US

Relationship meme, found via Linda.

What are your middle names?

Camille and William. I’ll let you guess who is who.

How long have you been together?

Almost ten years: started dating in the summer of 1999, and got married in 2002.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?

This is kind of a complicated question. We met in April of 1999 when I arrived at his workplace for a job interview. I accepted the job, but didn’t start until June. Ten days later, he asked me to go for a drink on a Thursday night. Is that a date? It was about six weeks (and three dates) before I’d say we were actually “dating.”

Who asked whom out?

He asked me out. I later found out he totally had to psych himself up to make the call. I find that adorable.

How old are each of you?

Dave is 34. I am 32.

Whose siblings do you see the most?
Dave’s: my brother lives in CA, my sister in PA. I do have some step-siblings in IL. But we definitely see Dave’s sister most.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?

Being parents.

Did you go to the same school?

No. Dave went to Eastern Illinois. I went to Illinois.

Are you from the same home town?

No, Dave is from tiny-Olney, Illinois and I am from Aurora – almost opposite ends of the state (north and south).

Who is smarter?

Smarter is relative. I got high ACT scores and Dave graduated with honors from EIU. He has street-smarts, I have people-smarts.

Who is the most sensitive?

I am 100 percent more sensitive. I cry at television commercials and Alzheimer’s documentaries.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?


Just the two of us? Gee… we like to try new places all the time. But we do like this Italian place called Mama Carrolla’s. But I don’t know that we’ve ever been there just the two of us.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?

Italy. It seems like that is one of the last things we did just the two of us. Maybe because that’s where he knocked me up, and I was pretty much throwing up until R was born 38 weeks later.

Who has the craziest exes?

ME. WITHOUT QUESTION. 


Who has the worst temper?

ALSO ME.

Who does the cooking?

ME AGAIN.

Who is the neat-freak?

David is ultra-neat. It drives me crazy. I feel like I am constantly failing his expectations re: housecleaning. But I just don’t care as much as he does. Sue me.

Who is more stubborn?

We are a stubborn bunch in our house. Which is odd, because I am very flexible in the workplace. I like to tell Dave that I am just more comfortable with him and therefore feel safe enough to be my totally rigid and unyielding self at home. He should be glad about that, right?

Who hogs the bed?


He does, though he would deny it. I’ve often threatened to get a camera in the middle of the night and take a picture to show him just how much of the bed he really does consume. I’ve also threatened to audio record his snoring, though now that his cold had finally passed I think that might be taken care of.

Who wakes up earlier?

ME.  

Where was your first date?


We went to the Fox and the Hound in Evansville, Indiana and drank 23 ounce beers on a Thursday night. I tried to keep up with him and ended up having to drunkenly ask him to take me home after three. We discovered a mutual affinity for the Beastie Boys and Miller Light.

Who is more jealous?

Him. He still refers to a good friend of mine as “I Love You Mike” because Mike confessed his feelings for me about a month after Dave and I started dating. It’s been ten years, man. Let it go.

How long did it take to get serious?


I knew within six months that we would get married. It took him a little longer.

Who eats more?


He does. Unless he has a stomach bug.

Who does the laundry?

I would say I do 70 percent of it, 100 percent of the putting-clothes-away. He will occasionally wash and dry a load or two and almost always helps with the folding if he’s around. But I am incredibly anal about sorting. And he seems incapable of putting clothes away. Sometimes I go on strike and will just leave his clothes on his pillow or something.

Who’s better with the computer?


He is way better on the computer. Though I am learning because of my job.

Who drives when you are together?

He always drives. I’m not a good driver in most situations, though I kick ass at big city driving, when aggression is pretty much a requirement. I also have such terrible road rage that it’s generally better for my blood pressure to not be behind the wheel unless necessary.

 

The best and the brightest

Lorin died in a plane crash last night. I am proud to say Lorin was my friend. We hadn’t talked in months. But every time I got a diet cherry coke out of the vending machines here at work, I thought of her. See, they didn’t have diet cherry coke in our vending machines until Lorin pestered the operations staff for weeks. She was so charming and funny and could make you feel at ease even if you didn’t know anyone else in the room. I will miss you Lorin.

Baby book

R would like to go to the store, purchase an egg, bring it home and hatch it into her baby sister.

She would also like for it to be a penguin.

R likes to introduce me to her friends as, “my Mommy, her name is Michelle.”

R is concerned that her grandfather will grow a moustache. He hasn’t had a moustache since the mid-1990s, nearly 10 years before she was born. However, she recently saw some pictures of her grandpa with a moustache and now, every time he is mentioned, she also expresses her desire that he not grow a moustache.

Last night, R and I made music with wooden spoons and an old Christmas tin. It was awesome.

I think Snow White is the scariest of the Disney Princess collection.

I miss my nephew.

While I was in Washington D.C. for our annual convention last month, R began making a weird noise. When I asked her dad what she was doing, he said she was kissing the phone. And my heart broke into a million pieces and I cursed that I had four more days until I came home.

Of course, when I came home, she was not happy to see me because she had been playing at a friend’s house and Dave made her leave to come pick me up at the airport.

She thanks me for making dinner almost every night. The best is when she adds, “This is really good! Yummy in my tummy!” Rare, but unmatched praise.