Happy Birthday, Husband

Yesterday, on a beautiful, wonderful, unexpectedly warm autumn Sunday, my husband "completed another trip around the sun." This is his sentiment toward birthdays as an adult (read: no big deal). Consequently, we had a very low-key day. Because he doesn't put much stock in the birthday tradition, he didn't mind that we traveled to my hometown for brunch with my family (Les, dear sister, found her way to MN on this gorgeous weekend, and yesterday was the only iota of time we could spare her and vice versa. In her words, "Coming one day and leaving the next sucks." Thirteen hours each way is a haul for two days, but, as I said, "It's better than nothing.") And brunch was good.

After that, all Patrick wanted was to go home, put on sweatpants, and watch football. Yes, easy to please, that one. We did make a stop on the drive home at a roadside apple farm, buying half a peck of apples, two pumpkins, and a caramel apple pie, still hot from the oven (and I pride myself on baking tasty pies, but this pie was delightful). But get home we did, and watch football we did (watched my fantasy team suffer their first loss of the season as well...tear). No fanfare, no going out. Just "my woman and football". And the pie. And the dinner I made. But you get the idea. Simple things.

Because I have not yet bought him a gift ("I don't need presents," he says, but I think a birthday's not a birthday without at least a little something; but unlike me, who told him precisely what to get me for MY birthday, he is entirely unhelpful), I am giving him this:

To My Husband on His Birthday, 2008

The rickety brown couch we both wish
we would not have purchased
is not a suitable perch for our love.

The mismatched sweatpants and t-shirt
I wore are not the costume of a woman
trying to impress a man.

The sounds of sports on tv and
dogs barking in the yard are not
music to an average ear.

The almost scorched pork chop and
potatoes mashed with slightly sour milk
do not describe a perfect meal.

But.

You are not suitable.
You are not to be impressed.
You are not average.
You are not perfect.
You are mine.

And you are everything to me.


Happy birthday, dear one. May every day we have together be as perfect as yesterday was.