5. If something isn’t working correctly, you don’t need it anyway.
I have learned over the years that there are times when, in spite of our best efforts, neither my husband nor I is Bob Villa and This Old House is simply that. Occasionally we call in professionals to fix our problems, while other times a more immediate response is warranted.
My husband has taught me that if something isn’t working correctly, you don’t really need it anyway. Apparently, I was under the mistaken impression that there are some things worth fixing when they break. I guess I was wrong.
This life lesson developed after my dear husband decided to make me pancakes one morning. It was a fabulous, heartfelt gesture until the smell of acrid smoke and charred pancake started to permeate the first floor of our townhouse. Since we live in a delightful (cue the sarcasm) row of townhomes, for the time being, the smoke alarms are highly sensitive, lest we take down our neighbors in a blaze of glory.
Thus, after the high-pitched, incessant beeping began to make our eardrums bleed, we tried the age-old trick of waving a magazine in front of the detector. Just as it shut off, much to our delight, another one began. This commenced a vicious game of whack-a-mole between beeping smoke alarms. Even taking the battery out did not stop the bleating. While this was probably a necessary precaution against arson, it was nevertheless extraordinarily aggravating under the current circumstances.
With few options left and that obnoxious humming that usually only occurs after a loud concert filling our ears, my husband reached up and yanked the offending alarm right off of the ceiling. Needless to say, that stopped the noise. However, while it solved our immediate problem, we might run into a tiny predicament in the future when our lease is up or if perchance our neighbors set fire to their domicile. Yet, I did learn a valuable lesson about life from this experience. If something doesn’t work correctly, it’s apparently better not to use it at all.
6. It pays to know a lot of people
My husband is the epitome of a social butterfly. He makes friends everywhere he goes and knows people from all walks of life. It is impressive but sometimes this overt gregariousness and social involvement can be troublesome as we go out to eat and five people in the restaurant come over to talk or he feels the need to obsessively check his Facebook account with his millions of friends. I consider his desire to continuously beef up his friend numbers the equivalent to making him a Facebook whore. Nevertheless, his popularity has helped us out during at least one worthwhile occasion.
While leaving a Black Crowes concert late one night in Atlanta, GA, we discovered that one of the tires on my husband’s car had completely deflated. As the crowd dispersed rapidly and we had to return to Nashville that same night, we were in a huge bind and this was not an area of town in which anyone would aspire to get stranded. Apparently by law or sheer obnoxiousness, the police weren’t allowed to help with our predicament beyond the obligatory flashlight holding and snide comments. So, while my husband tossed tire irons in frustration, those sworn to protect and serve did neither.
So, we found ourselves in a shady part of downtown Atlanta at midnight, trying to change a tire. While we did receive many kind offers of assistance for the local homeless population strolling the streets like it was Dawn of the Dead, we insisted we were fine and kept working.
One of the neighborhood “locals” decided to just start helping anyway. Although he did try to read the directions, upside down, we did need another hand on deck. A few minutes later, when the man and my husband finally stopped to look up, it turned out that they actually knew each other. What are the odds that on this dark, deserted street far from Nashville, my husband would, of course, find a homeless man that he recognized from his volunteer work in the Music City? Fortunately, this man proved to be a great help and soon we were on our way again.
It just goes to show you that it pays to know and be nice to everyone that you meet because when you need help you, just never know who will show up.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Life Lessons That I've Learned From My Husband
1. Honesty is not always the best policy.
There are times when men are wise to tell a little white lie rather than come out with what may be an awful truth. Women are familiar with many of these and we’ve come to expect them. When we ask if our pants fit correctly or we say that our butt looks bigger, we don’t really want the truth, we want to be told that our pants look great and our rear end is more muscular or actually shrinking.
But all of these types of lies are usually restricted to the confines of our home, while my husband has shown me that honesty is not always the best policy in the real world as well. I learned this lesson one day after my husband’s cell phone buzzed its way into the toilet. Apparently he had created a ski jump like slope in the bathroom consisting of a three ring binder and a precariously positioned portable phone. After several buzzes, the phone slid down the jump and into the watery abyss below. Upon discovery of his waterlogged communication device and the realization that if he did not extricate it himself, no one else would, my husband removed the dripping and miraculously, still buzzing phone from the toilet. For my husband, the phone is a lifeline, something semi-permanently attached to his ear that he would be lost without.
So, following some surgeon like hand washing and the removal of the Sim card, we rushed over to the AT &T store to obtain a replacement device. When the generous man, who allowed us into the store five minutes after closing, asked what happened to the rest of the phone, as we had only brought in the Sim card, my husband convincingly told him that it had fallen in the tub. The man heaved a sigh of relief as he stated, “Good, because I don’t touch phones that have been in the toilet.” My husband reassured him it was definitely the tub, with a straight face that almost made me question other things that he may have told me with similar conviction in the past. He proceeded to buy the new phone without further fibbing and left the store.
There are times when men are wise to tell a little white lie rather than come out with what may be an awful truth. Women are familiar with many of these and we’ve come to expect them. When we ask if our pants fit correctly or we say that our butt looks bigger, we don’t really want the truth, we want to be told that our pants look great and our rear end is more muscular or actually shrinking.
But all of these types of lies are usually restricted to the confines of our home, while my husband has shown me that honesty is not always the best policy in the real world as well. I learned this lesson one day after my husband’s cell phone buzzed its way into the toilet. Apparently he had created a ski jump like slope in the bathroom consisting of a three ring binder and a precariously positioned portable phone. After several buzzes, the phone slid down the jump and into the watery abyss below. Upon discovery of his waterlogged communication device and the realization that if he did not extricate it himself, no one else would, my husband removed the dripping and miraculously, still buzzing phone from the toilet. For my husband, the phone is a lifeline, something semi-permanently attached to his ear that he would be lost without.
So, following some surgeon like hand washing and the removal of the Sim card, we rushed over to the AT &T store to obtain a replacement device. When the generous man, who allowed us into the store five minutes after closing, asked what happened to the rest of the phone, as we had only brought in the Sim card, my husband convincingly told him that it had fallen in the tub. The man heaved a sigh of relief as he stated, “Good, because I don’t touch phones that have been in the toilet.” My husband reassured him it was definitely the tub, with a straight face that almost made me question other things that he may have told me with similar conviction in the past. He proceeded to buy the new phone without further fibbing and left the store.
Thus, I learned that in some instances, honesty will get you nothing, such as a new cell phone, whereas a slight fabrication will get you exactly what you want.
2. Table manners are still important:
Emily Post would be rolling over in her grave if she ever met my husband. All those years of teaching people the value of manners and their purpose in society and it appears to have gone by the wayside with some members of my generation. With the world changing so rapidly, technology advancing our world to unexpected levels and possibilities, it is hard to keep up with it all, let alone the tiny, time worn tradition of social respectability.
2. Table manners are still important:
Emily Post would be rolling over in her grave if she ever met my husband. All those years of teaching people the value of manners and their purpose in society and it appears to have gone by the wayside with some members of my generation. With the world changing so rapidly, technology advancing our world to unexpected levels and possibilities, it is hard to keep up with it all, let alone the tiny, time worn tradition of social respectability.
During the planning of our wedding I received a glaring, neon signal that there are people out there who do still value manners. Unfortunately, it was due to my husband’s actions that this fact was brought to my attention.
As we sat around the long, ovular, white linen covered table at the hotel where we were to be married in just a few short days, the wedding planner, my mother, my husband and myself were gathered for a final sampling of the delicacies we would be serving to guests at our reception. This event and the cake tasting were probably two of my husband’s favorite parts of the wedding preparation. Our favorite waiter, Alex, who had endured our shenanigans through out this process, delivered the first course. It looked delicious; a three tiered red and yellow tomato structure layered with creamy white mozzarella cheese and drizzled with sweet, dark, balsamic vinaigrette. He gently set the appetizer in front of each of us and stood back as we took a bite. It tasted as good as it appeared.
While my mother, the wedding planner, and I discussed the dish, my husband apparently had some issue with one of the tomatoes, but rather than deposit it on one of the adjacent butter dishes, he placed the offending item directly onto the crisp, white table cloth. I don’t think I’ve seen three women levitate so quickly and speak in such unison as the three of us at that moment. I thought that the sheer force of our simultaneous motion would surely knock my husband to be out of his chair with the strength of a gale force wind. “What are you doing?” we all shouted at him. “Why would you do that? You can’t put the tomato on the tablecloth? Were you raised in a barn?” We inquired with perhaps more vigor than we really felt.
While I do occasionally remind my husband where to dispose of unwanted food items, purely in jest, I have yet to see another inappropriately placed food particle since. While our tactics may have been a bit more confrontational than necessary, I think that Miss Manners would be proud.
3. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing as long as you’re holding a diamond
While this isn’t really a lesson that pertains to my future endeavors, or me, I thought it would be helpful for any boyfriends, husbands, or relationship wannabes out there.
For many men, the proposal, that moment where you seal the deal, you bite the bullet, you take the plunge, requires a huge amount of planning. Everything has to be just right, from the music, to the location, to the attire. Some men prepare for this moment in intricate detail, analyzing the pros and cons of each option, weighing the benefits of doing it on a jumbotron at the Lakers’ game versus in front of the lion cage at the zoo, etc. We’ll forgive the man whose fiancé swallowed the ring that he had placed in her Wendy’s frosty as a freak accident. Nevertheless, this is a life-changing event that should be done with care and consideration.
I’m sure that all of these thoughts were running through my husband-to-be’s mind as he was planning my proposal. He intricately crafted an incredible scrapbook created from mementos that we had both collected during our years together. Fancy paper and little doodads were used to embellish his creation and it was quite impressive in the end. When I returned home from a night out with friends, the lights were low, candles were lit, and music was playing softly in the background. And there, standing proudly in the middle of it all was my husband to be, carefully attired in the Chicago Bull’s t-shirt that was so stained that it’s original red was now slightly orange and looked as if he had worn it during his years as a mechanic. Holes had formed in the armpits and other strategic locations around this soon to be rag. Completing the ensemble was a carefully selected pair of mesh gym shorts. Maybe he just ran out of proposal preparation pep, as he had clearly worked arduously on the first three quarters of the event.
Nevertheless, when he got down on one knee and pulled the diamond engagement ring out from under the couch, I still said yes and eventually married him. Not that I am encouraging men who are planning on proposing to their beloveds to skip the final step of the process by dressing with wild abandon and a lack of consideration for the formality of the event, but it does go to show you that when it comes down to it, as long as you have love, and a diamond, he could be proposing in a Big Bird costume and it wouldn’t really matter, for most women anyway.
4. If at first you don’t succeed, try it again differently
After quitting my teaching job, due to a commute that explains the development of road rage, I have found it much harder than expected to find a new place of employment. This is not for lack of trying as I submit at least two applications a week to various employers for whom I believe that I am qualified to work. In spite of my persistence, not one company has had the decency to send me an e-mail claiming that they have even received my applications. As you would imagine, this is very frustrating for me and it upsets my husband a great deal as he’s probably becoming sick of seeing me in my sweat pants and tank top when he leaves for work and again when he returns home later in the evening. Frankly, I’m not enjoying it so much myself, except for the bonus of being able to enjoy the simple pleasures of The Bonnie Hunt Show and Ellen.
As my husband and I were discussing my predicament recently, he devised an idea that he thought to be at the root of my occupational woes. His theory was that because my name is spelled so uniquely, employers might be under the impression that I had spelled it incorrectly. Therefore, if I couldn’t spell my own name right, then I would probably not be a suitable member of their workforce.
While pondering this, I found there to be a few discrepancies with his proposal, such as the fact that my name was spelled the same way on both my cover letter and resume. My husband rationalized that I must be simply incompetent enough, in the minds of human resources, to misspell my own name twice.
The other issue with his brainstorm was that I had no way of solving this problem as my name was, in fact, correctly spelled each and every time I wrote it and therefore, there was no actual way around this. Again, my husband had a prepared resolution for this as well. “Why don’t you just start spelling your name the normal way and see what happens? It can’t hurt, ” he proposed. While I couldn’t do any worse than my current unemployed and unresponded-to status, a new conundrum arose out of this idea. Suppose I did actually receive an interview based on one of the misspelled applications, how did I now explain my little sociological test to the employer?
While, I appreciate my husband’s persistence and ability to think outside of the box in an attempt to help me get off the couch, into some respectable attire, and possibly the shower more regularly, I don’t believe that I will be carrying out his advice in the near future. However, I have realized that if something is not working, there’s no harm in doing it a little bit, but logically, differently the next time.
As we sat around the long, ovular, white linen covered table at the hotel where we were to be married in just a few short days, the wedding planner, my mother, my husband and myself were gathered for a final sampling of the delicacies we would be serving to guests at our reception. This event and the cake tasting were probably two of my husband’s favorite parts of the wedding preparation. Our favorite waiter, Alex, who had endured our shenanigans through out this process, delivered the first course. It looked delicious; a three tiered red and yellow tomato structure layered with creamy white mozzarella cheese and drizzled with sweet, dark, balsamic vinaigrette. He gently set the appetizer in front of each of us and stood back as we took a bite. It tasted as good as it appeared.
While my mother, the wedding planner, and I discussed the dish, my husband apparently had some issue with one of the tomatoes, but rather than deposit it on one of the adjacent butter dishes, he placed the offending item directly onto the crisp, white table cloth. I don’t think I’ve seen three women levitate so quickly and speak in such unison as the three of us at that moment. I thought that the sheer force of our simultaneous motion would surely knock my husband to be out of his chair with the strength of a gale force wind. “What are you doing?” we all shouted at him. “Why would you do that? You can’t put the tomato on the tablecloth? Were you raised in a barn?” We inquired with perhaps more vigor than we really felt.
We tried to make a joke out of it quickly after as we realized that we had probably really embarrassed my future groom. However, the damage was done. Clearly, etiquette, at least in my family still reigns. Believe me, from that moment on, I too was very careful not to put my elbows on the table and to make sure to use the appropriate silverware item, lest I be censured in a similar manner.
While I do occasionally remind my husband where to dispose of unwanted food items, purely in jest, I have yet to see another inappropriately placed food particle since. While our tactics may have been a bit more confrontational than necessary, I think that Miss Manners would be proud.
3. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing as long as you’re holding a diamond
While this isn’t really a lesson that pertains to my future endeavors, or me, I thought it would be helpful for any boyfriends, husbands, or relationship wannabes out there.
For many men, the proposal, that moment where you seal the deal, you bite the bullet, you take the plunge, requires a huge amount of planning. Everything has to be just right, from the music, to the location, to the attire. Some men prepare for this moment in intricate detail, analyzing the pros and cons of each option, weighing the benefits of doing it on a jumbotron at the Lakers’ game versus in front of the lion cage at the zoo, etc. We’ll forgive the man whose fiancé swallowed the ring that he had placed in her Wendy’s frosty as a freak accident. Nevertheless, this is a life-changing event that should be done with care and consideration.
I’m sure that all of these thoughts were running through my husband-to-be’s mind as he was planning my proposal. He intricately crafted an incredible scrapbook created from mementos that we had both collected during our years together. Fancy paper and little doodads were used to embellish his creation and it was quite impressive in the end. When I returned home from a night out with friends, the lights were low, candles were lit, and music was playing softly in the background. And there, standing proudly in the middle of it all was my husband to be, carefully attired in the Chicago Bull’s t-shirt that was so stained that it’s original red was now slightly orange and looked as if he had worn it during his years as a mechanic. Holes had formed in the armpits and other strategic locations around this soon to be rag. Completing the ensemble was a carefully selected pair of mesh gym shorts. Maybe he just ran out of proposal preparation pep, as he had clearly worked arduously on the first three quarters of the event.
Nevertheless, when he got down on one knee and pulled the diamond engagement ring out from under the couch, I still said yes and eventually married him. Not that I am encouraging men who are planning on proposing to their beloveds to skip the final step of the process by dressing with wild abandon and a lack of consideration for the formality of the event, but it does go to show you that when it comes down to it, as long as you have love, and a diamond, he could be proposing in a Big Bird costume and it wouldn’t really matter, for most women anyway.
4. If at first you don’t succeed, try it again differently
After quitting my teaching job, due to a commute that explains the development of road rage, I have found it much harder than expected to find a new place of employment. This is not for lack of trying as I submit at least two applications a week to various employers for whom I believe that I am qualified to work. In spite of my persistence, not one company has had the decency to send me an e-mail claiming that they have even received my applications. As you would imagine, this is very frustrating for me and it upsets my husband a great deal as he’s probably becoming sick of seeing me in my sweat pants and tank top when he leaves for work and again when he returns home later in the evening. Frankly, I’m not enjoying it so much myself, except for the bonus of being able to enjoy the simple pleasures of The Bonnie Hunt Show and Ellen.
As my husband and I were discussing my predicament recently, he devised an idea that he thought to be at the root of my occupational woes. His theory was that because my name is spelled so uniquely, employers might be under the impression that I had spelled it incorrectly. Therefore, if I couldn’t spell my own name right, then I would probably not be a suitable member of their workforce.
While pondering this, I found there to be a few discrepancies with his proposal, such as the fact that my name was spelled the same way on both my cover letter and resume. My husband rationalized that I must be simply incompetent enough, in the minds of human resources, to misspell my own name twice.
The other issue with his brainstorm was that I had no way of solving this problem as my name was, in fact, correctly spelled each and every time I wrote it and therefore, there was no actual way around this. Again, my husband had a prepared resolution for this as well. “Why don’t you just start spelling your name the normal way and see what happens? It can’t hurt, ” he proposed. While I couldn’t do any worse than my current unemployed and unresponded-to status, a new conundrum arose out of this idea. Suppose I did actually receive an interview based on one of the misspelled applications, how did I now explain my little sociological test to the employer?
While, I appreciate my husband’s persistence and ability to think outside of the box in an attempt to help me get off the couch, into some respectable attire, and possibly the shower more regularly, I don’t believe that I will be carrying out his advice in the near future. However, I have realized that if something is not working, there’s no harm in doing it a little bit, but logically, differently the next time.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
You Are Not Alone- It Has A Name
My husband is a machosexual. There I’ve said it and I’m not ashamed to admit it. No, I didn’t mean metrosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. As “bootylicious” is attributed to Beyonce, I think that the term machosexual will be forever synonymous with my husband. I know that there are myriad expressions to describe how people look and act and that it is easy to get confused. Nevertheless, I am still going to throw machosexual into the mix. I can’t take all or even most of the credit for the creation of this new moniker. That honor goes to the wedding planner for our big day.
A machosexual, we determined, is a man who, although seemingly very manly and rugged on the outside, clearly knows a bit more than one would assume about traditional “girly” endeavors, such as wedding planning. Let me explain how we arrived at this title for my husband and for those other men out there whose wives have yet to find an appropriate description for them.
My husband is about as much of a man’s man as you can get, on the outside. He played football in college and rugby afterwards. Let’s just say that he likes to put his body to the test. He has had so many concussions that he’s not allowed to do contact sports any more, but like any macho man, he continues to defy doctors orders. I keep telling him that I don’t want to be mashing up food to feed a baby and my husband at the same time in life, so he’d better be careful, but he just doesn’t really know any better. He enjoys the camaraderie of a team sport and the physical action of smashing his body into someone else’s and hearing the resounding crunch afterwards.
In addition, he’s a large, hulk of a man. Six feet tall with broad shoulders and additional protection around the middle. No one would mistake him for the intellectual that he actually is. While his style of dress is improving, he is far from the world of a metrosexual. He’s a used t-shirt and sweat pants kind of man. The only time that he can be coerced out of his usual ensemble is when he goes to work or we venture out to dinner. Even then he continues to pick out some really hideous sport coats in bizarre fabrics and plaids that only one with a very limited fashion sense or limited eyesight would enjoy. Clearly, my husband is your typical male.
However, as we started planning our wedding a few years ago, it became evident that he was more than meets the eye. While his creation of a scrapbook for the big proposal should have tipped me off, I did not truly realize what hidden talents lay beneath his toilet seat leaving up exterior. As much as he tried to hide it, he knew more about weddings than I did and voiced an opinion on everything. While some husbands might shun this whole rigmarole of mother -daughter fighting and color palette selection, he was getting his hands dirty with the rest of us.
One day, as we sat smothered by leather-bound volume upon leather-bound volume of wedding invitations in the stationary store with floral printed chairs, ribbons, and cute knick knacks abounding, you would have thought that my husband would want to bolt or at least walk in like an embarrassed celebrity with his sweatshirt blocking a clear shot of his face. Instead, he strode in like a white knight entering the queen’s kingdom with my mother, my wedding planner, and me. He poured over the books with us, pointing out a color preference here, an embellishment there, and this went on for a while. As someone who doesn’t like to shop, I was done within a half an hour of this antiquated ritual, but my husband to be hung in there with me, like Jack in the Titanic, except I think that he prevented me from drifting off to sea.
After my husband had made yet another intuitive comment about the texture of an invitation, my wedding planner looked up at him in awe and surprise that not only was he still there, but he was still engaged in what I had come to think of as a horrific process. By this point, even I was toying with the fact that eloping might be easier than picking an invitation. As she stared at him, brow furrowed, lips tightly pressed together, in intense concentration you could practically see the light bulb turn on in her mind as she exclaimed, “You are unbelievable. I know what you are, you are a machosexual.” So, it was decided.
Later on in the wedding planning bonanza came the selection of music. I didn’t even know what the wedding song was called but up piped my husband with a request for Pachelbel’s Canon in D. He even knew other wedding songs that he wanted to hear, by name! Who was this man? One minute he’s spouting wedding songs and the next minute he’s knocking back a pitcher of beer or hocking a loogie on the street. As the music lady looked at him with eyes wide and mouth agape, I sat there completely disengaged in the entire proceeding since I didn’t know any of the music to which they were referring, I just wanted the ones that sounded nice. My wedding planner, attempting to resuscitate the musician, just turned to her and explained, “He’s a machosexual.” I do not know if the woman knew what she meant, but she seemed to be more at ease after the proclamation.
I’m not going to lie; there were definitely times when more of the macho side showed through. For instance, during the cake tasting, as my mother and I took a small bite out of each little slice of cake, my husband’s entire plate was inhaled in a matter of seconds, like there had never been cake on it to begin with. He was a human vacuum cleaner and thus it was no surprise that he liked all of the cakes, probably because he couldn’t distinguish between any of them as they were shoved in a mashed jumble down his esophagus.
Nevertheless, I think the term machosexual is perfect for my husband and I don’t know what I would have done without his tendencies during the wedding planning process. I had always known that he had secret talents most often associated with estrogen, but this experience confirmed it. I love his manly side, as it makes me feel safe and comforted, and this strength is what attracted me to him in the first place. However, thankfully he has this alter ego that only comes out for good, such as wedding planning and wedding proposal scrapbooking. So, if you are one of those women that is trying to rationalize a normal beer drinking, ESPN stalking, can’t cook anything other than bacon husband with the man who recently made you a picture frame or created a mixed cd of famous love songs for your anniversary, you are not alone. There is a name for people like that- machosexual.
A machosexual, we determined, is a man who, although seemingly very manly and rugged on the outside, clearly knows a bit more than one would assume about traditional “girly” endeavors, such as wedding planning. Let me explain how we arrived at this title for my husband and for those other men out there whose wives have yet to find an appropriate description for them.
My husband is about as much of a man’s man as you can get, on the outside. He played football in college and rugby afterwards. Let’s just say that he likes to put his body to the test. He has had so many concussions that he’s not allowed to do contact sports any more, but like any macho man, he continues to defy doctors orders. I keep telling him that I don’t want to be mashing up food to feed a baby and my husband at the same time in life, so he’d better be careful, but he just doesn’t really know any better. He enjoys the camaraderie of a team sport and the physical action of smashing his body into someone else’s and hearing the resounding crunch afterwards.
In addition, he’s a large, hulk of a man. Six feet tall with broad shoulders and additional protection around the middle. No one would mistake him for the intellectual that he actually is. While his style of dress is improving, he is far from the world of a metrosexual. He’s a used t-shirt and sweat pants kind of man. The only time that he can be coerced out of his usual ensemble is when he goes to work or we venture out to dinner. Even then he continues to pick out some really hideous sport coats in bizarre fabrics and plaids that only one with a very limited fashion sense or limited eyesight would enjoy. Clearly, my husband is your typical male.
However, as we started planning our wedding a few years ago, it became evident that he was more than meets the eye. While his creation of a scrapbook for the big proposal should have tipped me off, I did not truly realize what hidden talents lay beneath his toilet seat leaving up exterior. As much as he tried to hide it, he knew more about weddings than I did and voiced an opinion on everything. While some husbands might shun this whole rigmarole of mother -daughter fighting and color palette selection, he was getting his hands dirty with the rest of us.
One day, as we sat smothered by leather-bound volume upon leather-bound volume of wedding invitations in the stationary store with floral printed chairs, ribbons, and cute knick knacks abounding, you would have thought that my husband would want to bolt or at least walk in like an embarrassed celebrity with his sweatshirt blocking a clear shot of his face. Instead, he strode in like a white knight entering the queen’s kingdom with my mother, my wedding planner, and me. He poured over the books with us, pointing out a color preference here, an embellishment there, and this went on for a while. As someone who doesn’t like to shop, I was done within a half an hour of this antiquated ritual, but my husband to be hung in there with me, like Jack in the Titanic, except I think that he prevented me from drifting off to sea.
After my husband had made yet another intuitive comment about the texture of an invitation, my wedding planner looked up at him in awe and surprise that not only was he still there, but he was still engaged in what I had come to think of as a horrific process. By this point, even I was toying with the fact that eloping might be easier than picking an invitation. As she stared at him, brow furrowed, lips tightly pressed together, in intense concentration you could practically see the light bulb turn on in her mind as she exclaimed, “You are unbelievable. I know what you are, you are a machosexual.” So, it was decided.
Later on in the wedding planning bonanza came the selection of music. I didn’t even know what the wedding song was called but up piped my husband with a request for Pachelbel’s Canon in D. He even knew other wedding songs that he wanted to hear, by name! Who was this man? One minute he’s spouting wedding songs and the next minute he’s knocking back a pitcher of beer or hocking a loogie on the street. As the music lady looked at him with eyes wide and mouth agape, I sat there completely disengaged in the entire proceeding since I didn’t know any of the music to which they were referring, I just wanted the ones that sounded nice. My wedding planner, attempting to resuscitate the musician, just turned to her and explained, “He’s a machosexual.” I do not know if the woman knew what she meant, but she seemed to be more at ease after the proclamation.
I’m not going to lie; there were definitely times when more of the macho side showed through. For instance, during the cake tasting, as my mother and I took a small bite out of each little slice of cake, my husband’s entire plate was inhaled in a matter of seconds, like there had never been cake on it to begin with. He was a human vacuum cleaner and thus it was no surprise that he liked all of the cakes, probably because he couldn’t distinguish between any of them as they were shoved in a mashed jumble down his esophagus.
Nevertheless, I think the term machosexual is perfect for my husband and I don’t know what I would have done without his tendencies during the wedding planning process. I had always known that he had secret talents most often associated with estrogen, but this experience confirmed it. I love his manly side, as it makes me feel safe and comforted, and this strength is what attracted me to him in the first place. However, thankfully he has this alter ego that only comes out for good, such as wedding planning and wedding proposal scrapbooking. So, if you are one of those women that is trying to rationalize a normal beer drinking, ESPN stalking, can’t cook anything other than bacon husband with the man who recently made you a picture frame or created a mixed cd of famous love songs for your anniversary, you are not alone. There is a name for people like that- machosexual.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Nutritionally Deficient
Clearly, healthy eating in our culture is a complicated subject these days. Everyone is either on a diet or believes that they have developed the next great cure in the battle of the bulge. We are bombarded daily with all sorts of new information telling us what to eat, such as only meat products or lemonade with maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Both sound like fabulous ways to live one’s life if you never plan on enjoying it. Everyday there’s something new we shouldn’t be eating and something else the powers that be have decided should not be in our foods and we are supposed to check every nutrition label and root out this evil from our homes. It’s no wonder that people are continually confused about what is good for us and what is not. However, if you search hard enough you can find a study that tells you what you want to hear, just look at chocolate; don’t tell me that Hershey’s did not have a hand in dark chocolate making its resurgence on the diet scene. With all these nutritional reports changing at a frenetic pace, some people have just decided to develop their own theories about what is and what is not healthy for them. Some are based on fact and some are based on misguided beliefs that formed at the dinner table during their youth, before trans fats and white carbohydrates became the enemy.
My husband falls into the latter of these two categories. He was raised on, how do I put this nicely, not the healthiest of diets. Lots of meats, cream of anything on everything, desserts like each day was a wedding tasting, etc. Consequently, in spite of my husband’s continuous athletic pursuits that resulted in him being a football player during his undergraduate career, he developed into a husky man with a hearty appetite. He also possessed an extremely skewed view when it came to nutrition. I like to think of him as nutritionally disabled, a condition that when treated with medical attention and therapy, could possibly be overcome.
His condition first came to light when my husband went to college and he encountered his first taste of dining hall food. Like most young students, new to the delicacies that make up dorm dining, as a lump of white food was placed on his plate, he immediately asked what it was. Mashed potatoes was the response. This confounded him as he told his fellow dining mates, “No they’re not. Mashed potatoes are yellow.” One might think that he was trying to crack a joke to his new friends, but, sadly, he was being completely serious. Until that day, he had only come across mashed potatoes in a form so butter-laden that none of the original white potato color shined through. He was reared with the belief that this was how mashed potatoes looked. It was a wonder that he did not have cardiac arrest before he got to college with that kind of upbringing. It would also probably not surprise people to learn that he had a similar reaction to rice. It too, he was under the false impression, was best served with a yellow hue. Apparently butter was used more liberally in his house, during his youth than in Paula Deen’s kitchen.
To further elaborate on the fact that trying to convince my husband that butter was not the wonder-food he thought it was, he once genuinely explained to me that butter is healthier in liquid form. Therefore, eating butter on top of a massive cauldron of popcorn at the movie theater was acceptable and apparently even nutritious. He seemed to somewhat grasp by this point, that hardened butter had its issues, but held fast to the theory that when liquefied, it mutated into a health food. You can see what I was dealing with here.
Through our years together, he has continued to defy common sense and logic when passing along his dietary wisdom. For example, vegetables perplexed him. On more than one occasion, he told me he didn’t want to eat vegetables because they had too many calories. Seriously. Maybe this was true in his house where I saw first hand how all of the nutritional value could be sucked out of a normally healthy food like broccoli by upturning a carton of Parkay and Velveeta on top. I tried to explain to him that in the real world outside of “Butterland”, as I started referring to his mother’s kitchen, vegetables were actually low in fat and calories and could even be dietarily sound. Nevertheless, this was the man who believed that French fries were a vegetable and therefore a heart smart choice. Sure, they were a vegetable, a tuber if you will, but that was where the good-for-you similarities ended.
One night after he arrived home post-happy hour with some friends, we engaged in a discussion about his desire to lose some weight. In jest, I suggested a pudding diet, as he seemed to enjoy eating the sugar free cups of vanilla creaminess that I had been buying as healthy treats. Excited does not even begin to describe how he felt about this idea. He started calling out flavors that he wanted to have and even posted his plans on his Facebook page. I attempted to explain the dearth of nutrients that would result from partaking in this diet, but he wasn’t listening. It was only after he learned that he might have issues with, let’s say, fully processing this diet that he decided perhaps it was not in his best interest after all. It was intriguing that not receiving protein, minerals, vitamins, etc. did not pose a problem for him, but the thought of not being able to take his morning constitutional was a deal-breaker.
I think I am making progress with my husband in terms of healthy foods, but I am continually surprised by his nutritional knowledge deficits. It is almost like he gets his advice out of the fake newspaper The Onion. He loves to seize the news tidbits that say, “beer is good for you”, omitting the -in moderation part, or “potatoes are healthy”, conveniently forgetting the detail about not covering them in so much butter that it would clog the artery of a moose. In reality, I don’t expect perfection or even something close; I just do not want him to seriously scar future generations with his “wisdom”.
Like any true deficiency, nutritional or informational, the best course of action is to give my husband what he is missing. While I will continue to try and erase the erroneous beliefs about food that my husband internalized throughout his youth with modern data and facts, I have a feeling that while I might make some headway it will ultimately be like telling an Italian not to eat pasta or the Japanese to avoid the sushi. There is only so much I can do to counteract tradition and time; maybe butter is in his blood, but at least now that butter is the light kind.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
