The Man

Nine and a half years ago.
A bistro in Granada.

We'd just finished an argument where he'd told me, "If you were in another country you still wouldn't be far enough away from me," and then, he was interrupting the enjoyment of my ox tail stew while he scrambled around the table.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for something to use as a ring," he said.

Then, he pulled a bit of tin foil (It's in my underwear drawer right now) off a wine bottle, fashioned it into a ring, and said, "Will you marry me?"

"When you get a real ring."

"No, I'm serious. Will You marry me?"

"Sure, when?" Keep in mind, that I had spent the whole week in Spain with my head tipped to the side, gazing at him and giggling like a fool. God, I was smitten.

"Next September. Then, I have time to change my mind if I need to."

"Yes, Yes, I will."

That was in October, six months after we had met, and we got married the next September. Possibly against my better judgement, I took the man forever, and I don't regret a single miserable or good minute of it.

To be honest I'm a terrible wife:
I hate to coddle people.
We have conversations that go like this: Him: Will you take out the trash. Me: (while bursting into tears) I went to college, why would you say that to me.
I've thrown and broken chairs, tables, phones, and other assorted things.
I have mood swings that don't correspond to reality.
The list goes on.

And he stays.

No one has ever made me laugh more. No one has ever made me cry til my eyes hurt or made me wish that my reality were not the one it is  more.

But I stay.

Why? Because at the center of all the drama, all the fights, we completely love each other.

And, God, do we fight. We once had a thirty minute screaming match about where the dog should sleep.
We don't have a dog. We're not planning on getting a dog, but we're damn passionate about where this dog is going to sleep, dammit.

More than once, I've wondered if it were a good idea to marry the other person who always wanted to be the last one to leave the party. Yeah, let's leave the club at eight in the morning and find the after club. Let's stay awake til ten in the morning then head to a pub. Let's....  who knows what we did that year we were dating. We were together for a year in London. Then, for the six months before the nuptials, he stayed in London, I went to St Paul, and we met at the alter.

I've said many times that I married him because he was the first person who made me want to wear sexy underwear, and if that's not a foundation for marital success, I don't know what is.

I got pregnant six weeks after wedding, and I'm not sure if being the last people to leave the party, any party is a skill that translates well to marriage and child rearing.

The year that he worked eighty hours a week and I stayed home with two kids under two and a couple day care kids, I said, "that was bad; if we made it through that, we'll stay together."

That year I had another baby, my dad died, we moved across the country, and he lost his job, I said,  "that was bad, if we made it through that, we'll stay together."

That next year when he still didn't have a job, I said, "that was bad, if we made it through that, we'll stay together."

And more than once, I've worried that we were staying together because we're both too stubborn to admit that we've made a mistake.

But I've thought about it a lot lately. Somebody advised me to write and process. So I wrote, I processed, and I found that many things led back to the man and how I felt about the man. And I feel like I like the man. Quite a lot, actually.

His partying skills mean that he can take any dull family evening with the five of us and turn it into a spectacular event. Music. Food. Dancing. He knows what to do to make us pull out the best most festive parts of ourselves.

I love a million and ten things about him.

I love how he apologizes by heading to the kitchen to make us both a snack. Who needs words? I've got a giant plate of food.

I love how after I've given the boys a hit on the shoulder and told them that they're okay after an injury, I find them cuddling up to him for real sympathy and first aid.

I love how when he's feeling confident, he can command a room full of people to listen to his tales and laugh at his wit.

I love how I can wave a little hand at him, sit back, and watch him win any political debate.

I love how when I hung up a piece of ripped sheet crookedly over the kitchen window, he said, completely un-ironically, "Oh, honey, how nice, we got new curtains."

And I love a lot how he gave me a little bit of quality cum that I was able to make into three of my favorite people.

He's not easy, I'm not easy, but I believe it's worth the fucking effort.

Desultory Tidbits

There I was in the kitchen getting in touch with my inner-geezer-bird by pouring myself a white wine spritzer and thinking to myself, Minger, it's been awhile since you've blogged. Then, out of the blue, my phone started beeping. It was a Facebook wall post from my ol' aunt Judy reminding me of my blog. Whoosh (that's the sound it makes when Minger's head explodes).Well, Kitty, I'm back and I'm ever so sorry to have neglected you.

Desultory Tidbit One:

My first date (it wasn't officially a date since I still had the tattooed Canadian in my bed) with my husband was in a bathroom. I asked him to meet me after his work shift. Then, wearing my best see-through white tank top, I cleaned the thick layer of gooey grossness off the shower wall while he watched. I feel, perhaps, that was a bit misleading. Sexy clothing and cleaning, what was I thinking? More on the man later as I have had him on my mind and am preparing a blog post regarding my great love for him.

Desultory Tidbit Two:

My almost eight year old still cannot read. I am not at all concerned about this fact and am utterly confident that when he is ready to read it will happen relatively quickly. However, we are going to meet my immediate family for a little get together next weekend. Between my siblings and their spouses and children, we number nineteen and we're going to spend a "fun" filled five days in Estes Park where hopefully no one will bring up the fact that Johnny can't read. More on that topic later.

Desultory Tidbit Three:

Here is more proof that the gods hate atheists. Instead of letting old age creep in with a nice gray pub (short for pubic hair not public house) or something innocuous, God has smote me with arthritis in the middle finger of my left hand. No more on that later. That's all I have on that particular topic.

Desultory Tidbit Four:

I've been wrapped up in pursuing my Ayn Rand/Nathaniel Brenden moments and the damage control regarding the execution of such moments, and all that sinning has distracted me from blogging. Oops.

Absense

When it comes to The Man, I'm not really an absence makes the heart grow fonder sort of person but more of an absence makes me want to pull out your heart, stab it with long knives and tap dance on it type of person. In case you're wondering, my favorite tap dance move is falling off the log which I do to the great effect of really looking like I am indeed falling off a log.

So after two weeks of not seeing him at all, I was ready to throw in the dish towel, punch him in the face, ignore him, and generally disregard him. (Yes, it was merely two weeks of limited sightings that were all fraught with grouchiness (from him obviously because I (yes I did just put a parenthetical thought within another parenthetical thought and now that I've started I could do this indefinitely) am always nice) but I'm a little on the over-dramatic side.)

Last night, the boys and I picked him up from work at midnight (after his 14 hour day) and made a quick trip to the grocery store. By one, the boys were tucked in and sleeping and our glorious weekend had started.

As is usually the case when I haven't seen him in the while, we had a great conversation that occasionally bubbled into an argument and I'm sure I cried a couple times because I'm prone to do that.

He's here now, and I've remembered that I actually like him so I'm going to just stare at his face for the entire weekend. Well, at least for today because tomorrow he has to go in to work and prep fancy shit for wine dinners and I have to go out for my Monday night festivities-to-guard-my-sanity (it's a new feature in my life).

But at least for today, I'm going to stare at his sweet face and follow him around like a lost puppy. We might even throw bits of dead pig at each other. I'm an dead pig round one so it's time to walk to the kitchen, flip some pancakes and cook some sausage.

The Muted Orchestra and My Not So Dreaded In-Laws

About a decade ago, I was in Sydney with my then boyfriend, that one with the Canadian flag tattoo, the inverted nipples, and the really funny jokes. We sat on the beach at day and did telemarketing at night. For some reason or another, we decided to move back to London. We arrived on a Monday, and on Friday, I fell head over hells in love with the largest tallest, back-hairiest English man on that little island. Farewell, jolly Canadian.

I never actually saw them, but I am sure there was a massive orchestra following us around for at least a year.

I don't hear that orchestra as much now because their sounds have been largely muted by piles of bills and shouts of children. However, they always play a little louder when my in-laws are around. One of the things I love most about The Man is his family.

His father is a garrulous, old retired gamekeeper (ala the antagonist in Danny Champion of the World) who gave my kids the giant ear genes of which I'm so fond. His mother, unfortunately, passed away years before I came along. His step mother is an absolutely amazing retired palliative care nurse, and if I had to choose a personality to have other than my own sparkling personality, I'd choose hers.  And, oh, the cadre of brothers and steps brothers... I've long entertained the idea that it would be swell to live in a country torn by civil war where I get to sequentially be widowed and marry my merry loins through the lot of them.

Luckily, these too deep affections for the brothers have never been a problem because I have always followed the advice that my then best friend, the best thing to come out of France since stinky cheese, gave me before I spent my first Christmas with their family: "Minger," she said, (imagine this statement in a darling French accent coming out of a beautiful Audrey Hepburn face) "Minger, do not get drunk and hit on his brothers." I have managed to follow that great advice for a decade.

Now, I can hear the orchestra a little more clearly because one of The Man's brothers is in town. Whenever his family is around, his accent gets a little stronger, and he seems comfortable and engaged in a way that he never is around Americans. I too often forget that I ripped The Man from his island, and that everything that seems weird to me here must seem doubly weird to him. I wish that I could see them all more often, but mostly, I wish that I could see him see them more often because it's really heart warming to see him so animated.