Category Archives: Steve

My really cute, garden-variety nerd of a husband.

The Nose Job

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Yesterday Steve had a nose job. Well, not so much a nose job as a septum job. A septoplasty, to be exact. No, it wasn’t because of all those drugs he did in the 70s, but rather because his septum was contorted to one side so severely that I was tempted to ask him to carry all my loose change and keys in it.

Men being men, and Steve being one of them meant that there was no way he was ever going to actually do anything about it, even though the Ear-Nose-Throat doc he saw when he went through his round of sleep studies 10 years ago told him he should. Enter, the wife.

At Porter’s last ear-tube check-up I casually inquired about the procedure, and indicated that my husband had been recommended for it a while back. He suggested setting up an appointment. You can imagine the joy and excitement when I came home and handed Steve an appointment card for the following Thursday. So one thing leads to another and the next thing we knew Steve was heading into surgery. He came out an hour and forty five minutes later wearing a nose bra.

porter

Ulcers the Elf

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For whatever reason, Christmas this year has been what I can best describe as disorganized. And I’m not talking the can’t-find-my-car-keys type disorganized, but rather the can’t-find-my-car disorganized. The holidays are usually hectic, and usually, at some point my stress level reaches a critical mass, and I begin a passive-aggressive rant, enumerating the list of undone things to a flinching husband. And, for any who are keeping track, this year that day came on a Wednesday. This last Wednesday, to be exact.

I usually get this out of the way much earlier in the season, right around the time that I manufacture a self-imposed 24-hour deadline to get Stella’s party organized, make all my online purchases, have the Christmas cards made, cure cancer AND clean my house. And for my husband, the first sign of danger is that I am actually verbalizing my anxiety. Out loud. Not just with despondent looks and heavy sighs. The only thing worse than a stressed-out internalizer, is a stressed-out internalizer, externalizing.

An unintended upside to this precipitous drop in the joy of the holiday is the realization that my husband is composed of equal parts, hotness, humor, OCD and awesomeness. After collapsing from complete physical and emotional exhaustion at 8:30 on Wednesday night, I woke up Thursday morning to find that he had gone out, bought groceries, made our Christmas candy, started the laundry, re-checked all shipping ETAs, straightened up the house, loaded the dishwasher, come up with some reasonable ideas for the remaining person whom, heretofore, had not a single gift yet purchased for them, because they do nothing but eat sleep and work. (You know who you are, Scott Walston)

Instead of appreciating him for his ability to rise to the occasion when I most need him, I tend to incessantly needle him about his compulsive behavior, flair for the dramatic and inability to multi-task. In reality, he is the one who puts up with my disaffected, stoic self, and picks up the pieces when my control-freak cape begins to fray around the edges. And if I could wrap this appreciation and put it under the tree, I would. Because that would mean one less gift I would have to stress about tracking online.

Because I am such a loving wife.

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Conversation from last weekend:

Steve: College football, blah blah blah, BCS is useless, blah blah blah, Hawaii won, blah blah blah

Me: For Christmas this year, do you want me to get you someone who cares?

Steve: Yes, and if you could make sure they care about the unit circle that would be great too.

Memorable v. Normal

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So, here’s the scene. We are having that one moment when we are all sitting at the table eating dinner. At the same time. That moment when no one is getting up, or running around or crying. That moment when Steve and I look at each other and think, “Oh my God, we are actually having a family moment.”

But then. Then, you look a little closer. And that is when you realize that the definition of a family moment is left open to interpretation. A wide and vast interpretation that is defined more by your standard of memorable than by your standard of normal.

Let’s take for example, this little mealtime gem…

First you have this:

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Then Stella says, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could take a bath in sour cream?”
And I say, “Yeah, that would be SO cool. You could fill up the whole bathtub and cover yourself up to your neck.”
To which, Steve – in his most reassuring voice – responds (more to himself than to anyone else at the table), “Yeah, but it would be okay because you could just take another bath and get all clean.”

Which makes you wonder how his brain doesn’t start oozing out his ears when A.) Porter was recently caught eating toilet paper out of the toilet bowl, B.) Stella decided to put her DVD du jour, Robin Hood, somewhere for safe keeping but can’t remember where, thereby putting the entire household on an Olympic-scale, needle-in-haystack reconnaissance mission, or C.) We had to install a flip-latch on the back-door because a certain 1-year-old has escaped into the backyard unnoticed on numerous occasions and been found looking like this:

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Or like this:

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And one begins to realize how bathing in sour cream just doesn’t seem so far fetched now, does it?