mars & venus

I don't think there is anything in my life that compares to being in absolute and complete, this is for real and forever, I cannot breathe without you, love. It's something I think most girls dream of and imagine their entire lives and then one day you wake up and it's happened to you and you're marrying that one person you cannot live without. The thing is, you don't realize then that you haven't really got a clue what it really feels like to be deliciously in love. I mean, yes, you're crazy in love, but if you could catch a glimpse of yourself in say, 10 or 14 years, you'd laugh at what you were feeling then. If you just got married a year or two ago, you think I'm nuts. But if it's been a little longer, I know you know what I'm talking about.

We just celebrated our 14th anniversary by skipping out of work and spending the day window shopping and playing Rumikub and Scrabble. Yeah, I know, to a lot of people that sounds like the lamest excuse for an anniversary celebration in existence. I'm sorry to say, it's just what I love. But truthfully, even if it wasn't, I could watch a rock in the dirt for days as long as I'm doing it with Dave. He's just so dang funny that the ordinary is simply not. What a great, beautiful thing to be so happy just being with someone, that the ordinary becomes quite deliciously unordinary.

So in honor of the big 14th, I thought I'd share a coupla reasons why I'm so in love with my Dave.

Dave is a self-employed masonry contractor. Self-employment brings with it funny quirks. He's generally able to choose his hours, which is really nice, and when we're crazy busy, it's really good. However, we have had times when we haven't had enough work, which is really not so good. Most of the time we're somewhere in between crazy busy and absolutely-I'm-afraid-we're-selling-the-house-and-moving-to-that-box-on-the-curb, no work. Lately we've been on the skinnier side of busy. Just busy enough. And that's good enough.

Several months ago, we were experiencing one of those closer to the skinnier side of the skinnier side than I'm comfortable with. Dave hadn't been very chatty that morning, and seemed preoccupied as he got ready for work. I watched him and began to worry a bit for him. I mean, if I don't like the no-work times, it's even harder on the man who can't find the work. I tried to keep up the happy level on my end, and chit-chatted about nothing in particular until it was time to kiss him out the door. We walked into the mudroom and he opened the door and kind of slowly backed out. His focus was blankly off of me, out into the garage at nothing in particular.

And I watched him and my heart just broke for him. That's my whole heart right there, and he's unhappy, and I can't stand it! And I thought, Oh, he's having a hard morning, he's worried, he's stressed out, I gotta do something for him... I gotta go pray for work. Pray for help. Pray for him... And I smiled and wished him a great day at work.

His mood seemed better later in the day, and I was relieved that things must be looking up. A few days later, I brought up the work topic. Condescendingly, I told him I knew he had been worried, so I had been really worried for him. I mentioned that morning, and how I knew his mind was going, trying to think of a way to get us some more work. I told him how I can't stand when he has to worry about things, and how I wished I could take some of that burden from him. Really, I believe it was quite a moving little speech.

He smiled and told me he thinks I'm great, and how glad he is that I love him so much. That's right, Marianne, you know how to take care of your man.

And then a few days later he told me the truth. As I was getting out of the suburban one day, I noticed a yellow smiley-face that had been spray painted on the wall in the garage. I laughed and went in and asked him about it. That particular morning that I had worried over my Dave as he distractedly backed out the door, he was, in fact, distracted by something completely unrelated to work. On the shelf he had caught a glimpse of a small can of glow-in-the-dark spray paint, and as I assumed his mind was off somewhere meeting contractors or something, he was pondering the many great uses of such a treasure. After he closed the door on his little doting wife, he grabbed the can and painted a smiley-face on the wall.

Good thing I was so concerned.

Here's one more glimpse into why I love him so much. We're huge Iron Chef fans at our house, especially the original ones from Japan or wherever they are. Several times this past year, we've have a family Iron Chef competition, with two teams, a secret ingredient, and 45 minutes to make a meal. For the first 2 or 3 competitions, Dave and I were the judges, but when Dave got home one Saturday morning and announced the next Iron Chef competition, he decreed that he and I would also be competing. Since he had already decided on the secret ingredient, he told me it would only be fair if I knew what it was as well: Curly Noodles. AKA: Ramen.

Okay, I thought. I've got 6 hours to come up with some good ideas for Ramen. All day I thought. I mentally went through my most spectacular recipes and tried to think of ways to substitute Ramen. I tried and tried to come up with something that would be both delicious and creative, and racked my brains for inspiration for something that would plate well.

At 4:00 we all met in the kitchen and divided up into teams. And then we began. Alas, after half a day of thinking, all I had come up with was uncooked chocolate-drizzled Ramen for dessert, and a salad, a spinach salad, with uncooked Ramen all crumbled up on top. That was it. Crumbly and chocolate ramen.

Contrast this to the ridiculously impressive main dish that Dave invented. Stupid as is seems, he took dry ramen and pulverized it in the blender with the dry ramen seasoning. Then he coated slices of chicken with it and fried it in just a little butter, and served it over cooked Ramen. And seriously, it was so dang good -- so good, that RyBread insists on making it about every other Sunday for lunch; so very good, in fact, that I always want some when she makes it.

That's the difference between Dave and me. He's making Ramen Chicken a la noodles, and I'm smashing dry ramen on lettuce and calling it a salad. He's spray painting smileys on the garage wall and I'm planning our going-out-of-business sale. Dave brings a delicious liveliness to my days. He helps me lighten up a bit and makes me laugh all the time. It's unfair, really, I'm always on the receiving side of the laughter -- he's always providing it for me.

So after 14 years of marriage, I'm tempted to say that it doesn't get any better than this. But the funny thing is, I know it will. I know that woman who's been married 25 years is smiling over this and thinking, She hasn't really even discovered how much in love you can be. And that's what I love best about being married to my Dave. It just keeps getting better.

Happy Anniversary DaveyBoy.