The Tin Anniversary

I don’t know if you remember what the weather was like nine years and three hundred and sixty three days ago, but I do, perfectly.  For a month it had been minus thirty and snowing, but suddenly the temperature turned warm and mild.  It was a beautiful day in Banff, and I was walking around with a sleeveless dress on:

That was ten years ago, on this coming Friday!  That is a long time.  I looked up the traditional gift for a ten-year anniversary and discovered that it is TIN.  Can’t wait for my tin foil.  Maybe I will festively open up a can of chickpeas – or maybe not, since that seems to be typical of any Friday. 

I love being married to my husband and I did have a beautiful wedding, marred only by a slight breakdown ten years ago TODAY when I broke a nail and my esthetician at the time was not versed in acrylic nails.  What kind of esthetician is not versed in acrylic nails, you may ask?  I don’t know, but I cried hysterically.  My soon-to-be-husband tried to calm me down by a) pointing out that I was going to be wearing gloves, anyway, and b) calling his best man, who was married to an esthetician who promised to handle any subsequent nail emergencies.  I did get the nail fixed, thank god, because the hysteria from my single broken nail was threatening to overshadow the whole day. 

It’s funny that I would be that upset about a NAIL, because I was the opposite of a Bridezilla.  In fact, I may have been a different kind of Bridezilla, because I really didn’t care about most of the proceedings.  My poor mother was beside herself because I wouldn’t choose centrepieces for the tables.  I shruggingly said she could choose what she liked, which sent her into a spiral of centrepiece obsession.  My sister-in-law, in what can only be described as an act of incredible generosity and kindness, actually sat down with my mother and made centrepieces. 

But I was operating on the idea that there are only three things that people remember from any given wedding: what the bride looked like, if the food was decent, and if there was good music or if there were a plethora of boring speeches.  I prayed for no weird breakouts, I chose a crowd-pleasing meal that I did not actually consume but I heard it was tasty, and our DJ rocked it out with such hits as Old Time Rock and Roll and YMCA. 

We only had the bare minimum of speeches; my feelings then as now were that wedding speeches generally fall into one of two categories: the overly emotional (“Take care of my little girl!”) or the incredibly inappropriate (“So then he got totally hammered and streaked across the field, and then puked all over everyone, and she still married the guy!  Even after she found out the size of his dick!”).  Sometimes, unfortunately, speeches can belong to BOTH categories, which is terrible for the listener.  I was once at a wedding where there was an open mike, and guests were encouraged to share anecdotes about the bride and groom.  This is a very bad idea.  This is especially a bad idea when booze is involved and ex-boyfriends of the bride have been invited.  That is all I’m going to say.

But ten years of marriage!  In the spirit of the day, here are ten things I love about my husband:

1) He’s a great husband, and he allows me to live my life of luxurious housewifery.
2) He’s a really good father, even if he does allow the children to be flatulent at the dinner table.
3) He’s really hot.
4) He doesn’t like when I cry so he eats anything I make for dinner.
5) He would never forget my birthday, and always is incredibly thoughtful when purchasing gifts.
6) He loves to plan vacations, and so all I have to do is sit back and enjoy while he handles the logistics.
7) He is trying to teach me to be less directionally-impaired, so I don’t have to pull over to the road to sob because I’m lost. 
8) He shares my stupid frat-boy sense of humour, and always knows exactly what I mean when I say we’re having a “pretty nice little Saturday“.
9) He’s reliable, trust-worthy, confident, and smart.  He is so confident, he corrected me when I wrote about the ten sexiest men and FORGOT JOHN CUSACK.  It takes a big man to do that.
10) He makes me happy with myself.

Happy Anniversary, shmoopie.