Steven: May 2005 Archives

My husband has quirks. Not too many but a few. He really isn't picky in general. I mean, he eats whatever I cook. No complaints. Only if I press him will he tell me if he likes something or would care to not ever have it again. That's a good thing! Being mild mannered as he is I would hate to spend the next 40 years cooking something he really can't stand. For the life of me I can't figure out why rice and stewed tomatoes are not up there on the list of things he REALLY likes. I grew up eating cooked white rice topped with a thick helping of stewed tomatoes with okra and onions. I love it. I have found he generally doesn't care for the things his mother doesn't like because he wasn't exposed to them at a young age. She hates coconut and marshmellow. He hates coconut and marshmellow. Gracie and J. love to torture him by eating peanutbutter and fluff sandwiches in his presence. I find it hilariously funny. He is not very picky about what he wears. I wash and iron his shirts. I fold his pants with a crease right out of the dryer. I steam his suits and brush them with a lint roller as needed. I lay out his clothes every night and that is what he wears to work the next morning. For years before I entered his life and brought the world of color with me he only wore blue or white shirts. That's it. The reason? It made it very easy to get dressed. A blue or white dress shirt goes with all his pants. No fuss. No muss. He doesn't even care if they are ironed. He will wear them anyway -over my dead body! Like I said he isn't too picky about his clothes but there is a catch: 1. No briefs. He is a boxers man. 2. He thinks light colored pants are not manly. So he only wears black, navy blue, dark brown, I slipped in a dark green and there is a very dark kahki. Blue jeans fall into their own catagory and any color of blue denim jeans is acceptable even if they are washed to almost white. Do you see the contradiction here? Almost white is VERY light. Colby has often pointed this out. At which point comes a dissertation on how jeans have rules of their own that defy the laws of wearing light colored pants. Some days I am not surprised he doesn't pull out a Power Point presentation and a laser pointer explaining the laws of physics as pertaining to light colored pants vs. old worn jeans of a very light color. They are not pants. They are jeans. Mmkay. 3. He only wears boots. The cowboy fashion. He has 5 or 6 pair. One red leather. One brown leather. One snakeskin. One black leather that is every day wear. One black lizard skin that is only worn with his suits. There is also one black leather pair that is for working in the yard and fields. In the past year he has added three (3) new pair of shoes to his wardrobe. Out of neccesity and to end my constant badgering, nagging and bitching -not to mention begging and pleading. These items are single purpose utility. He now has a pair of black gumboots solely for mucking around on the farm. It is the only way to have dry feet. He has a pair of steel toe boots because I insisted he have them when he bought his new chainsaw. I don't think it would be easy to walk as fast as he does without the aide of toes -much less stand up without teetering like a tree waiting to fall. He also has one pair of athletic shoes. They are white. I MADE him buy them against his will. We went to Six Flags last summer and he didn't have any shoes but boots and I didn't want to walk around with a guy in blue jean shorts and black cowboy boots. He has never worn them since. He may never wear them again. I think it almost killed him to spend $20 at K-mart for a pair of shoes he planned to only wear that one time. That is why we went to K-mart and not Foot Locker. It was worth the $20 to me not to be pointed at all day long and mocked as the lady with the husband wearing shorts and cowboy boots. Editorial Note: When I write specifically about my husband he has full editorial control on the clicking of the publish button. This being the case, he insists that he did have 1 pair of shoes he intended to wear. These shoes being 1 pair of Nikes he had been wearing since he was 15 years old. These shoes had spent much of their life in the basement and he wore them mainly when he policed the backyard cleaning up dog poop. I am certain I had thrown those shoes away the day before. They had not yet been collected by the garbage truck but were sitting in the black bag. He insists those shoes were not in the garbage. We disagree. So, out of duty as his wife I will now include to the list of shoes my husband owned: one pair of very old Nikes he had been wearing since he was 15 years old that stank of dog poop and 19 years of sweaty feet. 4. This is the big one. All socks should be gray. White or black socks are only acceptable if there is no way in hell gray socks can be obtained. Seriously. He has worn black socks. He has worn white socks. He does not like wearing them. Editorial Note #2: Him: "They did not stink." Me: "Yes, they did." Him: "No they did not." Me: "Oh, yes they did!" Him: "They were just starting to break in." Him: Walking to the kitchen and then on to the bedroom, "They did not stink." OHHHHH, yes they did! I asked his mother about the clothes thing. Now, I have to tell you his mother has given him MANY nice clothes and when we married they were found in the closet with tags still on them or in the gift bags. How many men do you know that have 2 full length London Fog Dress Coats? So, anyway, I asked her what was it with his clothes. She swears she has never heard of the light pants things. NEVER. Editorial Note #3: Him: "Because she NEVER asked!" I pointedly asked about the gray socks. How do you raise a son who thinks GRAY is the only sock color option? She said, seriously, I stopped buying white socks when they were little boys. Gray doesn't show dirt and stains as easily as white. So there it is. Once again his mother has conditioned him to this quirk! Which reminds me of a very funny story and the inspiration of this post which I remembered yesterday as I was purchasing 2 packages, 12 pairs, of gray socks. Steven rises early. He showers and gets dressed and zips out of the house in the dark hours of the morning. He likes to be behind his desk by 6:30am. It is the time of the day before anyone is in the office and he is able to get his coding done. He does his best coding before the sun breaks the eastern sky. My husband is very considerate, too. The master bath joining the master bedroom in the townhouse was in line with the bed. He would always make sure the door was pulled nearly shut with only a thin line of light to dress by so as not to wake me. I was mostly already awake. Still am. I refuse to let him leave the house without my saying bye and I love you. I am morbid that way and am always conscious that this might be the last time I get to say it. One early morning last winter as he dressed in the dim bit of light from the bathroom door left only slightly ajar after his shower so as not to make the room too bright and wake me, which I already was awake, I see Steven in the morning shadows trying to pull on socks, shirt and pants. His legs looked funny. I blink to clear my eyes. I squinted to see better. I couldn't make out what was so very wrong. Finally I asked him what he had on. He stops bent over, looks up at me and says, "I feel like goddamn Pipi Longstockings!" In the dark of the morning he had stumbled to the dresser and gotten out some knee-high thick winter socks his mother had given him as a gift, "boot socks". Have you ever seen those? They are so thick they look as if someone's old Grandma hand knitted them for your personal wearing pleasure. I told him his socks were in the clean laundry basket I just had not put them in the drawers. He was already dressed and did not want to change his socks. I mean he has to get to work! No time for changing socks! I still laugh like a fool when I picture him with those things on. His voice rings in my head like a bell. I guess the only thing worse than black or white socks is walking around all day at work knowing that you are the only one in the entire building who knows that you are wearing socks Pipi Longstockings would wear and hoping you don't get into an accident before you get home.

In my husbands nightstand you will find in his drawers an assortment of snacks: nuts, jerky, reese cups, meat and cheese sticks ... you know the guy stuff. Why are they in there? Because we have kids who will eat EVERYTHING and not bother to ask if anyone wants the last of any given item. It is something I started. Yes, I am the one who bought his favorite snacks and tucked them away in his nightstand. It's his secret stash but not so much of a secret, the kids know they are there but they also know it is off limits to them. Yes, I deny my children snacks. Ha! If you saw the boxes of shit I buy and keep in the mudroom pantry for the children you might be led to believe I feed them NOTHING but snacks! Just because his snacks are kept in his nightstand drawers, well ok the big box of slim jims is sitting on top because it is too big to fit in the drawers, (Costco loves me!) does not mean he eats them IN the bed. Ok, that was not the complete truth. When we lived in the townhouse he had a bad habit of munching on snacks while reclined ON the bed, but never when he was IN the bed. After a long day at work, when children are in bed, we would retire to our bedroom and watch TV (Stargate SG-1) or a movie (something the children cannot see and no not porn!), he would sit with one eye on the TV the other on the screen of the laptop and what's a geek to do but snack at the same time. Do not confuse this ability with multitasking, he cannot multitask, most men can't, he could never tell you the story line on the TV, he was engrossed in whatever he was reading on the laptop. Where was I? In the new house, there is a new rule. No TV or PC in the bedroom. Therefore in the evenings he retires to the couch and this is where he does his snacking -after children are sleeping. And it is still ALL MY FAULT! You see, when I met Steven we was severely skinny. He did not take good care of himself and was FAR FAR FAR too thin. Really. Size 30 waiste. His rib bones were visable under his skin. So I began plying him with snacks in addition to full meals EVERY day. He really needed to gain weight. Yes, dear world, I have spoiled my husband. He is given a full 3 meals each and every day. He also has a near endless supply of snacks. Not all of his evening snacks are stashed in the nightstand drawers. Sometimes he will eat 2 peanutbutter sandwiches AFTER he has eaten a full course supper. Full course meaning a meat, two vegetables, a starch, a bread, condiments and a beverage and many times a dessert. If I did not feed him he would go back to his ways of surviving on grocery store burritoes and boxed mac and cheese. You see, I need to spoil him! He is deserving! So, for the record, dear internet: The only snack my husband is allowed to eat in bed is me.

My husband was able to look at the error code and figure out I had a corrupt file running in MT. He fixed it!!! :-) Ubergeeks are SO sexy!!