So Chris decided to plant some flowers and vegetables in a small patch of earth in front of our house.  It was at my prodding, mind you.  I brought home some seed packets for bell peppers and cucumbers and he took that ball and ran with it.  We now have a small plastic picket fence encompassing our massive (two by four foot) front yard garden…wholly unapproved by the home owners association.  As my dad always says, ‘Better to ask forgiveness than permission’.  So Chris was out there last weekend sweating his butt off with the immeasurable help of Zach and Alex.  His hair was pushed up in the front in a way that can only be referred as a West Valley Claw.  Anyone not from Utah will have no idea what that means, but it was a naturally occurring phenomenon brought on by too much hairspray coupled with an eighteen year old girl on a ‘non-game night’ in west Salt Lake City.   This particular species of hair became extinct after the 1980’s in every other corner of the world except for West Valley, Utah.   So anyway, at one point, I peered out the front screen door and said in my most sarcastic voice.  “Wow, look at you….being all doh-mesticated.”  And he says,  “If by that, you mean, ‘emasculated’ then, yes, that is exactly what I am.”  Marriage is all about having compassion for your fellow inmate.

He is a good husband and a better dad.  I am grateful to be riding this roller-coaster with him.  I hope he knows how grateful I am.   He has a tough month in May.  It is Mother’s day, my birthday, and our anniversary.   For any husband with even a modicum of affection for his wife, this triple whammy is tantamount to being mugged by three ankle-biting wiener dogs all at once.  Should he fail to respond to the attackers, his injuries won’t be fatal, but trying to keep one at bay while the others are nipping at him may very well drive him to the brink of insanity.   So I always try to lighten the load by reassuring him that a card from him for each of the events would be just dandy.  If he added some actual original poetry (one of the things, other than his exceptional driving skills that made me fall so hard for him) to any or all of said cards, that would be fantastic; and if he managed to coordinate some form of handmade clay, glue and paint monstrosity created by the boys…preferably, something highly useful like a business card holder or a thimble-sized coffee mug……well, then that would be the coup de gras.  Having said that,  I know how difficult it can be to wrangle three and six year old boys into creating anything that doesn’t involve some element of Spongebob or whoopee cushion sound effects…..so the baseline of three cards really is still acceptable as remuneration for this very taxing  gift month.

All of this is to preface the fact that last weekend Chris told me that I had two options for  a three-in-one holiday package gift.  I could choose either a very impressive piece of software called Aperture that is the Mac version of Adobe Photoshop or I could choose a night stay (all by myself) at a nearby resort called Sycamore Hotsprings.  Both options were so far and away above the level of the baseline “three card minimum” which I had established.  I was speechless.

I will digress once again, with virtually no segue, because that is just what I do.   There is a movie called Phenomenon.  In it, the main character is in love with a woman who makes ridiculously impractical wicker chairs.  He spends a lot of money and considerable time buying these chairs from her, but doing it in a such a way that she remains unaware that it is actually him making the purchases.  He buys her chairs to continue to fulfill this need she has to make these silly wicker chairs.  I once told Mom that one of the reasons that I love Chris so completely and incoherently, (and sometimes against my better judgment), is because ‘He buys my chairs’.  He gets me.  He knows what I want and most of the time, he tries to give me that.

So I am taking a weekend all by myself for this Birthday, Anniversary, Mother’s day, wiener dog attack that is coming up.  And I am, oh so very grateful, because he really does buy my chairs.

Much love to all,

tiff