Then I stumbled upon “She is Love” by Oasis.
The tune, written and sung by Noel Gallagher during a break from bashing brother Liam about the head, popped up on my iTunes radio the other day and refused to leave my brain. In a good way.
So I did some Googling.
On this 16th anniversary of my marriage to My Love, I’m happy to report our wedded bliss is still unspoiled.
We have been told the same is true of our marital can of Spam.
Our friends gave us Mork (named so by me as it is a “meat like pork”), leaving it along with hundreds of unpopped popcorn kernels on our honeymoon bed.
The popcorn, I know, was an homage to my bride’s Cornhusker State upbringing. But Spam? I can be a ham, but did I forget some greater symbolism behind this gift?
So I called the U.S. Library of Congress. That’s where Justin, one of the purchasers of Mork, earns a living.
When it came time for Excitable to select an instrument to learn at school this year, his initially mentioned an interest in the flute.
This would have been awesome if he had previously shown any interest in my dusty stack of Jetho Tull vinyl in the corner of our basement, or at least in this key scene in one of my all-time favorite movies:
Truth be told, his only interest came from knowing his sister had played flute in elementary school and that she might be able to help him fake his way through it.
Well, as long as it wasn’t the screech of the violin, I could live with it. However, I thought I’d drop one sly hint on someone else’s behalf.
“Your mom,” I said, “would LOVE it if you tried to learn the saxophone.”
ME?! The modern day Jack Benny of household and personal thrift? Let’s explore this in the next few posts.
+ + +
One night in the not-too-distant past, I sought the seclusion of my home office to finish some odds and ends on my computer. This immediately raised suspicions in my wife.
MY LOVE (decloaking from ninja mode): What are you doing?
UNCOOL (wetting pants) (because I spilled my beer): GAH! Jesus Alou, honey! I was sending an email to our neighbors.
MY LOVE: About what?
Or many years late.
Only my wife can make that call.
Assuming someone reads this to her.
Roughly 20 years ago, in the mid-February shortly after My Love and I began dating, she invited me back to her home state of Nebraska for a friend's wedding. I dusted off my one and only suit and suppressed my then-fear of flying. Maybe I didn't suppress it so much as it was canceled by the apprehension about meeting her family and, worse, a few of her studly ex-boyfriends.
Being in her native land, My Love handled most of the driving along those never-bending highways. This left me staring for hours through the rental car window into the aptly named Great Plains as it grew more featureless and infinite with every new vanilla layer of snow. When my amusement from exit signs for Beaver Crossing and McCool Junction faded, I took to perusing the local newspapers, reading aloud items that caught my fancy from the pages of the Kearney Hub and Lawrence Locomotive. It's a tradition, along with chawing on handfuls of beef jerky, that we carry on to this day on road trips.
Being near Cupid's holiday, several of the papers published Valentine missives between lovers - new, old, hopeful and desperate. After reading several of them, I nearly choked on a plug of hickory-flavored Oberto.
The message went something like this:
My Love,
Every day I'm with you my love for you grows and I find you are even more beautiful on the inside than the outside.
Love,
Uncool.
Hokey.
Corny.
Completely not me.
It was the most bizarre of coincidences in the most bizarre of places but at just the right time.
I read it to her. And she lit up. The glow in her face defrosted our windows and probably more than a few passing acres of winter wheat.
It took a while for My Love to believe I wasn't conning her when I claimed no responsibility for that love note. In the end, it didn't matter. Neither of us remembers what I really did give her that Valentine's Day, but we still talk about the sign the gods or fate sent us from beyond the Nebraska farmland.
Two decades have come and gone since. We are so past the romance stage in our relationship that it's a wonder either of us showers on weekends anymore.
This year, as for the past several, My Love has told me to get her nothing for Valentine's Day. She really means "nothing beyond an obligatory greeting card."
She expects no flowers and has made me aware on more than one occasion not to waste the money on something that fades and dies so quickly.
My recent suggestion to splurge on a dinner -- sans kids! -- was nixed because "everyone's out that night" and neither of us needs the hassle.
Chocolates are always a no -- calories, fat, hips and thighs, you know.
Lingerie? Refer back to the sentence on chocolates. Then re-read the one about no showering.
However, I really feel I still owe her something from 20 years ago. So here goes:
My Love,
I knew I loved you on our second date. That's when, as a joke, you secretly flipped around every other cassette box in the case I kept in my car so the next day the labels would be difficult for me to read when I fumbled at a stoplight in search of some new tunes to play. You have been turning my world and me upside down ever since.
Love,
Uncool
To mark tonight’s season 6 premiere of Burn Notice on the USA Network, I’m giving away a 4-DVD set of Season 4 (which includes what I’m sure is the hysterical extra “Sam Axe’s Guide to Ladies and Libations”). Just leave a comment, any comment, at the end of this post and I’ll randomly select one winner next week around this time. I’ll give you two extra entries if you make a donation to my Movember Foundation page.
Why is actress Gabrielle Anwar, who plays former IRA bomber Fiona on the spy show Burn Notice, standing next to My Love?
Better yet, where am I?
Drooling behind the camera?
On the floor, passed out and blind from seeing all this hotness in one place?
Standing dumbstruck after Gabrielle posed this question to me, “Is that a brick of C4 explosive in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
Sigh.
Alas, I was back here at home, tending to the dog and Things as I normally do. My Love was in Miami on business and Burn Notice happened to be filming in the hotel where she was staying.
Because she knows how I love that show (and lust after Ms. Anwar), she finagled a quick snap with her. Their brief conversation went something like this.
MY LOVE: My husband thinks you’re so hot.
MS. ANWAR: Oh, sweetie. Short, tight dresses and high heels have that effect.
MY LOVE: Damn you, Anwar.
MS. ANWAR: Smile for the camera!
So rather than an intimate brush with celebrity, I got this autographed photo of the cast that I can pose with for today’s Movember update.
Autumn has descended upon our drenched New England-ish suburb with a cascade of sewage-colored leaves, ending a plentiful summer harvest that overflowed under temporary tents and makeshift stands filling roadsides and parking lots across our SUV-infested region.
I say that having marinated our garbage disposal, again, in lemon juice and baking soda to rid our kitchen of the stench of "fresh" beets and radishes.
At least beets and radishes are what I think those fuzzy little beasts were I found nuzzling the baby carrots. Thank science for cellophane. In another day or two, we might have unleashed a mutant root vegetable upon the world or, worse, another Republican candidate for president.
Don't misunderstand me. I love the idea of farmers' markets dotting our landscape. If you have the time, money and determination to browse them regularly in effort to eat only locally grown foods, I applaud you, but discretely and only when you out of earshot. Get some people talking about their all-natural, carbon-footprint-reducing ways and you soon understand why the word "locavore" is just two letters and a space removed from "loco bore."
Instead, my greatest concern with this green grocer revolution is keeping My Love far, far away from it.
In our barely dual-income family, she's the breadwinner and I'm the bread buyer. Circumstances reversed somewhat this summer, leaving my normally better-paid half with the need to occasionally help with my prior household duties, including the quest for food. So imagine my surprise when the woman I married, the one always quick to declare how she loathes shopping of all kinds, kept filling our home with crates of tomatoes and bushels of peppers, and buckets of ... well, I really don't know what those buckets of puce-colored things were.
"Oh, I stopped by the farmers' market," she'd say, looking proud of the bounty spread before her. "Everything looked so beautiful and fresh."
I'd agree. The acre of farmland produce and fruit spilling off our kitchen counter would look pretty and scrumptious. For about three days. That would be when I'd open a crisper drawer and pray that exposure to this organic and rapidly disintegrating goo I discovered inside didn't somehow trigger my lifelong allergy to penicillin.
I'm not averse to eating healthy. I do my best to avoid the salty, sugary and tasty evils of processed food when I can. Breakfast tends to consist of egg-white omelets or artery-unclogging oatmeal so long as a doughnut doesn't try to leap to its death down my gullet.
While My Love is normally a big proponent of moderation and portion control. However, when she passes a farm-fresh stand of berries or squash she suddenly comes under the delusion that our home doubles as a way station for ravenous armies of vegan extremists.
"Oh, I'll just freeze it for later," is her standard reply to my dismay at the sight of our cupboards jammed with fresh reds, greens and yellows that I know inevitably become a fuzzy lot of spoiled grays, whites and blacks. Therefore, she freezes.
And freezes.
And freezes.
That's why when Tropical Storm Irene knocked out our power for three days, I rejoiced. Our light company’s failures were my success at blamelessly clearing the lower depths of the Frigidaire of another forgotten icy crop.
But what am I to do with all this room now that a chill is in the air?
If you are a dairy farmer interested in opening an all-natural ice cream market, please -- give me a holler.
SEATTLE – As a non-runner, my main job on charity race days is usually one of logistics. This is a polite way of saying I lug supplies and pick up trash.
The tent serves as our foundation’s headquarters for the day. Our volunteers gather here before heading off to their duties, be it handing out water or food to runners on the course or writing down racers’ bib numbers and times when they finally crossed the finished.
The tent would be where those runners braving the miles of Seattle hills on behalf of a child with juvenile myositis would meet up with that child, family and friends after their journey.
It would be where our JM children could hang out in the shade, play and just be kids while we adults did what we could to draw attention to their cause.
If only we knew where this tent was.
The race organizers had chosen cancer to be the “exclusive” disease to benefit from the day’s profits and publicity, so our little autoimmune disease was even farther below the radar than usual with the people in charge. No official I talked to at the staging area had any clue who we were or where we should go. In essence, without a tumor, we were personas non grata.
In desperation, I wandered the grounds until I found “Charity Village,” the section where groups like ours normally are placed. I headed to the tent of one of the international cancer mega-charities, which was festooned with its signature purple and green colors.
Unlike our mishmash of big-hearted volunteers, the folks working for this group are fundraising professionals. They register their cause as a major sponsor in thousands of races a year, recruiting hordes of runners and volunteers from around the world. If one of its runners raises a certain amount of money, the charity picks up their tab not only for the race entry fee, but often hotel and travel costs. About a year before Thing 1’s juvenile dermatomyositis diagnosis, My Love ran a half marathon in Alaska on behalf of this group. In exchange for her raising $3,000 for their cause, the charity picked up about $1,500 in her expenses, meaning only half the money she raised really went to the cancer cause.
If anyone would know whose cage to rattle about our tent, it would be these folks.
Sure enough, once I explained to one of the guys there that the name of my charity was the one plastered across the bright orange T-shirt I had on (“Cure JM. No, not Cure Jim. J. M. Juvenile Myositis. Yeah. It’s no cancer, but it keeps me busy.”), he hit a couple buttons on his phone and in a minute, I had my answer.
“Great, thank you so much,” I said. “By the way, how many runners to you have in the race?”
“About a hundred,” he said.
“Really? We have about a hundred, too,” I said while nodding.
Then I walked away, thinking to myself, “Wow – you folks are really slacking off.”
+ + +
The whole weekend was a huge success for Cure JM.
The foundation raised more than $180,000 with more more still coming in. Team Uncool hit its $20,000 goal (thanks to all of you who donated and for those of you who didn’t, our FirstGiving page is still open).
In addition to our 100 runners, we had more than 40 families – including one from Abu Dhabi -- attend the education conference we put on and more than than 40 medical professionals, including an Order of Canada winner (that’s the Canuck version of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom), come to the daylong medical forum we held at Seattle Children’s Hospital to help doctors and health care personnel learn more about diagnosing and treating juvenile myositis.
Here are some photos taken by me and some of our great Cure JM participants from the weekend. Enjoy. And again, thank you.
My Love is “between jobs.”
Since March.
Panic.
Despair!
Holy guacamole, am I going to need to get a real job again? I’m not fit for 9-to-5 any more. I bruise! I’m A BLEEDER!
MOOOOOM-MYYYYY!
Actually, it’s not that bad. We parental Uncools are a fiscally responsible lot (ahem, coughcough-CHEAP-cough). We are in good standing thanks to our savings, investments and a wicked global demand for my plasma and blood platelets. (Bet My Love is regretting making me snip The Boys now. Then we’d have another $37.83 a whack, I mean, week.)
We are also covered as far as Thing 1’s medical expenses go. Mortgage, no problem. Cars, paid for. Yep, the only thing at risk of being lost around here is someone’s sanity.
Surprise! It ain’t mine.
My Love loves working. LOVES it. However, when the time came for her to make a radical career change, she vowed to do the same with her work-life balance.
“I’ve been working since I was 14, detasseling corn in the arid fields of Nebraska during the day and slaving at a 7-Eleven at night. I’m taking the summer off,” she declared.
“My Love, I give you two weeks before you are willing to clean the grease traps at Burger Sling for minimum wage just to get away from this domestic life.”
“Pfft,” she scoffed in a “there, there, my little at-home daddy” tone.
“I know you, ex-executive goddess. You worked through maternity leave. Both of them. I’d come home and you’d be holding a baby to your boob with one hand, banging out PowerPoint presentations with the other. You are not cut out for laundry and chauffeuring children to playdates. That’s a man’s job.”
Of course, I was wrong.
It took not two weeks, but two months for her crack.
She spent most of her first week of freedom cashing in some of the zillion airline miles she had accumulated from her old job to go skiing with friends in Colorado. Then she took a weekend jaunt to Vermont with some her ex-coworkers. When not gallivanting about, she spent her mornings and afternoons meeting people for meals or coffee or finally using the half dozen spa treatment certificates I had gotten her as presents over the years.
“Honey,” I said one day, “can you take Thing 2 to his baseball game today? I’ve got to coach Thing 1 at soccer practice.”
“Can’t. Having tapas with Pippa Middleton.”
“How about picking them up from school on Thursday? I’ve got a dentist appointment that might run late.”
“Nada,” My Love said. “I’m meeting David and Victoria at the beach.”
“Did I say ‘dentist’? I meant ‘tumor removal surgery’.”
“Still can’t. Sand. Becks. Posh.”
“You know, your being home hasn’t help me out one bit. And when did you start hanging out with English celebrities?”
“I don’t want to disrupt your routine, dear,” she said. “I know how important that is to you.”
My Love soon hit the reality I quickly encountered early in my at-home dadness. It’s fun to play while everyone else is at work, but it quickly becomes hard to find anyone to play with during that time. (I know what your dirty little minds are thinking. She could play with me. But remember, folks, My Love wanted to preserve my routine. That means no weekday extracurriculars with the testiculars.)
In a fit of desperation, My Love made the mistake of all rookie at-hommies. She volunteered to chaperone on a school trip -- escorting Thing 1 and her fellow fifth graders on a trip to Ellis Island to learn about immigration.
Let’s put this in context, shall we:
Eight weeks out of corporate life and My Love forgot all she knew about doing a pre-project cost-benefit analysis.
Let me sum up her experience by quoting the text message she sent me that afternoon:
“Today is the first day
I wish I was at work.”
Welcome back, My Love. Now, let’s take a look at that resume of yours.
No?
Want to watch me drink a lot of beer while attempting to give a coherent product review?
Still no?
Well, maybe you want to see what My Love looks like dressed like as a St. Pauli Girl beer wench?
Ah – that’s it! Then have I got a video for you.
It has music! Comedy! Graphics! Me and a lot of beer.
Click the link at the end of this sentence to watch the special video I made for DadCentric.com called “When Technology and Alcohol Collide.”
# # #
DONATE TO HELP THING 1 NOW
AND YOUR GIFT WILL BE DOUBLED
If you have yet to give to the Cure JM Foundation’s search to find a cure to Thing 1’s juvenile dermatomyositis, then now is the time.
Why?
Because a friend has come forward with an offer to match every dollar our family raises between now and race day (June 25), up to a total of $3,000.
No one knows what dollar will find the cure. Let’s hope it is yours.
What are you waiting for? Give to Cure JM now!
My Love made the appointment for last Tuesday. Not being one for history, she didn’t realize the significance of selecting December 7 as the day for her and Thing 1 to finally make good on someone’s promise to chop off her tresses for a good cause.
“Pearl Harbor Day,” I told her. “When the Japanese bombed us into World War II. ‘A date which will live in infamy.’”
“Oh.”
“It’s OK. I’d still love you bald. Or looking like that crazy doll head with the erector-set legs in the first Toy Story movie. I mean, you did put up with my mustache for a month.”
Combined, the two of them donated seven locks, each at least 10 inches long.
And hardly a tear was shed.
And yes, Thing 1 still wanted to know if she could get paid.
She settled for a plate of sliders and wings at a restaurant down the street.
For more information on donating to Locks of Love, visit its website and FAQ page.
Time for my annual rant about putting out the Uncool Family holiday cards, but with a tangy twist! This year I’m borrowing the “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” format from Marinka of Motherhood in NYC, a classy and sassy woman who I’d be lucky to have on my side during a knife fight at Zabar’s.
Cast of Disagreers: Uncool and My Love.
Disagreement: Do you need to hand write a personalized note in a holiday card when said card already includes: 1) a thorough and entertaining family newsletter and 2) all the family member’s names (dog included) expensively embossed inside?
Position 1: We do all that other stuff to AVOID having to personally communicate with these people, many of whom we haven’t seen since our wedding. A handwritten note is only necessary when adding essential and timely information, such as “Don’t pick the scabs!” or “Plead the Fifth when the Feds come!” Not exactly keeping with the spirit of glad tidings, though.
Position 2: People may not be able to read our chicken scratch but they’ll figure out we’re attempting a bit of personalized sincerity here, Scrooge!
Please weigh in. The stamps are burning a hole in my pocket.
Two packages arrived at our doorstep a few weeks ago that had me giving thanks well before the cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes hit the table this past Thursday.
The first package: a box of wine.
Not that $3.99 cube sitting on a shelf at the 7-Eleven between the fried pork rinds and the dusty orange bottles of STP Super Concentrated Gas Treatment. That’s “box wine,” Goober!
No, this was an actual case of the bottled fermented grape. Stopped up with real corks and wax ‘n‘ stuff. This normally would have meant little to me, the resident beer drinker of Uncool Estates. Besides, My Love had joined an online wine club earlier in the year and cases of malbecs and fruit de loops had been showing up at our place periodically.
This case, however, was the fifth to arrive at our door in the past two weeks. In fact, the last time a case arrived even the FedEx man who delivered it raised his eyebrows and inquired about My Love’s imbibing habits.
Even stranger, My Love has been laying off the vino of late. She had been letting cases pile up so she could work on her goal of living a healthier life through better eating, more exercise and putting the usual kibosh on any suggestion I throw her way especially if it now involves whipped cream and pure Vermont maple syrup.
Package No. 2: Now this is what got my mind right back in the gutter and rolling around in the glorious filth.
This package, the unassuming brown corrugated kind about two shoeboxes in width, bore the return address of … an online costume store.
Hmm … Halloween has already passed …
Store probably had big clearance sales …
Well, some of you have been around here long enough to know what visions of sugar-walled goodness danced in my head. Go ahead, take a guess.
READER 1: “I know! Discounted saucy pirate wench outfit!”
READER 2: “No, no! It’s a cut-priced frilly French maid!”
READER 3: “I’ve got it! Bargain-basement beer wench!”
(Oops – never got around to writing about that last one, did I? Looks like I finally have a completely legitimate reason to post this Oktoberfest photo of Kim Kardashian:
Look at the size of those pretzel loops! Is there anything Kim can’t do? You know, besides productively contribute to society?)
That’s right, friends, I was pretty certain My Love was stocking up for the bender to all benders … and letting me be the beneficiary.
Bless me and thank you, O Mysterious and Magically Delicious Powers That Be, for providing a bounty of trimmings to make for a most glorious feast (in the locked privacy of our room) this season!
But that was many days and icy showers ago.
So here it was, Thanksgiving Day. The turkey gobbled up, the coffee brewing and pumpkin pie warming. Sure, I was thankful for many things, most prominently my being able to wear elastic waistband track pants for the next three days but, golly, I felt a little cheated after letting my imagination run wild for most of the month.
And then, when I least expected it, the mystery of the second box revealed itself – not only to me, but also my incredibly embarrassed children and hysterical parents.
Down the stairs of our home came My Love, looking regal in this:
I could use some of that wine about now.
* * *
Hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving and that you’ll give a little more thanks that in two days I’m shaving off my Movember mustache. You can help celebrate by donating to fight prostate and testicular cancer.
Happy 13th anniversary, My Love. You’re still smoking, but only in a totally Surgeon General-approved kind of way.
For more of the story, read:
UNCOOL: Do you need anything from the store?My Love has been trying to persuade me to take up jogging since shortly after we first met which, I feel compelled to point out, was at a keg party.
In the 17 years we've know each other since, she's run marathons in Honolulu, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City and half marathons elsewhere. To me, these are all certifiable acts of insanity or, at the very least, signs she needs a more stimulating and purposeful hobby. Re-grouting bathroom tile, for example, also has a clear starting and ending point, offers great emotional and physical satisfaction upon completion and results in very similar aches and pains in the lower extremities.
I have tried jogging before. My Love and some co-workers conned me into running a 5K many years back. After only a few practice runs, it felt as though John Daly had lined a tee shot directly into the side of my left knee. I eventually ran the race, but my knee stayed cranky for months afterward and that's where my running career hit the wall.
(This is the point when whenever I tell this story that My Love shakes her head and calls me something endearing like "wuss." Running, it is clear, does not build one's empathy toward the lame.)
Sometime early last year, though, I found myself forced into an occasional run that for once had nothing to do about the urgency to reach an unoccupied bathroom.
I blame our dog, Murphy.
While on our walks, our 3-year-old Labrador retriever, sometimes decides he'd rather be going in a different direction if not going at all. When these moments hit, he simply locks all four legs in "park" or just lies down all together. Since modern dog training methods frown on yanking a dog into mobility and physically lifting Murphy, who weighs about 75 pounds, offers only a solution for the literal short haul, an alternative had to be found.
This is when I'd take a treat, hold it inches from his snout then pull it back while uttering the words I never thought I'd say aloud, with any sense of enthusiasm, to man or beast:
"OK -- let's go for a run!"
These were short burst semi-sprints: a few dozen feet to maybe a few dozen yards at a time. During the winter, when the golf course by our neighborhood lay deserted except for northern winds and rotting snow, Murphy's leash would be detached and we'd run the odd fairway or two.
When I mentioned this to My Love, her face brightened like a child on Christmas morning. I told her not to get carried away by this. I said it again after my subsequent decision to purchase a pair of running shoes for it could just be a passing phase like that time I was fascinated by mutton chop sideburns.
Spring, summer and fall went by without anything more than my occasional run to jumpstart the pup. Then three weeks ago, in the dead of New England winter, I did it. I hopped onto our treadmill in the toasty basement and put in a little more than a mile.
Twice.
I did it again last week.
Once I even did a mile and a half, picking up the pace so it was less of a brisk walk and more of a vague approximation of an ungainly trot.
I can't say I loved it, but I definitely didn't loathe it, either.
Hallelujah! I've achieved indifference!
That's the same as an endorphin high, right?
When my best friend from college had her first baby a few months ago, My Love squealed in giddy delight.
“If you ever need any advice, call me!” she chirped like an over-caffeinated canary to my friend several times during the call.
Leaving out her innate areas of expertise (breastfeeding, hormone fluctuations, creative excuses for avoiding non-procreative relations), the following are baby-rearing niches My Love is most qualified to consult on:
Read more about those latter skills in Baby Unnecessities: The Diaper Genie, only on DadCentric.
What’s your spouse’s area of baby expertise?
(Cartoon: Shoeboxblog.com)
My Love just returned from the annual company physical (perk of being a Globetrotting Executive Goddess), and the news is good.
Even though I – he of imagined heart attacks and actual panic attacks - still hold the family record on that sexist stress test), she is perfectly healthy and able to continue to support me in the manner in which I am accustomed.
BAM!
Two bloody knees and a sore wrist.
So, friends, while I attend to her every need (her need, not mine, gutter-dwellers) (but I appreciate your rooting for me), here are few oddly appropriate items I wrote elsewhere this week for your enjoyment:
+ + +
$18,600 raised; $6,400 to go!
Help the Uncool Family find a cure for Thing 1’s autoimmune disease!
Even if you can only spare $5 or $10, please support us in the Austin Marathon by donating to Cure JM Foundation, the only nonprofit dedicated solely to putting an end to this often painful and potentially deadly disease. Just whip out a credit card and click over to our FirstGiving fundraising page.
%5B7%5D.jpg "Oktoberfest Kim Kardashian beer wench")
