Ten cute things about my beloved:

1. If he hasn’t seen me in more than, say, twenty minutes, he greets me by yelling, “Mmmmmushlette!”
2. He almost always helps me put the groceries away.
3. He likes to cuddle.
4. I get more fantastic, awesome foreplay in a month than all the rest of you bitches get in a year. (Smirk.)
5. He fixes my car. (Sometimes.)
6. He giggles. Is there anything cuter than a grown man who giggles?
7. He often hands me his entire paycheck in cash. It’s nice to be trusted, innit? (Of course, he usually asks for a bunch of it back later, but that’s another post.)
8. His predictions about human behavior are so right on as to make me suspect he’s psychic. If he claims to dislike someone, they invariably do something indescribably horrid within the year.
9. He lets me hang out with ex-boyfriends and/or stay out all night, and he never gets jealous or bossy or weird. (In other words, his trust is complete.)
10. He’s covered in freckles. I adore freckles, since I don’t have any.

While I could go on for hours about the things he does that drive me totally apeshit (and I have), overall he’s a fantastic man and a great husband.

Plus he married me, which no one else was willing to do considering what a total spas I can be. Snort!
——–

…to me! And my beloved!

Apparently we’ve been married – what, four, five years now? (I think we got married in 2001, so that would be four years. I know it sounds pretentious to not remember what year a girl was married, but I seriously don’t. I’d look it up on our marriage license, but that’s all the way downstairs fer chrissakes.)

All I gotta say is it seems way longer than four years. Snort!

I blew off Gita class last night, went to the store after work for about $9 worth of sundries, and drove home. I made pasta and salad for dinner, and my redheaded man came home in a MUCH better mood. (As a matter of fact, he even got laid. Lucky boy.)

I told him he was a total asshole the night before and he said, “Yeah I guess I kinda was!” and giggled at me. He GIGGLED. God I love redheads, cool-looking psychotic things that they are.

I told him yet again he should wear sunblock, but he won’t do it. He works construction, fer chrissake, and is apparently spending quite a bit of time out in the sun lately. He’s turning that color redheads turn: a painful, glowing fuscia that screams “HI THERE! I HAVE NO MELANIN! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PUT SUN BLOCK ON ME!!!”

Last summer (or was it the summer before?) I bought him a tube of high-SPF, unscented, waterproof sunblock. It’s still sitting on top of the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom.

I will have no sympathy for him when he gets skin cancer on his red neck.

Okay, okay, I probably will – seeing as how I love him so and all. But STILL. Such a stubborn fucker, that man of mine! (And me so FLEXIBLE and REASONABLE.)

My husband was in a really grumpy mood last night. I mean really grumpy. So grumpy, in fact, that I don’t believe we said a single word to each other for the three hours before bed.

Ah, life with a redhead!

I was napping when he got home from work, because I was having some anxiety and if I can get to sleep for a bit it takes the edge off. I woke when he got home, came downstairs, and we had our usual “How was your day?” conversation. He was cranky. He said he was hungry and that he needed cigarettes because I had stolen his pack the night before.

Stolen? We’re married, dude. I can’t steal your shit. Plus you TOOK the pack I’d stolen and left me the last few in your old pack this morning. “You always take my extra packs,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I had this one over here on purpose,” he said, indicating ‘his’ sidetable in the living room, implying that if they’d been communal smokes they’d have been in the usual place on top of the fridge, when we both know they never would have been because he’s never in his life bought extra cigarettes and left them on top of the fridge. “I knew I wasn’t going through Fairfield today to buy any,” he said. “So I put them here.”

(We smoke American Spirit cigarettes, and they’re not sold everywhere. There are three places in Fairfield to buy them, and one place in Ottumwa. Other than that, they’re hard to come by in rural Iowa.)

Ah. I see. So you can take my cigarettes at will, but I’m a bitch when I take yours.

Noting his shitty mood and bad vibe and trying to be flexible, I said that I could either cook or we could go to town for dinner since we were going for smokes anyway, and added that “if we went to town, we could go to the Dairy Bar for malts!”

Moments later he was on his phone in the driveway while I loaded the dogs into his truck. Then I got in myself, and he finished up his call and got in too. Less than a mile from the house, he complained, “I don’t know where the fuck you think we’re gonna eat, with two dogs in the truck and the windows won’t roll up.”

I smacked myself in the head, grinned, and said, “Oh shit, I’m sorry. I forgot. We’ll have to get drive-thru.”

“I don’t want to eat drive-thru,” he retorted.

Brett’s truck has electric windows, and the driver’s side window no longer rolls up. This is why electric windows suck.

“Did the other window stop working, too?” I asked.

“No!” he growled. “You think rolling one up will fucking help keep Meathead in the fucking truck?”

“No,” I replied icily. “I was just asking if both windows were broken.”

I turned to look out the window. The rest of the ride to town was silent. I did not point out that he’d watched me load the dogs into the truck, nor that we were so close to home at that point that he could just TURN THE TRUCK AROUND AND DROP THE DOGS OFF AT HOME.

In town, we stopped at Mi-T-Mart for gas and smokes. I gave Brett half the cash I had – money he’d given me several days earlier for the household and which I’d been hoarding – so he’d be able to buy lunch for the rest of the week.

Driving back down Burlington, I made another attempt and said, “I’m not that hungry. I’d be happy to sit in the truck while you went in to eat somewhere. I really wouldn’t mind.” This was something of a sacrifice on my part, because I knew I had nothing new to read on my PPC and would have to spend the time re-reading something I’d already read, but I was willing to do it.

Brett said, “Dairy Bar?” and pulled into its driveway and parked.

Digging through my purse, I asked, “Vanilla malt?”

“Yeah,” he said, attempting to sound decent. I think my honest offer to wait for him to eat had actually hit home.

So I stood in line with a bunch of appallingly young, healthy, athlete-type high school kids and was eventually able to purchase two large malts. They cost $4.98.

Returning to the truck, I handed Brett’s malt to him, and we were driving again. Neither of us said a word the whole way home. I went immediately to the kitchen and made him pork chops with onions, thyme, and garlic, and a fava bean salad with chopped tomatoes, peppers, feta, thyme, olive oil and red wine vinegar. I served him in the living room (he won’t eat at the table).

He ate. I finished my butterscotch malt.

I tried once or twice to comment on the show we were watching – some Discovery show about the technology of logging – but while he made eye contact when I spoke to him he didn’t bother to reply. Eventually I went outside to read and smoke a couple of cigarettes. He’d gone to bed by the time I came back in.

Here’s hoping he’s in a better mood tonight. Yesterday was his first day on a new job, and if he’s like this for the next six months I’ll have to poison his meatloaf.

Brett seems convinced that we’ve never before done what we did last night, which was go to bed for the purpose of Doing It, and then not Do It.

It’s not that we didn’t do anything, it’s just that we never got around to Doing It. Am I making myself clear? WE GOT DISTRACTED.

ALONG THE WAY. As it were.

After some cuddling and rearranging of bedding, during which my beloved offered to buy me dinner in any nearby town of my choice, we got dressed. And Brett said, “I don’t think that’s ever happened before.”

“What?” I asked. (I was, of course, fairly certain that all of it had happened before. Unless something spectacular had happened to him that I’d failed to notice, which was unlikely considering where my head had been at the time.)

“That we came up here to have sex and we didn’t.”

“Ah,” I said, finally tracking. “You mean intercourse.” (I even twitched my fingers on either side of the word, like quotemarks, because while it’s a fine word for your doctor you just can’t say “intercourse” seriously in front of someone who just put his–well. Anyway. Slang is just so much earthier.)

“Well, yeah. But I don’t think we’ve ever done just that before. Well, unless we had to.”

“Dude, we’ve been together for six years!” I exclaimed. “There’s simply NO WAY we’ve never done just that before. None.”

He shrugged.

I thought about it. “But, but – really? Do you honestly think we’ve never done just that before?”

He didn’t think we’d ever done just that before. You know, unless we had to.

While driving to town to get drive-thru – since it was well past nine and I was starving – I thought as furiously as I could but had to admit defeat when I realized that I couldn’t remember a single time we’d ever gone to bed and “just,” you know, didn’t manage to at least nod in the general direction of the Main Event, either.

I just don’t see how this is even POSSIBLE! We’ve been getting naked together for Over. Seven. Years! How could it be that we never had such an interlude before? Didn’t we date, back at the beginning? HOW CAN THIS EVEN BE POSSIBLE?!?!

Now I wish I’d blogged more about my sex life, so I could look it up and say, “Look, we spent weeks on this back in 2002!” and feel relieved. I’m totally freaked out. I mean, what if we’re running some kind of oral-only deficit, and it all comes due at once?!??

Right now I’m sitting at the computer catching up on my blogroll, and obsessively refreshing a hot tub forum page to see if anyone’s responded to my query about our new hot tub.

Yes, I said “new hot tub.” My adorable-but-totally-redneck husband went out and bought a spa that hasn’t worked in a couple years and which has been allowed to freeze with water in it. I don’t doubt his ability to make the thing work… just his desire to actually do it.

I find I have some form of spring fever that makes me TOTALLY AGRO LATELY whenever he brings home more junk… This is the time of year I want to be getting rid of junk! I am so horny to get the dumptruck back from whatever job site it’s parked at and FILL THAT BASTARD UP with crap and drive it off to some innocent landfill!

The shit we’ve (okay: HE’S) accumulated out here is simply astounding. ASS. TOUND. ING.

Do you know that there are (and have been for two weeks) a DEEP FREEZE and a filing cabinet in my parking space? Brett dragged ’em home one afternoon and they haven’t moved since. They’re both free, old, heavy, and rusting. And he probably won’t even acknowledge that they’re even really there until I pitch a fit of sufficient decibels that he feels some form of activity would be the best way to get me to shut the hell up. Argh!

The test to tell the difference between optimism and pessimism has always been the glass test: is it half full, or half empty? I think a better test is this: do you really think that everyone is stupid or don’t you? I’ve been spending a lot of time surfing blogs (generally by clicking something at random from Recently Updated Sites at movabletype.org and seeing where it takes me) and there are a lot of interesting humans out there. (Like this one. This kid is so funny I snorted tea on my monitor.)

I went to Tahmi’s house to play yesterday. She and the ever-gorgeous Mr J have a rescue living in one of their Broncos; he’s a less-than-a-year-old, emaciated, stunningly handsome and shy white German Shepherd. (Note: if you google “german sheppard” you get two hundred thousand hits. Can NO ONE spell?) He had some kind of food poisoning and is on meds and a four-meal-a-day weight gain regimen. If you want a really beautiful rescue, call them up – rescues are the best dogs to have IMO because they’re so abjectly grateful. (Bindu’s basically a rescue.)

Tahmi and I had a fun afternoon, talking AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE (even to the extent of leaving the bathroom door open whenever either of us went so the conversation could continue uninterrupted) and looking at fiber catalogues. And she gave me some shelves. And she told me that according to her recent feng shui class, I need to move my bed because I’ve got my head pointing a foul direction.

Oh, and I need to move my altar a quarter of a direction.

Feng shui had nothing to say though about why my cat, Buz McFuz, is a crack-head. I keep telling him, “Dude! CRACK KILLS!” and in reply he just runs up the walls and back down and attacks the kitchen rug and gallops around the stairs and then says in his little I’m-not-on-crack kitten voice, “Mew?” Damn lying stealing crack-headed cat.

My sleep schedule is all screwed up. This is not particularly relevant to anyone but me unless you want to see me during the day and I’m napping. A nap sounds good about now, actually. Hey! My husband just drove off and didn’t tell me where he was going, the stinker.

Last night I left work and drove home listening to stuff from my iPod via my new iTrip FM transmitter, which is groovy but doesn’t sound half as good as XM radio.

When I got home I was exhausted. The flu isn’t entirely over yet, I guess. I nuked a frozen burrito, ate it, had a thermos of echinacea tea, and waddled bedward.

Five seconds after I dropped off to sleep, Mr. Brett came in and woke me up by flicking the overhead bulb on and off. “Why’d you do that?” I croaked.

“To see if you were here.”

“Where else would I be?” I said, and hacked up half a lung.

He came in and flopped down beside me on the bed. He made a few efforts at cuddling, but I’m fairly sure he was hoping to get laid and felt miffed to discover I was out for the day.

I drifted off to sleep again, only to be woken later by the damned television. I mumbled something about it being way too loud, but he couldn’t be bothered to get up and actually do anything about it. When I realized whatever movie was on was going to insist on continuing to indulge in automatic gun fights, I sighed heavily and got up.

I went downstairs and the entire house was on. All the lights were on, the TV was on, the stove was open, and in general Brett had just left everything running and come up to fall asleep in MY bed because I was tired.

Ugh.

I made the rounds, turning off and shutting down. I finished the last cup of tea in my thermos. I went back to bed.

And I woke up again at 2:30. Boing! Wide awake! I’m not like Brett, I can’t sleep from 7:30 until 6:00. I’m lucky anymore if I can sleep eight hours in 24.

I got up and went back to bed about three times, then gave up and read in front of the woodstove until 4:30, when I went and crashed out on the office daybed until my alarm woke me up at 8:00.

Today I feel much better, and am coughing less. I’m still tired a little, but I’ve been keeping the dairy to a minimum and I think it’s helping. No doubt when I get home in good shape I’ll have a giant redhead wanting to lie on me for for awhile; I guess I’ll just have to suffer through it. Snort!
——–

Since I was blogless at the time, you haven’t read about how my beloved loaded the Jeep onto a trailer barely able to support its weight and ferried it to Haney’s in Libertyville one fine day.

I’ve been without a vehicle for two weeks, but I got the Jeep back today, with the hole in the tire patched and a new thermostat! And do ya know what it cost? Thirty-six bucks, my people! THIRTY SIX BUCKS!

We celebrated the Jeep’s return to the family with a lovely cocktail at the Dew Drop. I left after one since I was driving, and I had to negotiate the sheet of ice we call a driveway in 4WD, but I have wheels again! Hooray!

We had nuked left-overs for dinner. Lasagne, a steak for Brett, and a Caesar salad I whipped up. There are few things in the world finer than half a lasagne in the fridge.

I have wheels! Yay!

Friday, the biggest party night of the year, we did nothing.

Brett fell asleep on the couch ’round eight; I read and listened to my iPod and wandered around the house amusing myself and probably fell asleep sometime after midnight. I really don’t recall.

Saturday, with the PlayStation on the fritz and his paycheck burning a hole in his pocket, Brett talked me into going to Walmart to pick up a replacement PS2. There wasn’t one, of course – the entire nation is out of PS2s this soon after Christmas. But somehow we decided to go to Iowa City, to Best Buy, where Brett became the proud daddy of a Delphi XM SKYFi2, a stereo connetion kit for the Hillbilly Boom Box, and a lovely quarterly subscription to satellite radio. He installed it in the parking lot outside Best Buy, where it was getting dark and raining heavily.

He loves it. HE LOVES IT. The man spent two hours Sunday morning sitting in his truck playing with his SKYFi.

I got a cigarette lighter power cord for the iPod, and a CD – Todd Rundgren’s Liars, his first all-new album in over ten years. (I went home and immediately fed it to the iPod.) I love Todd. Todd is Godd. The track “Soul Brother” is fucking PRICELESS.

On the drive to Iowa City, I knitted my iPod a cozy. Yes, I know this is totally gay but I don’t care. (And neither do these people.)

All in all, a furiously fun day, and a good augury for the year to come.

Sunday we went and bought groceries at (ahem) the Super Walmart in ScrOttumwa. Now, I realize Walmart’s disgusting and that I shouldn’t give them my money. But. I got a cart so full of groceries it was difficult to steer around corners and it only cost me $125.00. There’s no way in HELL all that stuff could have been produced for $125.00… the cardboard, plastic, shrink wrap, ink, printing, die cutting, transportation… not even counting the actual FOOD ITSELF. How the hell will the economy survive if goods sell for less than it costs to produce them?

Or does this price trough exist only to kill the competition? Will prices go back up as soon as there’s nowhere else to shop?

Either way, the old kitchen is stocked with yummy foodies. I don’t know if I should feel elated or shitty. *shrug*

Monday I cleaned, listed a tool to sell (on eBay) for Brett, chatted heavily with Keef over IM, got wood (and kept the stove nearly closed down to conserve it since we’ve only a few days left) [CALL ME IF YOU KNOW WHERE TO GET A LOAD OF SPLIT WOOD, WE’RE SO ALMOST OUT IT’S NOT FUNNY.], made tea in my new Nissan thermos and drank it, and made a killer meal for my beloved: Italian sausage, pesto, and a killer baby spinach-onion-carrot salad with lemon vinagrette and bleu cheese.

Ah shit, I need to fix a customer’s web site. (Yeah, I’m at work.) Ciao!

. . . . .


Song: Soul Brother
Album: Liars
Artist: Todd Rundgren

Yesterday was Hell Day.

Hell Day is what we call the day every year when we go last-minute Christmas shopping at the Hell Mall (aka the Coral Ridge Mall, Coralville IA) to spend hours trying to find parking places and rubbing elbows with a million zoned-out Coneheads and getting testy with each other. Snort!

Mr. Brett was already in overwhelmed-and-grumpy mode before we’d even found a parking place, because I’d wanted to eat first and the parking lot at Olive Garden was full to overflowing, and then he’d driven us to Mondo’s which had parking places but a half-hour wait. We’d already started to bicker before we even got out of the truck, and I’d suggested that he go sit in Bennigan’s while I hit the three stores I needed to go to. He capitulated and had almost decided, I think, to slog through the shopping with me. He’d even made me repeat three times what my list contained and what stores I wanted to go to!

Less than five minutes after entering Target, we ran into Misty! Halleluia! She said Steve was at the bar, that she was going there soon, and that we should meet them. Brett went off to see Steve immediately (since I’d basically called him a name for being so uptight about shopping) and I bought some things and went over to meet them. I had a cocktail on an empty stomach and it really took that shopping edge off!

We all agreed to meet at 4:00 and have an early dinner at Olive Garden. Misty called to make a reservation, but they weren’t taking any. Misty took a picture of Brett and me with her trick new cell phone and I had her email it to me – so that’s us at Bennigan’s.

After that lovely cocktail, we split up and finished our shopping. I hit two more stores, and Brett hit two more stores, and then he called me and drove the truck over to the front of the store I’d ended up in. We called Misty and told her we’d go and get a table, and went to Olive Garden.

We ordered drinks and an appetizer, and then our dates showed up and we proceeded to have a wonderful fun meal! (We never go out to dinner in IC with friends. Never. It was freaking awesome.) I had so much fun! We brought home leftovers that we ate at about one in the morning. Yum!

Brett told me he’d gotten me a Christmas present, and after I’d asked him about six times what it was he said he’d bought me a tiny ladies’ handgun at Sheel’s. Argh! HE’S SO TERRIBLE! I wanted an iPod or a new digital camera, but I didn’t think he had enough money for either so I didn’t know what to expect!

When we got home he finally gave in and gave me my present, a blue iPod mini, which is making me so very happy and which is so very fun and wonderful. (No, I didn’t get him anything because, well, he bought himself a new truck a few weeks ago. Which is back from the body shop, by the way, and looks fantastic!)

All in all, a not so bad Hell Day! And now I’m off to get my baby to take me to town for a latte. Ciao, lovies!