Be Careful What You Wish For

My husband and I haven't seen each other for 43 days. That's six weeks plus a day for those of you who suck at simple math.

This isn't the longest stretch we've gone without seeing each other, but it's close. In fact, unless he gets home by tomorrow night, which he won't, by the time he does walk through our front door, a new record will have been set.

It's not exactly a record I'm in any hurry to beat.

This legally-married yet still single parenting gig sucks after six straight weeks of yelling at the kids to clean up their bedrooms, stop touching each other, stop breathing in each other's air space and for the love of my sanity quit hiding the Oreo's on one another.

It's not funny when I can't find them dammit.

Last night he texted me to tell me he may or may not be home in time for Mother's day.

"That's really helpful. Which is it? Home by Sunday or no?" I texted back.

"Depends on how things go up here."

"Well things aren't going so well down HERE so I suggest you make it happen and come home."

"Sounds like you miss me."

"I miss having a responsible adult under this roof."

"The kids hid the cookies again didn't they?"

"THEY WONT TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!! The inmates are running the asylum dude!"

"You could persuade me to come home you know."

"I can call and yell at you?"

"NO. I meant, tell me why you MISS me. Give me a little sugar baby."

"YOU NEVER HIDE MY COOKIES!"

"That isn't what I meant Tanis."

"Fine. I miss you. Nixon keeps licking his invisible nuts in bed at night and it is driving me crazy."

"Wow. That's sexy. NOT."

"Sorry. I just meant it isn't the same sleeping next to an asslicker. I'd much rather be cuddled up next to you. You tend to have less gas."

"You are so romantic Tanis."

"I try Boo."

"How bout a picture to remind me of what I have waiting for me when I get home?"

"How about NOT."

"I'm up here working 16 hour days, 7 days a week. Be a good wife. I really miss you."

"And this is why I was pregnant at 20 and unwed. I succumbed to your PEER PRESSURE."

"You enjoyed it."

He had me there. I enjoyed it so much I got pregnant four months later after giving birth to my daughter. Dang him and his memory.

The phone buzzed again.

"Picture please."

"No."

"That toothless 60 year old woman I work with is starting to look good Tanis. I need an intervention."

"Have at 'er. Gummers are awesome."

"THAT IS GROSS TANIS."

"Just sayin'."

"Please?"

"Pretty please?"

"I'll detail your car for you when I get home."

"You'll do that anyways since it'll be mother's day."

"Fine. I'll detail your car, clean the gutters and wash, fold and put away all the laundry."

"Will you also take the garbage to the dump, caulk that window I've been hounding you about, wash the floor behind the stove AND grill a steak for me without whining about it?"

"FINE."

"Okay, hang on. I have to take the picture."

...

"Alright. Here it goes. Me in my glory. This is what you have been missing. I love you Boo."

"GROSS!! THAT ISN'T WHAT I MEANT WHEN I SAID SEND ME A PICTURE!!!"

"Just be happy I didn't take one of my legs. I haven't shaved those puppies since I was in Spain. Hurry home Boo. I need some help braiding these hairs."

"Lucky me."

And that is how I keep the romance alive between us.

Breaking the Rules

My husband has one rule about my blogging our life.

Keep him off the internets.

Today, on our 13th wedding anniversary, I'm doing what I so often do. I'm disobeying him.

(In my defense, I was smart enough to make sure the word 'obey' appeared exactly no where in our wedding vows. I am many things, but obedient isn't one of them.)

I want the world to see the man I married and to know how absolutely proud I am that I chose him.

And I want everyone to know how ridiculously grateful I am that you have kept me.

To the man I love more than words can adequately express, happy anniversary.

I love you.

Thank you for being my Boo.

What a Girl Wants

In a few months my husband and I will have been married thirteen years. What's more amazing than the fact I have managed to keep a man legally bound to me that long is the fact we've been living together for fifteen, and a couple for seventeen. Which is exactly half the number of years I've been alive.

If you had told me Boo was my future husband when I was six years old and visiting his house with my daddy, I'd have likely kicked you in the shins. At that point in time I had no interest in the big lipped blond boy who constantly wore orange and brown striped tee shirts.

Life, she has a sense of humour in a dark and twisted way.

I have been in Boo's life from the time we were in diapers and his partner for half of my life and yet the man still cannot figure me out.

It's not like I'm complicated, it's just I'm rather irrational (I swear it's charming) and I happen to change my mind a lot.

(Like the time I told him not to bother buying me a wedding ring because I'd never wear it and then two days before our wedding ceremony I wept and whined because he actually listened to me and didn't buy me a wedding ring. After banging his head against the wall multiple times, he scraped up every bit of cash he could beg, borrow and steal and dragged me to the jewelery store where I happily picked out a tiny diamond solitaire ring.

Two months after the ceremony, he noticed I wasn't wearing my wedding ring. Yes, I had changed my mind and decided I was right the first time and didn't want the ring he had busted his bottom to buy for me. Let's just say he banged his head against the wall again.)

When I tell you I want mustard on sandwich, this is just means I want mustard on my sandwich right now. It doesn't mean I'm signing a life time contract of wanting mustard on every single sandwich I will ever eat from now to till the end of time.

Sometimes a little Italian dressing on a sandwich is a nice life distraction, you know?

My husband, he bangs his head on a lot of walls. But the one thing I can never, ever fault him for, his the effort he puts in to keeping me happy. He's constantly trying to keep up with my whims. He, in fact, spoils me even if he misunderstands me half the time.

We married young which means we married one another when neither had a pot to pee in. Literally. Boo came with a dowry of a butter knife, a used shower curtain and a broken telephone. I am not joking. Thank goodness for banks willing to give credit cards to young people in an effort to entrap them into a life time of debt.

Not only did we have two kids before our first wedding anniversary but we had more debt than should be legally allowed. Between the credit card that was racked up to buy things like food and diapers, we both had student loans tied around our necks. We came to the brink of bankruptcy more than once and if it weren't for our deep sense of lust and devotion, I'm sure we'd have divorced due to financial misfortune more than once.

Somehow, through time and a lot of hard work (on Boo's part, I'm the lazy one in this union) we made careful choices to slowly chip away at our debt until where we are today. Not much further ahead but just a few years shy of being mortgage free and the cars we drive are ours and not the bank's.

Years of surviving on boxed mac and cheese and bruised bananas are slowly fading into the past.

But those lean years, when we had to pick which utility bill to pay each month because we didn't have enough to pay them all and still feed our family, have permanently scarred us. So much so, that my husband feels it's his duty to make amends and provide for me everything he couldn't when we younger.

He's sweet, if not a wee misguided. I'll keep him though.

The past few years, despite being married to me half his life and observing my tastes and preferences, he keeps surprising me with bling.

A lot of bling.

I'm not exactly a bling-y type of gal. If the tattoos don't advertise that, surely the nipple rings would. You'd think.

The problem with the bling he buys, well, it's expensive. Sure it's pretty, but not only will I not wear it, but if I do, I'm likely to either bash it into pieces as I garden or scrub toilets or I'm likely to lose it.

Evidence of Boo's thoughtfulness over the course of the years and my inability to respect anything sparkly:



A Christmas gift he carefully purchased after tucking away money for almost a year. My tennis bracelet.Which I loved so much I refused to take off until the diamonds started to fall out of it. Whoops. I may or may not have broken the clasp on it too.

This lovely gift was bestowed to me after I wrote the Journey series, chronicling the loss of our foster-to-adopt child. Boo wanted to ease my fractured heart with sparkles. The necklace and earring set was aptly named, "The Journey."

Boo surprised me with this ring on our tenth wedding anniversary. It had been a tough year after losing our Bug and he wanted to turn my frown upside down.

As one diamond after another disappears into the ether surrounding my home it becomes increasingly obvious I am entirely not mature enough to be entrusted with shiny objects.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate both the thought and expense that went into these shiny purchases from a man who clearly loves me. I really do. I just wish I was a woman who wanted such trinkets and who treasured them more instead of taking them off, walking away and then wondering where they went.

Because I am an irrational woman, I'm going to blame my husband for this. Clearly every lost diamond is his fault. If he had been paying attention to who I am over the last half of his life he'd have known better.

I am the girl who loses bling.

(De Nile ain't just a river, people.)

Maybe it's because bling just isn't my thing. I'm a blingless type of girl. I don't generally wear any jewelery, not even a watch. When I'm trying to impress someone I may or may not be motivated to stick a silver hoop into my ear and call it fashion.

I'm the type of gal who cuts her nails to the quick, only paints her toenails once a year and then lets the paint chip off  naturally as the nails grow out and prefers tattoo ink to hair dye. I own four pairs of shoes, two of which are shit-kickers and there are two skirts in my closet: one for funerals and one for weddings.

I am, in fact, the most non-blingy type of girl a gal can be. Always have been, likely always will be. Which is why I feel physical pain when my husband hands me small packages.

He's clearly forgotten who he's legally bound to. Either that or he's wishing he married someone more sophisticated.

*scratches arm pit and resumes writing*

So, in an effort to save my darling husband from carelessly tossing more money into the wind and bringing home jewelery that will either get lost or spend an eternity collecting dust in the back of a drawer, I cleverly decided to start showing him my idea of a good time jewelery purchase.

After explaining to him that a small cost output in jewelry purchases would lead to a much larger cost savings and general satisfaction on both parties end, he rolled his eyes and walked away agreed.

Yet when my purchase arrived in a shiny black box, Boo was clearly curious to see what it was that would float my boat, save him money and perhaps earn him future blow job rights.

From the look on his face it was all too evident his imagination had never been stretched as far as it was in that moment.

Because my idea of a good piece of jewelry happens to include the word roadkill.

Oh, they tickle as they dangle against my neck.

Such pretty claws you have, my dear...

I told you I wasn't into bling. I prefer things stuffed and mounted. It's nature's way of recycling.

Sadly, it became all too obvious after watching my husband recoil in terror and then laugh until he cried, that I haven't been paying attention to him the past 17 years either.

Because if I thought I could convince the man I love that buying items from a taxidermist to decorate myself with is a good idea, I am more delusional than he is in his efforts to step-ford wife me.

Turns out, you can't class a girl up unless she wants to be polished.

Just like you can't force a man to buy his wife roadkill for their anniversary.