Feb. 12: You’re lucky I love you

I know I make fun of Victor a lot in my blog, and he’d be the first one to tell you it’s well-deserved. But I don’t very often mention his better qualities, and that kind of talk is just as well-deserved. So here, dear, is a my-husband’s-super-great post.

I typically get up after he does in the morning, but if we’re up at the same time, he makes coffee and brings me a cup. It’s always perfectly (lightly) sweetened and the right shade of tan. We drink our coffee out of 20-ounce Starbucks city mugs, and when we drink it at the same time he tries to choose mugs from two cities that are near-ish to each other, as though we’re on vacation there together. He doesn’t do this because he’s sweet and thoughtful; he does it because if he gives me London and uses Manila for himself, I accuse him of wanting to be far away from me. And if he chooses Hawaii and gives me Tacoma, I accuse him of being totally unfair that he’s in paradise and I’m in, well, Tacoma. I mean, Tacoma? Come on!

Goodness. I think I’m getting off track here. Where was I?

When I get up later than he does—like a month ago, when I was recuperating from surgery, or a couple weeks ago, when I was recuperating from dehydration and the headache from hell, or this week, while I’ve been fighting something else of a mysterious and sinister nature, or other days when I just don’t feel like getting out of bed—I can’t remember where I was going with this but I’m suddenly really tired.

Ah, I know. When I get up after Victor’s been up for a while or left for work, he doesn’t leave me coffee in the carafe (which, by the way, does not keep the coffee hot for very long and let me just offer this piece of advice: if you need a good carafe that actually keeps coffee hot, you will not find it in the $4 SKAFFA you bought at IKEA, dummy). No, what he does—and this is the part where I admit he’s awesome—is make up an entirely new pot of coffee, with just the right amount to fill a 20-ounce mug and still have room for creamer. All I have to do is walk over to the coffeemaker and push the ON button. Voilà! In a few minutes there’s nice, fresh, hot coffee for Jen.

Of course, when he says, “Coffee’s ready to go; you just have to push the button,” on his way out the door, I shriek, “GEEZ! I have to do everything!” and then he shakes his head and gets that faraway look that I think means, “I’m so lucky, my wife is so amusing!” but more likely means “Why didn’t I marry that girl who wasn’t so lazy and occasionally did the laundry and the dishes and the cooking instead of this one, whose coffee I spit in every day?”

(Sometimes Vic has to be reminded that I totally do my share around here—the TiVo won’t program itself, you know. Well, actually, I guess it does. But who cleans the bathrooms? That’s right. Occasionally it’s me.)

There. I’ve (kinda) bragged on my husband and (mostly) managed to make myself look lazier and more pathetic than ever. Really, Victor’s awfully good to me, even when I so obviously don’t deserve it.

We now return to our regular programming of mocking and jeering and griping, oh my.