Specialization is for insects.”
-A. Heinlein

busy guyYesterday was the second day of school and I had already made a life changing discovery: my husband  will, for all intents and purposes, be dead to me for the next few years.  He’s in class from 8-12, then in the library from 12-5 when I’m done with work.  We go home, one of us contrives to make something edible, and then I take him back to campus for study groups/work on projects/meet and greet representatives from large firms trying to seduce the students early on/whatever else is going on that night.  Then he has homework until at least 11. 

So in response, I’m doing what I do best.  Mobilizing! 

Last night with Venice’s help (J. was at a firm reps meeting) I put together the shelving we bought for the kitchen.  Living, as we do, in the ghetto of our university town (it’s not that bad, just old.  Nearly fossilized, in fact) we have two cupboards in our kitchen, and the shelves in them are bowed with age.  Putting cans or even plates on them for as long as we have has been supremely of foolish of us, but necessity being the mother of desperation, we put off getting shelves for a while.  No more!  The kitchen is cleaned and organized and, if all goes well, it will stay that way.

I went shopping for food, inspired by the ever fabulous Hammy (Hat Tip to her for this idea!) and loaded up a bowl on our table with snacks.  I bough an armload of Ramen and instant macaroni and cheese for days when neither J. or I will be able to muster the strength to make lunches.  I’ve stocked up on crock pot ingredients which can all be dumped in together on my lunch break so we have something to eat during the approximate 4.6 seconds J. has at home.

Don't get be wrong...I'm sure a breakdown is coming...I just choose to ignore it.
Don't get be wrong...I'm sure a breakdown is coming...I just choose to ignore it.

Tonight I’m doing laundry and taking on the migratory herd of cardboard boxes that have been accumulating since our wedding, they’ve been making the rounds through our entire flat and have been grazing on whatever it is cardboard boxes eat in our office for weeks now.  Said herd shall be thinned, ruthlessly.  I already bought an office filing contraption and have moved critical things like marriage certificates, tax info, and the like in (partly to get it out of the pile on my desk, but mostly to keep J. from throwing it away again). 

Why the frenzy, you ask?  First of all a house in order is easier to keep in order long term, so if both mine and J.’s potential chore-doing ability has evaporated, let’s get the house put together before one of us has a breakdown rendering us incapable of sustained linear though.  Second because it really needed to be done, I’ve been putting the house off since we got married.  Third?  Because I am an AWESOME wife!  Who knew?