Daily acts

Eric and I weren't big celebrators this Valentine's Day. He had been in Baltimore for a few days and flew in late that night, when he greeted me empty-handed and sour-faced, "All the airport flowers were droopy!" Poor guy. I guess that I can't expect much, though: this year he was also gone for our anniversary, his birthday, and the boys' birthdays (he left the morning after my birthday). So we've pretty much struck out on this year's celebrations. Oh well.

But sometimes I feel like being married to Eric makes every day a holiday. Since Valentine's Day, he has dismantled the stripped garage door gear and replaced it. He spent an hour prying out the lighted candy cane decorations that have been frozen in the dirt since Christmas. He went to our weekly swing dance class, recent surgery notwithstanding (he loved the class by the way and recently wondered aloud, "Don't you always feel like swinging now?"). He came dumpster-diving with me to look for cardboard boxes. He spent two hours repairing a severely clogged toilet. And one day, when I was walking around in a hoodie and sweats and wearing a ponytail, he asked me if it's "hard to walk around looking so attractive."

He does all this while maintaining a healthy sense of humor. Recently I was boiling an artichoke and using a smaller pot to keep it from floating up. Eric walked in the kitchen, looked at the set-up, and said, "So, it's the old boil-the-pot method, eh?" A sentence like this is usually followed by, "Learned that in my army days" (he was never in the army). Even when he's frustrated he's fun: after finally figuring out a programming problem one night, Eric jumped from his chair, screeched loudly, and said, "A double equals sign. Ah! I am denser than a DOORKNOB! And I don't say that lightly." Last weekend after his brother, mom, and I had struggled for about 20 minutes moving a piece of furniture, we finally had it within sight of the trailer. As we stopped to rest, Eric said, "Welp, it looks like it's not going to work. Why don't you bring it back upstairs?" Perhaps the funniest of Eric's habits this month is that he dances around the house while singing "Obama's gonna change the world" in falsetto (the song may be the only thing Eric likes about Obama).

I'll take the flowers later, but for now I'm thrilled for my helpful, humorous husband who brightens every day.

Tuesday after our last swing dance class, I made Eric take an arm's-length picture, which he thinks is cheesy but always does anyway.