Phthursday Musings: Ruby, My Dear

In the car tonight, on the way back from dinner, at which we celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary, I asked my wife if, in honor of the occasion, she wanted to write this week’s Musings. And she responded:

In your dreams… buddy boy.

There are a lot of silly things I could write but writing wasn’t my priority tonight! So I’ll share a little story and then tidy it all up from there.

New Year’s Eve 2009, I don’t remember how we found out about it, but there was going to be some wig party somewhere. We’d never been to a wig party so we had to get wigs. (We did have wigs though? We decided we wanted new wigs? Why?)

So I sort of remember going to some place in Wicker Park and finding cheap wigs. And also fake mustaches. For whatever reason that was unusual then? It seems like fake mustaches have been around forever but I guess since it was a wig place they were better fake mustaches?

She got a pink wig and I got a black wig and I got a sheet of fake mustaches, and I don’t know if I could see it in the mustaches right away or if there was an a-ha moment later, but with a long black wig on, and with the right fake mustache applied, I looked more or less like Yanni.

We got ready to go to the wig party. She was dressed and in her wig, I was dressed and in my wig and mustache. And that is when, in our bedroom, I proposed. Because how could she possibly say no when I looked like this?

Then we got picked up, she showed off her ring, it was all very exciting, we got to the party, and… we were the only people there wearing wigs.

But hey, we didn’t care, we were engaged! (If she were writing or editing here she would clarify that we were FINALLY engaged.)

Marriage works when two people can complement one another. Complementing can work in different ways though. It might be a yin-and-yang sort of thing, where one partner is more uptight and the other is less uptight, one partner is the schemer and the other is not, one partner is detail-oriented and the other is a big picture type, etc.

Complementing can also be more akin to harmonizing, where it’s not like balance so much as it’s like being on the same wavelength.

Similar to harmonizing, but I think a little bit different, complementing can also mean something like Laurel and Hardy. You can’t be happy together over the long haul unless there’s a little slapstick going on.

Whatever flavor of complementing you prefer, balance, harmony, slapstick, we’ve got it all. And thank goodness, because god knows I’m not easy to achieve balance or harmony with, and my schtick would probably wear mighty thin on most. (Did I mention we have a pre-teen in the house? We’ll get a chance to see exactly how thin this schtick might wear.)

So we’ve been together for twenty, married for fifteen, and I figure it’s a reasonable conjecture we’ve got on the order of thirty-five to go, which at the current rate means I’ve got about 100,000 more inappropriate jokes coming my way. It’s a good thing she’s cute.

I love you, Michelle, let’s keep doing this crazy thing.