A quick hello and a thank you to the universe for Shaun’s 37 years (today!) on this earth.

I can’t say enough about this man. His kindness, his humor, his endless patience with me. He’s a beaut.

Happy Birthday, HT. I love you.

Joni Mitchell, A Case of You

Yeah, for all that stuff inside, certainly. But…nice outside too, huh?

My prettiest day! And, the day that my life changed for the good, better, best! Shaun and I got married that morning — I am grateful for that day and all its memories.

We discussed tonight that we didn’t “do” anything for each other to commemorate the event. The babysitter is coming for “date night” tomorrow, but I will already be in Dublin, and Shaun will probably just go curl up in a puffy chair at a bookstore. I wonder if any parents ever welcome the sitter into their living room and then just go upstairs to bed? That might be on our dating agenda one of these weeks. Wicked, forbidden sleep.

While forgiving ourselves the absence of bouquets of flowers, and copious soap-on-a-rope or Brut cologne, Shaun said “Well, four years isn’t a big-deal anniversary, right?”

I beg to differ, Mister. It’s a big deal to me. It’s a big deal that you have stood by me through wild hormonal rages, sorrowful hormonal sob-fests, drunk hormonal sing-alongs. Basically, you married a hormone. And every day I wake up you are still in your uniform, suited up for whatever the day brings. You have been strong for me in my weakest times. Thank you.

I love that you think I am funny even when I am a complete mess. I love that you support every one of my friendships, and give me time to cultivate them. I love that you get a kick out of my family, especially when we are all together. I love that we made a chubby-cheeked baby that calls you “ShauFannin!” and lights up when you enter a room.

I thank God for you (really loudly, clapping, while wearing a fancy hat). I love you. Happy Anniversary.

As I do every year, I asked Shaun, “Will you stay with me?” He said yes, and my heart sang.

We both figure this will work for at least a couple more years as long as I keep puttin’ out. My secret hope for our fifth year together is that Shaun doesn’t get too comfortable and let himself go.

I was wrecked for some reason after a day of not-so-much, and asked Shaun to do the wrestling match with Ruby for the final diaper and bedtime ritual. I usually do it because if she kicks me in the groin, she doesn’t do as much damage, if you know what I’m sayin’. I diaper and pajama and then sing — usually “Tell Me Why” but I have resorted to The Cure on more desperate evenings. So tonight I watched the diapering and then said “Snuggle with Daddy, tonight, I love you.”

From just outside the door, my heart swelled with pride as I heard, in a patriotic warble, Shaun offer his night-time salute.

“Ooooooh say can you seeeee….”

Shaun had a brilliant moment last night. After years of mind-numbing swirls of “how can I make this happen for us?” he finally came to peace with the fact that financial success via the internet is a lot like gambling. Rather, it is gambling, and within that it’s a lot like a slot machine. One Granny in a buh-zillion hits the mega-jackpot on a slot machine, replaces her above-ground pool with an in-ground one, buys each one of her nephews a tittie bar, and retires to a McMansion just outside of town. The guy sitting next to her though, is convinced that if he just sits there for one more hour or one more bucket or one more twenty that he will be able to do the same (except for that he would keep all the tittie bars for himself — he’d just let his cousins run them).

Think about it. There really are people supporting their families (or helping) by doing what they love via the internet. Folks like Shaun and me then read about these instances and think “By damn, we can do something like that too!” Then we spend evening upon evening coming up with products to sell or things to talk about that would interest people or ways to update the ever popular amateur porn site (now, I didn’t say we were going to start one, but the thought is going to make me smile all afternoon). Shaun always jokes that when whatever we are working on goes belly up, we’ll become one of those couples who puts our stuff on the worldwide web. Otherwise, we could always apply for bartending and table-waiting jobs at Granny’s nephews’ tittie bars, but I digress.

As it is, Shaun has a completely legitimate and gangbusters business that is web-based, and has nothing to do with stuff, titties, or either one of us blathering on about our lives, opinions, titties, or stuff. He works and works and works and makes Ruby and me proud. It is work, though, and lots of it. And we get tired. And we assume (wrongly, I know) that making money via the internet is easy. Well, it isn’t unless you’re this guy. That sizzled Shaun’s taint when we read about him. I just wanted to die for not thinking of it first.

And that’s what I mean! Everyone keeps trying. Intermittently, the thought that it just might happen for you is reinforced by shit like this.

When Shaun mentioned this intermittent reinforcement thing to me, I thought “that’s brilliant! You didn’t read that somewhere? You just came up with it? Maybe you should start a blog, talk about it, and see what happens! We’ll make millions.”

Update: Turns out, Shaun read about intermittent reinforcement here (scroll down to “Clicker Trained By Our Email”) and just applied it to success on the internet. So we won’t hit it big with that original thought. I hear there’s a help wanted sign up at The Pole. There’s your big money, people. Granny’s no dummy.

Being at the cabin always seems to spark spiritual conversations, big gooey “what do you think” chats about where we came from and where we are headed. Shaun and I also just did our wills and advanced medical directives and all that icky paperwork that has to be done. (Note: we drove very gingerly home over the mountains, because although we have done all the paperwork? We have yet to sign it).

So in this conversation, I was dead, and Shaun was (or wasn’t) remarrying. He said he would probably remarry because he would be a dork about all the girl stuff. I contested, thinking that he’s pretty good about understanding women’s bodies and being able to articulate all that beautiful stuff that happens.

We started a little role-play, with me as Ruby. “Daddy,” I asked, “what’s a period?”

He muddled through something about the lining of her uterus shedding (it’s all natural!) and that having cramps and discovering blood coming out of her vagina was nothing to be scared of.

Then he added, with complete confidence, “And if you have sex with boys too early, it’ll start coming out your eyeballs.”