Lucky me
Given that it was Valentine’s Day yesterday, I thought I’d write about my cool hubby. He gets a bit of a hard time on this blog, featuring mainly when he’s wrong, funny or just plain not there. So let me tell you about some of the great stuff. I think that real love is about a lot of things - kindness, fun, loyalty and trust - but that freedom is also important, recognising that just because you marry someone it doesn’t mean you have to become them or do everything together. Steve is the coolest husband I’ve ever heard of in this respect. We already spend a lot of time apart because of his job, but he understands that I need my friends and sometimes need him not to be around. I have a few close male friends and he never suggests, or would even think, that I shouldn’t spend time alone with them. (The number of women I know who can no longer see their male friends because their husbands don’t approve is astronomical.) He never minds that I go out with my friends when I could technically be spending time with him, and no matter what time I get in or how late I am will only say “Did you have a good time? I’m glad you’re home.”
He puts up with my paints constantly strewn all over the dining table, doesn’t mind never being able to watch TV because I’m obsessed with The West Wing, and lives with my collection of Crown Lynn vases which he thinks is as ugly as sin. He puts out the rubbish, cleans the toilet, and saves me the Kentucky Fried vouchers from the junk mail. He tells me every single day that he loves me and that I’m beautiful, even when I’m at my most Sideshow-Bob-esque, writes me songs and buys me crème eggs, never expects me to make his dinner or do his washing, and does all the gardening by himself because I hate it. He understands the rubbish rule - that I won’t take the kitchen rubbish to the wheely bin in the dark and that he has to, and when he catches cicadas from inside the house never exploits my fear of them getting caught in my hair by chasing me around the house with them. He never lords his intelligence over me or makes me feel like I’m less smart than him (which I manifestly am) and will patiently explain things to me again and again. He loves kids and God and my family and is kind to old people, tells worse lengthy stories than anyone I know except my dad, and makes up great parody songs. To this day I can’t hear “Let it Be” without hearing… actually, in deference to my mother’s tender sensibilities, who will be reading this, I won’t put what I hear. Suffice to say, it’s about lawyers and suppositories. He knows about practically every musician who ever lived and can cure necrotising fasciitis (or at least, have a stab at it). He has a tender heart, a weakness for cookies and cream icecream, plays the guitar and bass and sax and ukulele and doesn’t mind that he can never have icecream on a cone because I eat the waffle cones like chips. He thinks it’s great that I wear high heels even when I tower over him, never says a bad word about anyone, even when I want him to, and pretty much to know him is to love him. I’m a lucky girl.
He puts up with my paints constantly strewn all over the dining table, doesn’t mind never being able to watch TV because I’m obsessed with The West Wing, and lives with my collection of Crown Lynn vases which he thinks is as ugly as sin. He puts out the rubbish, cleans the toilet, and saves me the Kentucky Fried vouchers from the junk mail. He tells me every single day that he loves me and that I’m beautiful, even when I’m at my most Sideshow-Bob-esque, writes me songs and buys me crème eggs, never expects me to make his dinner or do his washing, and does all the gardening by himself because I hate it. He understands the rubbish rule - that I won’t take the kitchen rubbish to the wheely bin in the dark and that he has to, and when he catches cicadas from inside the house never exploits my fear of them getting caught in my hair by chasing me around the house with them. He never lords his intelligence over me or makes me feel like I’m less smart than him (which I manifestly am) and will patiently explain things to me again and again. He loves kids and God and my family and is kind to old people, tells worse lengthy stories than anyone I know except my dad, and makes up great parody songs. To this day I can’t hear “Let it Be” without hearing… actually, in deference to my mother’s tender sensibilities, who will be reading this, I won’t put what I hear. Suffice to say, it’s about lawyers and suppositories. He knows about practically every musician who ever lived and can cure necrotising fasciitis (or at least, have a stab at it). He has a tender heart, a weakness for cookies and cream icecream, plays the guitar and bass and sax and ukulele and doesn’t mind that he can never have icecream on a cone because I eat the waffle cones like chips. He thinks it’s great that I wear high heels even when I tower over him, never says a bad word about anyone, even when I want him to, and pretty much to know him is to love him. I’m a lucky girl.