can you feel the love?
Thank you for all of your well wishes on our 11th anniversary! The day was a mix of the good and…the interesting.
It all started with Ali deciding to work from home so we could spend some quality time together. He lavished me with loving words like “SHHHH I’m on a conference call!” and “Stay off the house line, my Cisco phone needs to charge.”
When our morning pleasantries were out of the way we enjoyed a quick lunch at The Montage, complete with statements like “I just have to send this email. Real quick. I promise.”
After lunch we picked Maya up from school and decided to drop her off at my in-laws place. I was assigned the task of navigating through the scary Friday afternoon gridlock while Ali sat in the backseat, fired up his mi-fi and laptop, and conducted business on the move.
Dinner was nice. We enjoyed some Mexican food interspersed with calls to and from Ali’s travel agent and text messages to a variety of people. Our night concluded when we got home and Ali said, “I really wanted to watch a movie on the DVR but it’s too late now.”
It was 8:30 pm.
All technology snafus aside, I declare this anniversary one of our best. Why? Well simply because Ali got the hint that I didn’t want new 19″ rims or a wi-fi printer this year. Instead, he bought me a book
And people think I’m the high-maintenance one in this relationship? I don’t get it.
11 years later
In honor of our 11th wedding anniversary I’ve decided to give Ali a break.
This means that as much as I want to, I won’t talk about the fact that he left one tablespoon of oatmeal in the otherwise empty canister yesterday. I also won’t mention how he instructed me on how to load the dishwasher properly.
That’s right, he tried to tell me how to load the dishwasher. Properly.
Some things are better left unsaid.
Instead I’ll try not to make things all about me for change.
Me: “What do I do that irritates you?”
Ali: “You don’t close the dishwasher so that it clicks shut.”
Me: “Why are you so obsessed with the dishwasher? What else about me bothers you?”
Ali: “Nothing.”
Me: “No really, I want to know what else I do that irritates you.”
Ali: “You leave 1 second on the microwave and you don’t clear it.”
Me: “After 11 years those are the only things I do that annoy you?”
Ali: “Yes.”
I don’t get it. I can list 50 things that I do that annoy the living S@#$ out of myself. How can my husband not have a similar list?
Actually I already know the answer to that: Ali doesn’t have the same list because he’s just a much better person than me. And that’s the truth.
So now that I said he’s a better person than me – for everyone on the Internet to see – I don’t need to get him an actual gift. Right?
***Any avid readers out there? I just reviewed How to Bake a Perfect Life on my sister site thefancybookshelf.wordpress.com.***
i don’t get it
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I ask myself this question all the time. Far too often actually. And while I’d love to say something admirable like I want to be a better wife or a more patient mom, my 100% honest answer is far more shallow:
I really just want 20/20 vision.
The truth is that I feel absolutely hideous with my glasses on. Hideous! I have a rather small face and I think glasses – no matter the style, the brand, or the color – look huge on my small face.
So to avoid having a complex about my glasses I wear contacts. But those little plastic discs, aka tiny torture devices, make my eyes hurt most of the time. This shouldn’t surprise me seeing as plastic probably doesn’t belong in my eye…and yet I stupidly find myself surprised.
I wish I was in Paris...with perfect eyesight.
Anyway, I was feeling especially ugly the other day and needed reassurance. I asked Ali, “Do you think I look ugly with my glasses?” Ali glanced up from his computer, threw me a cursory “no,” and went right on typing.
Let’s be honest here, Ali probably wouldn’t notice if I suddenly developed a third eye on my forehead. So really, asking him was an exercise in futility. After that useless exchange I realized I either have to embrace my glasses or I have to deal with eyes as dry as the Sahara desert.
We can put a man on the moon but we can’t make Lasik 100% risk-free? I don’t get it.
While I'm not going to win Mother/Wife of the Year Award anytime soon, I haven't killed anyone yet or shot myself in the head. And that, my friends, is how I calculate success these days. 
FANCY THAT FANCY THIS 