Anniversary

In commemoration of my third wedding anniversary, I would like to praise my wife's three roles in my life that has made this marriage such a blessing of the non-denominational kind.

Mother to my Children

Whenever my children say something like, "Where's the ball? I don't see the ball. Oh, there it is!" is pretty much a direct influence from my wife. She's given them so many cute little nuances and speech tidbits that they're practically little versions of her. Except maybe a little more drooling. Thing is, when I picked my wife to be my wife, I didn't really think about what kind of mother I'd like for my kids, because I wasn't really thinking about kids at all. But lucky for me, I found me a nurturing, caring mother for my kids. I couldn't imagine any other mother who would decide to go back into motherhood after having two kids, and give up her free time to be with two little cuties. I may be the crazy clown parent who does funny dances and give them giggling fits, but I'm very grateful that she is there to ground them to reality and to make sure they like, learn stuff and become smart. I don't know how my kids would turn out if I had married another woman, but I know they wouldn't be as cute as Alex and Zoe. She gave them the beauty gene - I gave them the offbeat humor gene. Although I have to say, Zoe's personality is definitely derived from my wife's. She's got my wife's stubbornness and maternal instincts. Alex got my anal retentiveness and my humor. Sorry, buddy.

Best Friend

When the times get tough, and kisses and hugs and nookie doesn't solve real world problems like financial hardship, being short on rent, or parenting woes - those are the moments when I'm very glad that my wife is my best friend. I mean, she's the best friend that I've wanted my whole life - someone who doesn't treat you like a sidekick, or someone who doesn't latches onto you too tightly. Her humor is on par with mine when it comes to grossness, and she's got the best reactions to my attempts at humor. That is great for someone like me who craves reaction to my stupid humor - but fear not, she's got a pretty silly humor at times. Her trademark is hanging out with you, being normal and stuff, and then when you drink something fizzy or life-threatening, she'll hold out her arms, make a face, and waddle like some deranged tree toward you while making some odd amphibian noise. Her best score was when I was eating a potato. Having potato come out your nose? Not recommended. You smell spud for the next few days.

I feel alive, and capable, and ambitious, and motivated, because my wife loves me not only as a husband, but also because she loves me as a person, for who I am. She allows me to grow as a person, and yet she doesn't expect me to become anyone in particular. I'm an extremely lucky person, and I only hope that I can make her feel the way she makes me feel.

Lover

(Due to some self-censorship, certain graphical details will be replaced with references to celebrities.)

How lucky am I? I married me a pervert. I mean, how else would you classify a mother of two who snags herself a college student? Who was a virgin? Who had a 12-inch Tom Cruise that needed some Monica Lewinsky? I mean, she likes my Randy Johnson so much that sometimes I have to tell her to stop Todd Bridges it, because if she does it too much her Susan Sarandon will be left out and I'll just Kevin Bacon too soon. And then I'll just have to watch her Kathy Bates herself to a George Clooney. Of course, I could always stick my Will Smith in her Cameron Diaz, and she likes me to swirl my Tom Jones around her Eva Longoria, which usually brings her pretty close to Marisa Tomei, if not just completely. I like the way she uses her Jodie Foster, she makes my Johnny Depp all excited and then I just want to Britney Spears it right in her Eliza Dushku. Yeah baby. That's the Shakira talking.

But seriously, I think I found me a keeper. There's a fine line between a prudish nun and a sociable nymphomaniac, and she's right there with me. And that's kinda nice.

It was going to be a long day.

I had to drive 100 miles south first thing in the morning to pick up my best friend from high school, and my mom after her work at the Senior Center. Cody went with me for the drive and I didn't know my mom's friend was coming along, but nonetheless we all squeezed into the car and drove back up to Bellingham.

By the time I arrived, the house was already filling with people. My future mother-in-law did some pretty nice decorations to spruce up our home - it didn't look fancy, but it didn't look tacky either. There was a lot of commotion, but I was mostly avoiding it because I wasn't entirely comfortable with that much attention being focused on me.

I remember getting dressed and feeling very anxious. It was a newish royal blue dress shirt, and a nice tie that I don't wear very often. I would wear the suit that I wear to videotape other people's weddings. I remember struggling with some old contacts that I haven't worn in over a year, and I remember them hurting quite a bit.

When I came downstairs, I felt inappropriately like the girl in the date movie, coming down the stairs for the big date. It didn't help when my wife's niece said I was a hottie.

I remember seeing her and it feeling rather surreal. She looked at me and probably felt the same.

The ceremony soon started, and seems like everyone was there, and none of them would gather up in that same space again. A lot of the people have moved on - to other jobs, to other countries, and even we ourselves have moved. It was such a weird feeling to feel so many eyes on you. I felt kinda beside myself.

During the ceremony, I was trying to keep my eyes on my wife's eyes, but she wouldn't look into mine. My hands were shaking, and I was trying very hard to keep the eye contact while Pete, the officiant, read stuff that I composed partially into my right ear. I felt like I was blushing, and my wife looked like she was about to sprint out of there.

When the ceremony ended, I don't really remember most of it, but when it ended, Pete mentioned that I had a strange request, to watch TV. We played my wedding present to my wife, a photo montage of us doing our dating thing, and then my serenade video to her. My wife had the happiest look on her face. A lot of people were surprised at that. I felt rather stupid and proud at the same time.

I would steal looks over to my mother, who was objecting to the marriage since I told her, even up to the point when I was driving her up that day. She seemed proud and happy, and she's never said anything since.

There was a toast, which nobody really made. Cody said something nice, and then nobody said anything else. I wondered if I was not that impressive or perhaps I just don't have speech-giving friends. There were a lot of photos taken, and for brief moments I got to said a few things to my wife.

We hung around and looked at all the different presents, and before long, I had to get going and drive my mom and friend back to Seattle. It was around 5 or 6 when I left. When I came home, some people were still hanging around, and B & M were the last people to leave, hanging out with us till 11pm.

And finally, I had my wife all by myself.

I think we also got lucky.

Happy Anniversary, Honey. I love you.

I was having a relatively good day yesterday, though it felt a little rushed. See, I had stayed up till 4:30 in the morning Friday night putting some finishing touches to a wedding DVD, which is due at the end of the month here, and I woke up at around 11am while the kids were running around like crazed robots. I gathered up some materials, charged up my iBook, and went for an appointment.

After the appointment, I had a wedding lined up for September, and it was the first time in my two years that somebody actually booked the highest end wedding, a $1250 wedding. Of course, if you do weddings, it's a relatively low amount. Some videographers have that as a starting price. But for me, it was something cool. So I was feeling good that day, came home and had some kid fun.

Then I decided to go to the mall in town, which was an open mall. It was a nice enough evening, so I packed up the kids, and bungee-corded the Radio Flyer wagon in the trunk, since the wagon was too big to fit in there.

Got to the mall, and thought silently to myself, "Damn, I really could use a convertible or something. I got such nice hair, I wish I could just have a wind-blown look, or something to that effect." I went for the wagon first, so that the kids won't run around the parking lot. I unlatched the bungee cord and it slipped from my fingers, flying up and landing a thud-sprinkle-sprinkle sound. Thud, I understand. Sprinkle - that's bad.

Sure enough, I looked up and my nuts rolled down my pant legs. My jaw dropped. My ass deflated. My heart skipped. And I peed a little. The metal hook from the bungee cord didn't just ding the back car window. It shattered it.

Alex looked at me through the broken glass and said, "Hi Daddy."

"I guess I'm not going to the mall today," I said out loud.

I had to call my wife because the glass had shattered inward, and the kids actually did have some glass on them. Luckily, the glass stayed mostly in chunks, but the glass was still pretty fragile. It spiderwebbed cracked all over, and you could pretty much just break chunks off with your bare hands.

So out the kids went, they got dusted down, and we switched car seats when my wife came. Alex was such a cutie though, we were walking down to the first level so that my wife could find us, and when we were walking away from the car, Alex said, "Bye Bye broken car." This made me laugh out loud like a clown, as to which a teenager heard as she walked out in front of me. She looked at me with a prolonged look of fear and I might as well had been holding a 10 inch machete with blood dripping off of it.

We drove home, put a couple garbage bags over the window, and I spent this morning vacuuming glass out of the car.

Tomorrow my wife will be taking it to the shop because in Redmond, you can't have a parked car with a butterfly shower curtain over a window. You just can't.