It’s my husband (”HUSBAND”: it’s still so weird) Chris’s birthday today! In the style of blog memes and Facebook notes everywhere, I’m going to honor this day by writing a fun list of facts about him as long as his new age:
1. When he was about 4 years old, he had a play-cooking set with miniature boxes of everything. He told me his grandma would say, “Go get your cooking stuff!” when he was over at her house to play, and now I say it to make fun of him when he’s cooking for real.
2. When he was a young teen, he wrecked a Go-Kart into a fence and bit through his bottom lip, losing a tooth and leaving a scar.
3. On a day soon after we’d met, I remember he wore these huge khaki pants with cargo pockets. I’m not too keen on baggy clothes, but then I heard a crinkle sound coming from the pants. I asked him what it was, and he reached into his left cargo pocket, producing… a honeybun, wrapped in plastic!
4. Our first real date was to the zoo. I think this is where my habit of comparing him to cute animals (a baby deer, a scared little rabbit) comes from.
5. The first year we dated, he always had a pack of Juicy Fruit gum in his car.
6. Chapstick is really the only toiletry he’s picky about.
7. His favorite TV show is The Office.
8. Blazing Saddles is one of his favorite movies. (He gave me the VHS for my birthday once.) He also likes Friday and Dazed and Confused.
9. His favorite salad dressing is French, but sometimes people at restaurants mistake him saying “French” for “Ranch,” and he hates Ranch.
10. He is HUGELY frugal and has “golden credit.” That’s according to our landlord.
11. He’s really tidy, and can’t understand how I’m so messy. However, I own way more stuff than he does because of the whole penny-pinching thing.
12. He used to donate blood regularly—more for the money than for his fellow humans.
13. The only sport he’s ever really done is skateboarding.
14. A few years ago, he and some friends skated across the USA on longboards. They drank free Red Bulls the whole way.
15. He’s totally into VW Bugs from the 1960s or earlier. He used to have one that was painted yellow and white, with a black interior and little dice on the tire valve caps. It’s his dream to have another one.
16. He once got pulled over by the police for swerving while driving in the middle of the night. This was while he had his Bug, and the road was full of potholes. Naturally, he was swerving to avoid hitting them all in his tiny car. The cop was so mad that Chris wasn’t drunk or otherwise impaired that he made him take like three breathalyzers.
17. He also used to get speeding tickets (his fault), but now he drives much slower. Like, really slow. Under the speed limit, usually.
18. He gets really grumpy sometimes, and if we’re home together he’ll go the whole day without talking! If I talk, he barely responds. I actually pointed this out to him the other day because it made me mad, and he said he hadn’t even realized that we’d basically both been silent all day. Whaaat?! So now I guess I can stop taking it personally.
19. When he does talk, he’ll do funny voices.
20. There’s a special voice he uses to say “Hey!” to dogs we see when we’re out.
21. He can make and fix basically anything with a minimal number of tools, but he hates computer problems and gets overly agitated by them. I’m the one who fixed his laptop when it died, through the use of an ice pack and a FireWire connection to my own laptop. Whenever anything else goes wrong, he asks me for help because he knows I have a strange patience for computers.
22. Computers aside, he’s usually a very relaxed person. I think it’s from all the hippie roommates he used to have, who’d do stuff like make their own wind instruments, or write in the dark with candles and take photos of the words.
23. Here’s a weird one: he’s really good at putting plastic wrap over things. This is something I have no patience for, but he can do it without leaving any wrinkles. Similar to that “plastic wrap on the toilet seat” trick, I get faked out by our baked goods ALL the time.
24. He’s very supportive of me whenever I decide to try a new hobby, which is often. He’ll even help me do the boring stuff like wind a ball of yarn for knitting.
25. I believe I made it through college because of all his help. Like, I’d begin with a difficult idea for an abstract sculpture assignment, and he’d help me think it completely through in such a way that my professor would eventually declare it “Out of the ballpark!”
26. He takes care of everything he owns, even if the things aren’t worth it. He glued his crappy skate shoes back together three times before getting rid of them.
27. He thinks it’s cute that I’m too short to reach the food he puts way up high in our cupboard over the stove. The high shelves are his hiding places for things.
28. I have like fifty pet names for him, but he has just one for me, which is “Honey”—and he only says it when he’s being silly.
29. He has adorable dimples. When I tell him so, he puffs his cheeks out so the dimples don’t show. Even MORE adorable!
I started this list on Monday, and told Chris I was writing a post about him for his birthday that would be embarrassing for him to read. (I doubt even a disclaimer like that will make him curious enough to click over here.)
Happy birthday to my bunnyface!