WHEN HOUSE MARRIED WILSON

 It's not news to anyone who knows me or reads this blog that I'm obsessed with House, M.D. starring Hugh Laurie, the man I'm going to marry next time the great British actor.  Months ago I got my husband into the show and we've been slowly making our way through the seasons, an episode or two a day.  (We're almost done with the second to last season and whenever he pisses me off about anything I threaten to tell him what happens in the last episode.)  As soon as I started watching the series I saw eery similarities between the House/Wilson relationship and that of my own marital one.

As House's best friend, Wilson is the one who looks after his interests, tries to protect him from his own destructive habits, catches him when he falls.  In return, House makes fun of him, pulls pranks, and generally abuses him on a daily basis.  And each time, Wilson comes back for more.  "Would never happen in real life!", critics might scream.  Well...

After The Vulcan had his heart surgery, he bristled against my nursing style and compared me to Kathy Bates in Misery -- and then found his bathroom and bedroom plastered with photos of the knife-wielding caretaker. 

He had the nerve to insult me in some fashion and then discovered a picture of himself hanging on the refrigerator with a plastic knife piercing the crotch and a line from my favorite Chicago song written across the bottom ("he had it comin', he had it comin', he only had himself to blame").

He hovers over the kitchen counter when making PB&J sandwiches, like a dog protecting a bone, because if he lets his attention slip for half a second I smash my hand down on the bread.

When The Vulcan got his vasectomy during the holiday season, I serenaded him with "All I Want for Christmas Are My Testicles" to the tune of  "All I Want for Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth."

Despite his frequent warnings that I'm not to touch his computers, with all their stock market tickers and graphs flying around the screens, he frequently comes back from the bathroom to find me in his office chair chirping, "I'm gonna buy a stock."

And then there's that cane he bought me for Mother's Day.  What an idiot he was to acquiesce to that request...

Wilson would never stay with House and all his personality quirks, you say?  Well, my husband's been here for 17 years and shows no signs of leaving.  I know he's just joking when he says he can't, the alimony would cost him too much.  He's as happy today as he was 17 years ago.  Might be time for the man to talk to a psychiatrist about that.

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THE ANNIVERSARY SCHMALTZ

I could have put up something on my Facebook status about my wonderful husband, our 16 glorious years together, how he is my best friend and confidante.  Yeah, I didn't do that.  In fact, I never re-post those husband-adoring messages that go around from time to time.  It's not that I don't like the Vulcan.  As husbands go, he's not too bad.  Somehow I can't think of him as my best friend, though.  When I ponder the term "best friend," I envision the person I call when I'm at my lowest, who listens to all my troubles with a sympathetic ear and offers a pat on the back.  How can my best friend be a man who I best communicate with via e-mail, even though he works at home and I'm merely typing to him from the floor below?

Back in the early days (read:  before children) we used to go on vacation in October.  After The Professor came along, it turned into long weekend trips with our child in the care of his grandmother and aunt.  Our last long weekend trip, which must go back a good six or seven years now, ended with The Vulcan going to sleep at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, leaving me in a Lexington hotel room watching Larry King.  At that point I decided a simple dinner out, childfree, was about as exciting as it was going to get.

OK, maybe the man's not completely without sentiment

This year we didn't even manage that.  Part of the problem was Grandma and Uncle Chester's unavailability to watch The Inmates (a rare occurrence).  Another issue was my hauling my sorry behind back to Weight Watchers this week to officially get weighed in for the first time in a year (and the receptionist kindly whited out my weight gain on my booklet so as not to discourage me).  Mostly, though, I just didn't feel like it.  We're going on twenty years together.   We have two kids, two dogs, two cats, two frogs, and seven computers.  (I throw in the latter fact only to reinforce my claim that my husband's easier to talk with through technology -- how else to explain the people-to-keyboard ratio in the house?)  We're past the dewy-eyed stage.  As my mother always says, if she sees a couple at a restaurant alone and they're totally thrilled with each other's company, they ain't married yet.  (Or maybe they're not married to each other.)

From my fab mother, handmade tote bag and organizer in a motif of travel trailers. 
Airstream escape fantasies, anyone?

In my early twenties I probably would have been depressed to think that romance would be totally gone from my life.  Instead I find myself too busy (and too tired) to care.  It could be because my concerns are more global in general or focused on my children in particular.  I'd like to say I've grown up, I've matured, but readers of my blog know that can't be it.  Perhaps I'm in a rut and too distracted by my latest knitting project to notice.  Whatever the reasons, I don't find myself depressed to have stayed home on my anniversary, with a day as ordinary as any other.   Maybe I've grown, maybe I'm heading towards enlightenment.  Or perhaps I'm mentally saving up for that big-ass gift I'm gonna make sure he gets me for our 20th anniversary.


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ANOTHER KIND OF BED-LAM

I don't want to say my husband, The Vulcan, is cheap.  I want to say he's a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner, but Charles Dickens might get pissed. 

Usually I get around my husband's frequent cry of "stop spending money!" by simply not telling him I spent it, one of the benefits of being the person in charge of household finance.  I also tend to hide my purchases in plain sight and it usually takes a good year for him to notice the new purse on my shoulder or the earrings dangling from my lobes.  My latest purchase, however, wasn't likely to go unseen.  Our 16th wedding anniversary is in a couple weeks and I learned about 12 years ago not to depend on him to pick an appropriate gift.  I've been much happier since I started simply buying a gift for myself and informing him afterwards.  I had every intention of picking myself up a Dooney & Bourke purse this year, but, alas, fear for my children's safety led me to a different gift.

We have a finished basement and on the weekends the kids sleep on the sofa beds down there and watch Netflix until the wee hours.  The Professor sleeps on a fold-out love seat my sister passed on to us when she moved.  Unfortunately the bed part is not functioning properly anymore and both he and the dog have to sleep on a mattress that slopes down at a 45 degree angle.  And that's the good sofa bed.  The other was purchased from the seller of our first home 15 years ago and it was gently used then.  It has since been through two kids, three dogs, and two cats, all of whom like to sleep on it or scratch it or bounce on it.  When unfolded, the mattress sagged in the middle, several springs were missing near the foot causing the mattress to dangle and scrape the floor, and stuffing was starting to come out of the back.  The arms had already been patched and the cushions recovered twice.  I feared some day a piece of metal was going to snap and one or both of my children (or my dogs) would be trapped and  turn up on "News of the Weird" due to the freakish cause of death.

On Sunday I wandered into the local Furniture Fair and twenty minutes later left with an order for a new futon.  The Inmates tested it in the store and as long as they're willing to sleep next to each other it will accommodate them both.  Chester's old sofa will stay, since it's totally functional as a couch, just not as a bed given its resemblance to a ski slope.  I thought I was being very mature about this.  I wasn't whining about not getting a purse (well, just a little) and I didn't insist this purchase should come out of general house maintenance money, even though I've always viewed being given a practical gift as only one step above being given the clap.

I informed The Vulcan that I bought a futon.  His reaction?  I quote:  "You better not have!"  Huh?  Apparently he thought there was nothing wrong with our old couch, that it was perfectly functional and not unattractive if I put the slipcover back on.  Plus, he insisted, this futon was expensive.  Why, he asked, couldn't I have gotten one for under $200?  I informed him that not only hadn't he bought a couch in decades, but apparently he'd never even been in a store with one since Pope John Paul died.

I give you my photographic evidence of my old couch.  You decide.

Personally I think Child Protective Services might have had something to say if they showed up...not to mention PETA and the SPCA.  The deliverymen were apparently so horrified by the old couch that they took it away, but left the crappy cushions behind on the floor.

On the other hand, the kids keep talking about how comfortable the new one is, I keep looking at the fresh unblemished fabric, and Frank immediately curled up and took a long nap.  Yep, The Vulcan is outnumbered as usual.

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