Miss Piggy Lunchbox

Two days late.  If you need the explanation, follow the links back through the years.  This year’s addition in bold.

Baby,
I promise you that I will always be the things that made you fall in love with me: honest and transparent, funny and witty, open-minded and creative, adoring.
I promise you i will never stop pampering and courting you.
I promise you will always be my muse, and I will draw daily inspiration from you.  I promise to return the favor by trying to inspire you daily.
I promise to work on being a better husband: to talk to you, to tell you what I’m feeling, and to engage in continual self-evaluation.
I promise to prioritize us, without sacrificing you or me.  I promise to always make room for us in my life, and to make sure you know when I think we need to adjust to get to the right level of us in both of our lives.
I promise to try to love the things about you that are just in your nature, such as the telltale hair monster left behind everywhere you’ve been.
I promise to make a fuss over you when you’re sick, to love you and support you and take your side when you’ve had a bad day.  I promise to listen to you tell me about your bad day and to refrain from giving you unsolicited solutions.
I promise that I will do my best to learn how we are as one, and to take into account how my mood and actions affect you.
I promise to try to recover quickly from disagreements.  I promise to do my best to stay on the high road.  And I promise to forgive and forget mistakes said and done in the heat of the moment.
I promise to be stubbornly filled with determined, creative solutions to the most gridlocked, vexing situations we encounter
I promise you that I will help you and support you to achieve your dreams.  And I promise that, with your support, I will pursue my mine as well.  I promise never to stop taking new risks and adventures with you.
I promise you physical, emotional, and mental fidelity.  I promise that you will always be my baby that i adore completely with my mind, body, and soul, and i promise to trust that you adore me as well.
I promise to be vigilant in never letting you forget that you are the most wonderful, most beautiful woman in the world.  i promise to set the husband you, as the most wonderful, beautiful woman in the world, deserve, as the impossible ideal i will strive to be.
I promise to help our marriage embrace, not suffer, change big and small, and to give us room to work through changes and all that come with them.  I promise to emphasize fun and presence over precaution and safety more than is in my background, and I promise to never be hung-over on Mother’s Day.
And above all, baby, I promise to be always on your team.  And I will do my best to make our team the envy of every other team at the party of life.

Bon Jovi’s never been the most original band in the world, but have you heard their new single?  Oh my god, they’re entirely re-using old choruses.

First, just to remind yourself what it sounds like, check out the chorus of “Born To Be My Baby” from 1988’s New Jersey, here at 1:11.

Okay, now 21 years later, check out the tripe I hear at almost every commercial break when watching the baseball playoffs.  With that last song in your head, try out the chorus of the band’s “new” single “We Weren’t Born To Follow,” here at 0:53.

You can basically just sing one melody over the other.  I guess they’re giving the fans want they want.

My Baby’s pregnant.  Due March 22nd.  (title reference here)

For an explanation of what’s going on, you can start tracing back the re-stating of the vows tradition with last year’s post.

This year we went camping near Cle Elum, a city 80 miles east of here that gets 300 days of sun a year where we’re considering getting some property.  Well, we were going to go camping but every campsite was filled so we ended up at a resort.  It was like Frasier and Lillith go camping.

Anyway, here is the public re-statement of my wedding vows.  This year’s addition is in bold.

Baby,
I promise you that I will always be the things that made you fall in love with me: honest and transparent, funny and witty, open-minded and creative, adoring.
I promise you i will never stop pampering and courting you.
I promise you will always be my muse, and I will draw daily inspiration from you.  I promise to return the favor by trying to inspire you daily.
I promise to work on being a better husband: to talk to you, to tell you what I’m feeling, and to engage in continual self-evaluation.
I promise to prioritize us, without sacrificing you or me.  I promise to always make room for us in my life, and to make sure you know when I think we need to adjust to get to the right level of us in both of our lives.
I promise to try to love the things about you that are just in your nature, such as the telltale hair monster left behind everywhere you’ve been.
I promise to make a fuss over you when you’re sick, to love you and support you and take your side when you’ve had a bad day.  I promise to listen to you tell me about your bad day and to refrain from giving you unsolicited solutions.
I promise that I will do my best to learn how we are as one, and to take into account how my mood and actions affect you.
I promise to try to recover quickly from disagreements.  I promise to do my best to stay on the high road.  And I promise to forgive and forget mistakes said and done in the heat of the moment.
I promise to be stubbornly filled with determined, creative solutions to the most gridlocked, vexing situations we encounter
I promise you that I will help you and support you to achieve your dreams.  And I promise that, with your support, I will pursue my mine as well.  I promise never to stop taking new risks and adventures with you.
I promise you physical, emotional, and mental fidelity.  I promise that you will always be my baby that i adore completely with my mind, body, and soul, and i promise to trust that you adore me as well.
I promise to be vigilant in never letting you forget that you are the most wonderful, most beautiful woman in the world.  i promise to set the husband you, as the most wonderful, beautiful woman in the world, deserve, as the impossible ideal i will strive to be.
And above all, baby, I promise to be always on your team.  And I will do my best to make our team the envy of every other team at the party of life.

Today is our five-year wedding anniversary.  For some reason, that really hits me.  Like, one through four were ‘meh’ and early…but five is now a really real anniversary.  Or something.

Anyway, the fifth anniversary is the wood anniversary.  So you know what that means My Baby gets for her present.  Some good old ‘Norwegian Wood’.

Vows on Monday, probably, after they are unveiled this weekend.

After a test drive of a Corolla and a Prius, which costs about $8k more than a Corolla.

Me: So what’s the financing again on a Prius?
Sales guy: Pfft. If you’re all about the financing, then you want a Corolla [at 0.0% APR]. But come on…what car did you like best? It’s too much money to settle for your second choice.
My Baby: We would like a new salesperson, please.

Probably the busiest week of the quarter this week, exacerbated by the fact that I actually tried to enjoy myself over the holiday weekend instead of “getting things done.”  I went to the Melvins/Green River show and then My Baby and I went to the surprisingly sunny Oregon coast and took a cruise in Oregon’s fourth largest estuary.

I did want to update you that my “internship problem” has been solved.  I’ll be working for one of the faculty members over the summer as an RA.  So it’s not really an internship per se, but it can count as one.  In addition, I’m planning to start work on a thesis this summer that I hope I can wrap up in the fall with my final class and get my degree in December.

That’s the rough plan.  We’ll see.

Cast:
My Baby – My Baby
Friend – a friend who is a transplant to Seattle from New York

My Baby: Lately it’s the kind of cloudy  where you can’t even tell what time of day it is.  You can’t tell where in the sky the sun is and it’s the same level of brightness form sunrise to sunset.

Friend: Yeah, I went out for lunch,  andI thought it was bright, but I still didn’t have a shadow.  It’s weird when you can look at a distinct cloud.  It’s usually so cloudy here you can’t even make out individual clouds.

Remember when I lit the pilot light?  Well, I’ve bested myself.  I spent my Friday night taking apart the kitchen sink in order to fix a nasty clog and save this family the cost and trouble of a call to the plumber.

Take that, Gillette commercial: I am the new definition of 21st Century Man.  Guh…Guh…GUH!

My dad merit badge must be in the mail now.  Heck, I think I impregnated My Baby from across the room while doing it…probably all the other women on the block, too.

My relationship with Bruce Springsteen has been a bit strained for the past seven years or so. But I’ve been going back through all the old stuff, reliving the old days, and, yeah, he made some good points.

Amidst the invented identity crises brought on by presenting myself in a job search and the very real struggles brought on by my contracting work drying up in this recession, Springsteen, with his happy marriage, satisfying career, and jillions of dollars, still has a reminder for me, from Tunnel Of Love’s “All That Heaven Will Allow”:

Rain and storm and dark skies [and never-snow, presumably –Ed.]
Well now they don’t mean a thing
If you got a girl that loves you
And who wants to wear your ring

Then, a kick in the balls of the type I wish I could get more often. From Lucky Town’s “Better Days”:

Well my soul checked out missing as I sat listening
To the hours and minutes tickin’ away
Yeah just sittin’ around waiting’ for my life to begin
…
I got a new suit of clothes, a pretty red rose
And a woman I can call my friend
…
But it’s a sad man my friend who’s livin’ in his own skin
And can’t stand the company
Every fool’s got a reason for feelin’ sorry for himself
…
Tonight this fool’s halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell
And I feel like I’m comin’ home
These are better days

Finally, the ultimate in how good I have it, from “Red Headed Woman” off of In Concert: MTV Unplugged:

Well listen up stud
Your life’s been wasted
Till you got down on your knees and tasted
A red headed woman