Ten

We have been married for ten years. It never occurred to me that one day, I would be able to say that. Not that I ever doubted that it would last, just that when you take things for granted like I do, you just never think that each day together is one more in the total, which now happens to add up to ten years. I don't think I've ever done anything continuously for ten years.

When we got married, the man I worked for at the time told me he figured we had a "better than average chance of lasting five years". Doesn't seem like so much a vote of confidence now as it did then. Maybe a bit of a back-handed compliment.

Anyway, to celebrate our anniversary, Trevor has been doing the most romantic thing. He has been counting down the days until ten years with a surpirse each day. On ten-years-less-ten-days, he went out at 6:00 am to get me coffee and a danish. The next day, ten-minus-nine, he brought a very nice box of chocolates to me at work. Ten-minus-eight was a bottle of wine.
Ten-minus-seven was a pedicure appointment. Ten-minus-six was the actual pedicure, a good portion of the wine, and a Starbuck's Carmel Frappucino. Ten-minus-five was an hour of extra sleep-in, and breakfast in bed. Ten-minus-four was a beautiful bouquet of flowers at work. That was today. I'll let you know what happens tomorrow.

He is a hero among the women at work. I told one colleague today that Trevor cooks (very well), cleans, and parents (better, with more patience and enthusiasm than I do), and she confessed that she was starting to cry. I am a lucky, lucky girl. He has hit on all of my favourite things with his list (things, not people. He took exception when I used that terminology, implying I had excluded him from my list of favourite things). He knows me better than anyone.

I am the first to admit that I am the most unromantic person in town, and the cool thing is, he does all this stuff anyway. I always wanted a romantic partner, just like him, in fact, but it wasn't until after we were committed to each other that I discovered that while I like to be at the receiving end of the romance, I don't often initiate it. He has stuck with me anyway, and he gets major credit for that. I do not believe that one day has gone by in the past ten years when I did not feel I had done the right thing in marrying him. Even though we have joked on occasion about getting divorced for tax purposes.

So this is about as romantic as I get, professing my love for my husband here, in this semi-public forum.

But I also wanted to share with you, my loyal fans, as well as with Trevor, what I am giving him as a gift for our anniversary.

It was a difficult decision. Jewelry was out, he doesn't even really wear a watch. Our ideas of vacation are vastly different, so that wasn't an option. Not a huge connoisseur of anything gastronomic, so a spectacular bottle of something would be something akin to the bowling ball that Homer Simpson gave Marge for her birthday. He runs a lot, but out of necessity, not passion, and we already have a treadmill. His hobbies seemed to be consistent, however, and something related to those would be good. Computers/electronics, cooking, and photography, in that order of interest (editorial license there). Considering those options, I remembered that the last time I gave him something photography-related, he returned it (okay, not the last time, but it has happened), so I decided not to do that. That left computers and cooking.

That was tough. He seems equally interested in both. Computers and games are the pastime of choice, generally, and have been since long before I knew him. If he's not visible in the house, he's usually in front of his computer. He's organized a nice little network here, complete with a Media Centre PC hooked up to the tv which may be the single coolest piece of technology around. Cooking, however, is also right up there. He cooks 99 meals out of 100 in our house, and tries new recipes regularly. The pasta tonight was particularly delicious.

Now, as for computers, what could I get? I have no idea what gear he wants (except for a 24" LCD monitor - see? I do pay attention!). I ruled that out because I didn't know how/where to find one that was a good deal, but also because I'm sure that it will not be long before 24" is too small and it would be traded for a 30" or something. Technology changes. I can't possibly keep up.

Cooking stuff? He has the ultimate stove, and I wanted the gift to be something that he wouldn't just go out and buy himself. There's the hooley-dooley coffee machine he's looked at, but the cool ones are about a million dollars and require plumbing. Not practical. I could add to the collection of Global Knives that I started him on a few years ago, but that's not very exciting. No, I needed something more spectacular.


I think that's enough information for tonight. Now you know what he's not getting, I'll be interested to know if my final choice is predictable at all. But with three more days until A-Day, I need to keep the suspense up a little longer. In my next installment, I will tell you about my short list of ideas. Stay tuned.