Overdressed

OK, first I had you all convinced that Big Daddy was a complete Neanderthal by posting that list where I said he doesn't take out the trash or close his dresser drawers or pick up his laundry etc. etc. Then, I made him look like a total ogre when he "challenged" me to post about my office floor. So, to set the record straight, let's look at some of his more appealing characteristics:

1. Family always comes first. Before anyone or anything else, me & Our Kid are the most important things in his life - top of the list - family means everything to him.
2. He's an excellent provider. When he graduated college, he set a goal for himself to increase his earnings by x percent every x number of years. And he has surpassed that over and over again. Yes, he's a workaholic. There are worse things, like husbands who refuse to get off their ass and take care of their families.
3. He has a brilliant business mind. I've mentioned this here before, and it's hard for me to explain it to you, given that his business acumen far (FAR) exceeds mine. Remember that scene in Good Will Hunting, where he's eating lunch outside with Minnie Driver and he's trying to explain how it is that he can do organic chemistry for fun? And he said that it was like when Beethoven and Mozart looked at a piano and he said, "I just play." Big Daddy said to me, "That's how business is to me." He never took the first business class. Like a musical prodigy, he just plays.
4. He has amazing style and taste. Big Daddy has picked out every formal dress I've purchased since we got married. (And I used to buy them often, when I was working at the hospital and doing gala events all the time.) And one of them - this gold, haltertop, full-skirted dress? $5 off the clearance rack. I KNOW!! He has the ability to see something on a hanger that makes me think "Ugh." and say, "Just try it on," and I put it on and it looks like a million bucks. And remember the bathroom that he redecorated?
5. He taught me to buy good shoes. When I met Big Daddy, I used to buy shoes at Payless. I figured that, by paying less, I could buy more. He took me to Goldsmith's (now Macy*s) and introduced me to Nine West and Enzo. Which he probably regrets since now I insist on Prada and Manolos and wouldn't be caught dead in 9 West. Heh.
6. He taught me to vacation. And introduced me to the gorgeous beach that is Destin, Florida. Even when we were struggling students on food stamps he insisted on going to the beach for a week every year. (We won't get into the tragic motels that we inhabited in those years. Yikes!) And after Our Kid came along, he insisted that we vacation occasionally without him. It's a good practice that I highly recommend for new parents. And one that he probably will also live to regret when I start whining for a beach house someday. Heh heh.
7. He despises the University of Tennessee. And you just can't put a high enough price on good taste.
8. He's a cut-throat Scrabble player. Which I don't necessarily like that much, since of course I'm playing against him. But I do respect when he spells a 10-letter word with a 'Z" on the triple-word-score square. I think in all the games in all the years I've only ever beaten him once at Scrabble. Which is why I prefer Trivial Pursuit.
9. He adheres to the policy to never do anything for yourself that you can pay someone else to do. See? Told you - soul. mates.
10. He put up with me when I was drinking. Even though I wasn't a very good wife or mother there for a while, he never gave up on me. Patience is definitely not one of his virtues, yet he abided much more than I probably would have had the circumstances been reversed. Which really takes us back to Number 1: Family always comes first, doesn't it?

Posted by Kalisa on Saturday, April 29, 2006 at 3:45 PM | Permalink