In honor of David's 31st birthday

My husband is a very serious, thoughtful, respectable kind of guy.  He speaks with the weight of authority, and has much wisdom to draw upon in counseling his college guys.  Though he has a great sense of humor, which comes out in his messages and when he's leading Bible studies, no one would ever call him silly.

No one, that is, except me.  :)

I have the dubious honor of bringing out an exceedingly silly side of David when we're alone together.  And it wasn't until he married me that he discovered that he has an extraordinarily plastic face, and is capable of sending me into paroxysms of laughter with a single shift in expression...

We recently discovered an old folder of photos that I took last year, documenting many of these facial expressions.  I was going to post a few to the blog then, but chickened out -- I was worried that these photos would undermine David's general air of respectability.  But finding these old shots made both of us laugh harder than we had in a long time -- so David's given me his blessing to share some of our favorites with the world!

So without further ado, the very staid and respectable David Keddie:





And for some reason, this one's my very favorite:


Happy birthday, sweetheart!  Thank you for always knowing exactly how to make me laugh.  :)

Happy Saints Faustinus and Jovita Day!

We were hosting an old friend over the weekend, who was in the area for a conference. He's recently engaged, and depending on their job situations (he's a newly minted professor, and she's finishing her Ph.D. and applying for faculty positions), they're hoping to get married either this summer or next.

David asked him yesterday whether he was doing anything romantic for his fiancee for Valentine's Day. The following conversation ensued:

FRIEND: No, of course not. We'll be celebrating tomorrow.
ME: Tomorrow? Is February 15 a special day for you guys?
FRIEND: Oh no, it's just Saints Faustinus and Jovita Day.
ME AND DAVID: Saints who?
FRIEND: Saints Faustinus and Jovita. They were martyrs who were beheaded for their faith.
ME: ...

Note that none of us is Catholic. This friend of ours is just a quirky kind of guy, which his friends are all used to by now... But could any girl really be okay with not celebrating Valentine's Day with her fiance?

DAVID: So, um, is [friend's fiancee] cool with this?
FRIEND: Oh yeah. She even bakes me these little people-shaped cookies and then beheads them.

Proof that they're really meant for each other, I guess... :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for us, though, we're both happy to be prosaic and go with the whole Hallmark-inspired Valentine's Day thing. For which I'm very thankful. :)

He had these beautiful roses delivered to my office on Friday:

The only problem, though, was that I was actually in Philadelphia all day on Thursday and Friday for a deposition... I told David Thursday night that the deposition, which was only supposed to last one day, was going to continue on the next day. He looked all concerned, and asked whether that meant I wasn't going to be in my office at all the next day, and then told me he had ordered flowers to surprise me.

He's been sick all week, so I figured we weren't going to do anything for Valentine's Day this year. Which would have been fine with me -- this bout with the flu is probably the worst sickness David has had since we got married. But even though he's been weak and feverish all week, he still made the effort to surprise me with pink roses... I have the best husband in the world. :)

So I ended up dropping by my office on Friday evening just to pick up my Valentine's loveliness. :)

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day -- and that your Sts. Faustinus and Jovita Day is going well! :)

In sickness and in health

One of the things marriage counseling books tell you is that you'll both come into the marriage with different "normals" -- i.e., different expectations of what constitutes "normal" in different situations. For instance, in my family growing up, it was "normal" for us all to have dinner at different times, given the high number of activities we were all involved in; we would have family time together late in the evening while watching TV and/or reading together. For David's family, though, it was "normal" for the evening meal to be a time of family togetherness. While this may seem a relatively easy thing for me and David to reconcile in our new family (it's pretty easy for the two of us to decide to always have dinner together), the differences in our "normals" manifested in my not being used to talking over a family meal -- I never realized this until I was with David, but mealtimes are generally quiet times for me. I'm slowly learning to not shut down completely when I have food in front of me!

The marriage books never went into how different people deal with sickness, though. I think we had both assumed that David was the stronger, healthier one of the two of us. But what we've discovered over the last few years is that I definitely have a stronger constitution than he does. While I tend to complain of low-level (likely stress-induced) illnesses year-round, David is more susceptible to real illness. He tends to get flu-like symptoms about twice a year -- he gets seriously laid up with a cold, fever, weakness, etc. The poor guy has to shut down, and only occasionally feels up to forcing down some soup.

I have to confess, I wasn't the most understanding or nurturing wife when David first got sick early in our marriage. Especially when his sickness coincided with times we had planned to get together with out-of-town friends... It's "normal" for me to just power through my perceived sicknesses -- if something is important, I'll just choose to put aside my headache or queasiness to get that thing done. So I projected all of this onto David -- why would he "choose" to stay in bed rather than do the things I had wanted us to do??

But I'm learning! When David's running a temperature of 102 degrees, and is feeling clammy, and looks like this:

he certainly doesn't need me nagging him to get up and do stuff with me...

That's right, David's been sick this week. :( I'm doing my best to help nurse him back to health -- I came home from work early today to bring him some soup, and I've been running errands for him as needed this afternoon.

Here's hoping he's back to his normal, healthy self soon!

Love and LOST

WARNING: LOST SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Seriously -- don't read this post if you haven't seen the latest episode of LOST (season 5, episode 4), or if you plan on ever watching it in the future.


And if you're not planning on ever watching it in the future -- might I gently suggest that you do? :) It'll take you a while to get through all four of the previous seasons, but wow, is it worth it... You just have to power through some of the scariness of season 1, and some of the floundering in season 3 -- but then it gets awesome again.


And I really, really loved what they did in this last episode.


But okay, if you're not going to watch the whole series, you can still read this post -- most of my reactions to the last scene in the latest episode are more universal than fan-girl, I think... :)

I've really enjoyed watching the development of Sun and Jin's marriage on LOST, over the course of the entire series. At the beginning of the show, it seems like they're just your stereotypical traditional Korean marriage -- emotionally distant and controlling husband, cringingly submissive wife, and no real love to sustain the relationship. But then you start getting flashbacks that slowly flesh out some of the backstory to their marriage. You see that they were a love match from the beginning, and you go through Jin's struggles to be able to support his wife, his efforts to please his father-in-law, and how their relationship slowly started falling apart.

And then you see how they find each other again on the island. How after so many years of miscommunication and hurt, they finally learn to speak truth to each other again. What seem like irreparable cracks in their marriage, the hidden secrets and lies, are finally disclosed -- and healed. It's a beautiful picture of redemption and love -- it's not just about the happy giddy feelings of infatuation, but about the hard work of forgiveness and grace. And it's wonderful seeing it bear fruit in this particular marriage.

Then you get to season four. The major twist in this season is that you get flash-forwards throughout the season -- you know that some people have made it off the island, but you don't know who until near the end of the season, and you certainly don't know what's happened to the rest of the survivors.

Episode 7 of season 4 starts out with Sun in a Korean hospital, about to give birth. You also have flashes of Jin trying frantically to get to the hospital, trying to buy a huge stuffed panda bear and get there in time for the birth.

And then at the end of the episode, you realize that the scenes with Sun were flash-forwards, showing her giving birth to her daughter after she was rescued from the island -- and the scenes with Jin were flashbacks, with him trying to impress his father-in-law's Chinese business contact.

And then you see this heart-wrenching scene:

I wept buckets when I first saw this. Jin's gone? Is he dead? Or was he just left behind on the island? Why isn't he there??

The show is crazy loophole-y enough for you to still hold out hope -- surely Jin is still alive somewhere, just not with his wife and child, right? Right??

And then you get to the season 4 finale. And if you thought that last scene was heart-wrenching, wait until you see this one:

No! No no no, that can't be! The pure anguish on Sun's face really got to me. And again, I wept buckets. After all the growth and hope and joy in Sun and Jin's marriage over the course of four seasons, I couldn't believe he was gone.

So here's why I loved the ending of this week's episode:

Jin's ALIVE!! There's still hope for a family reconciliation!!


Okay, so all of the above clearly shows that I get into my favorite television shows. But I also found the intensity of my reaction to be interesting. I've always been swept up into fictional characters, whether in TV shows or movies or books. And I always react as part of the target demographic -- shedding a tear when Walter Blythe dies in "Rilla of Ingleside," or when Allie finally remembered her husband at the end of "The Notebook." But weeping? That was something new.

And I don't think that's because LOST is just that much greater than anything else I've ever seen or watched. (Though seriously, it's a great show!)

It's really more a function of the fact that I'm married now, and just can't imagine my life without David. I tend to project my own life into the things I'm watching or reading -- and this kind of projection now has devastating effect.

And then David tells me that none of this is real, and that if you squint, you can make out the reflections of the sandwich truck just off-camera... Which makes me giggle and helps restore my equilibrium.

Yet another reason why I love this husband of mine. :)

So watch LOST! And tell me if you're with me on any of this, or if I'm just crazy...

Miss Independent?

There are so many things that I usually rely on David to take care of. Big things, like filing our taxes; little things like unwrapping the Hershey's kisses when I bake peanut butter Hershey's kiss cookies. And I'm always aware of the ways I need him, and try to be sure I make it clear, on a regular basis, that I appreciate him.

But wow, being a whole week without him really highlights all the ways I'm dependent on him!

Here's a list of just some of the things I did all by myself this week, that I normally would never have to do:

• Woke up every morning with the alarm clock. Usually, David turns off the alarm, gets up, takes a shower, gets dressed, and then tells me that I really, really have to wake up.
• Got my own breakfast. Again, something that David takes care of for me while I blearily make my way towards the shower.
  
• Shoveled our car out from the snow that had been dumped, oh-so-helpfully, all around it by the snow plow.
  
• Killed a beetle in our kitchen.
• Scraped ice off of my windshield.
• Hosted a dinner for our small groups all by myself -- granted, it was a potluck dinner, and it was with people who are all wonderful conversationalists and great helps at cleaning up, but still!
• Took the garbage out.
• Hooked up our computer to our TV so I could watch some free internet TV from the comfort of our couch -- without breaking either the TV or the computer, and without electrocuting myself!
  

These are all things that I'm fully capable of doing on my own on a regular basis. Except for the beetle. I really, really can't deal with bugs of any sort. With their creepy little legs, and their skittering little ways... Ugh. I was tempted to cede that wing of the apartment to this beetle, but then realized that it might skitter its way over into the bug-free zone, so I had to deal with it... Shudder.

Whoops, lost my train of thought there a little...

I really am a capable, smart, full-grown adult. And I can certainly handle taking care of myself for a week. But I love the way David and I have our own spheres of influence within our marriage -- and I love the way we take care of each other.

So excited that he'll be back home tomorrow night!!