The last year has gone by so quickly. And what a big year it's been! We got married, got pregnant...well, I guess that's mostly it. Still, pretty big!
The first anniversary is paper. I knew I was making Jason a book, but I stayed mum on the topic. I wanted to him to think I'd not gotten him a gift, as I was certain he was waiting until the last minute to get me one, and then, PRESTO! All the while I'd spent weeks making him a very good-looking book. He'd be so touched, and I'd win. (Some day I'll regale you all with the story of the "Point and Click" Christmas [that involved no pointing or clicking] that I won, and that was a sweet, sweet victory.) I like to do nice things for him, I just have a weird, roundabout way of getting there.
See? Good looking! It's a bunch of drawings about all the stuff that happened to us this year. I even made a little pop-up of us in the back:
Cute! And so much better than the nothing he'd gotten me, right? I know Jason, and I KNEW his gift would be late, because part of his "process" is waiting until the last possible moment, but then...JOKE'S ON ME, FOLKS. Once again, through his sheer sweetness and truly good-natured personality, I come out looking like the brat. (Which is fair. He is way nicer to me than I deserve. Or will ever deserve. Honestly, I still can't believe he wants to spend the rest of his life with sassy, crusty old me.)
When he left for work in the morning, I told him that if he came home with a box of crap from Acme, I was filing for divorce. (See? THAT'S my wretched sense of humor. I honestly think it's funny to say stuff like that to my husband on his way out the door.) And he came home that night, and presented me with...a box of crap from Acme... (I was right! He WAS bad at time management to the point of thoughtlessness!)
...with a false bottom. With a book HE'D made ME, all about how he's always surprising me.
The surprises, of course, are all clever and funny and paired with his really-quite-amazing drawing skills. The last one is this:
And THEN, when I turned the page, there was a little envelope, and that man had bought me the tiny, simple little antique ring I had wanted all along.
I'm an ass. It's so true. I'm mean, and I'm an ass. And I have a very pretty little ring on my finger that I do not deserve.
At this point in the story, when I retold it to my mom and my niece Mimi, 6, Mimi said, "But he did the thing you told him not to do!" And I said, "What thing?" And Mimi said, "He brought you that, you know, that box of crap!" God, she's a delight.
So, happy, happy anniversary to my dear and sweet husband Jason, who I do not deserve, who I relish calling mean names, who is often the butt of my jokes and the person I take out my daily stresses on, who I push around and then laugh at. I don't know why you signed on for this, my love, but I am sure glad you did. And I will spend the next however-many-years-I-am-on-this-planet trying, trying to be better, trailing after your example.
