Wade and I sat down to our Valentine’s Eve dinner and as we sat there with the candles flickering in red seeded glass hurricane lamps, the boys raced around us in circles personifying Tucker Hibbert going for the SnoCross Gold in the X-Games.

Wade and I looked deeply into each others exhausted eyes and I said, “You know, I kinda didn’t do very much for you this year.” “In fact, you seem to have already found your present,” which was a big bag of all green M&M’s that said “love” all over the bag.

So accustomed to his party girl making a big hullabaloo over every holiday, he looked at me incredulously, “Really?” he said. “That’s it?” “No card, no nothing?”

“Well, I was going to make you these incredible looking little fudge cakes with pieces of after 8 dinner mints in them and then I went to the market to buy you a card and as I read through all of the incredibly boring sentimental trash about love I thought, these people who write these cards are either numb on crystal meth, pitifully dull or don’t have their, “heart,” into it and so I went home with a bag of red paper, glue and glitter with the idea of making a card for you myself and I just haven’t had the chance to make it yet.”

Wade laughed and said, “I was going to make you a card too.” And we began a very funny banter on what we were going to do for each other but didn’t.

“I was going to buy you candy at The Sweet Life candy shop in Snowmass but I knew that you would look at the marshmallow candy hearts and think, why is my husband so clueless? And then I kept hearing the add for ‘pro flowers’ over the radio and I thought about buying you flowers but knew that Valentine’s Day is the one day that if I bought you flowers your thought would be, gee thanks for the lack of imagination.”

I thought that Wade would be elated that I had finally come round to not expecting anything for the big day of love but I was surprised to hear disappointment in his voice, “Really? Not even a card?” he reiterated.

As we nuzzled each other at the dining table and I stroked his stubbly whiskers he said, “Isn’t that all that matters? That we love each other?” and I returned, “For now, yes. But perhaps we should reevaluate next year,” and we took each others hands and quickly made our way up to our bedroom while the children happily sat like zombies with their mouths open while watching some horrible movie on our pitifully outdated television set.

Such is life in the real world.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!!!

(Cast Card photo I took, before we were married)

I came home last Friday and listened to a  message from a women calling from a New York City Magazine and my heart began to flutter. Was this the call that I had been waiting for? The call that was going to put my book on the map?

I researched my files to see what proposals I had sent to this magazine and I found something that I had sent last April. My alarms went off as I wondered why were they calling me now, almost a year later.

In my numerous hours spent searching for freelance opportunities and social networking, I enter contests along the way, all for the greater good of my website and potential publicity for my book.

On Monday it was revealed that Wade was a semi-finalist for a “Hot Husband” contest that I had apparently entered him in. They wanted to interview me on our relationship and to find out how steamy he truly was.

Five minutes prior to the interview, I was in my office prepping my webcam to film the interview, for some crazy reason, when Wade opened my door. “What are you doing home?” I asked, startled. He had come home sick. When I explained that he had become a semi-finalist, he shook his head, barely laughing at his insane wife, and said he was going to bed.

When he recovered I told him that, if he won, we didn’t win anything but the confirmation that he truly was hot and that he would have to model for a photo shoot, which he has done for me many times before when I worked in film production.

We came to the conclusion that unless they mentioned the book, it was not worth his time or effort. I relayed this message to the Assistant Editor who promptly removed him from the competition. Where was the compassion for the wife of a hot husband?

And so Wade will not be sporting the cover of a women’s magazine naked, all but the overalls, and I guess I am all the better for not advertising how hot my husband is to the masses.

For a little bit of fun, here is the interview:

(Wade shoveling the entire driveway after he gets home from work. Service with a smile!)

In my latest post about mixed marriages I revealed the raw side of Wade, a side that I admittedly find very attractive. This is not to say that I find all of his ruggedness palatable but he is so strong and capable that I’ll take the good with the bad.

With all of his outdoorsman toughness there is the other side of him, a sensitive and loving side that fills me with adoration and admiration. He is the one who pulls us closer together not accepting my innate desire to run when things get difficult. It is his refined and distinguished side that enables him to understand and let go of my raw side that is much less appealing than his.

After I threw my back out over Thanksgiving Wade led me to the bedroom where he had lit candles, “Don’t worry about the kids”, he assured me. “I will put them to bed”, and he massaged my back and kissed my neck until I fell into a deep slumber.

I am very lucky to have Wade in my life and as our  deep connection grows stronger with every passing year I realize that it is our mother’s who are responsible for our love.

My mother, Nicky, and Wade’s mother, Barbara are both remarkable women. Barbara would have been the perfect pioneer back when the West was won. She has skinned and gutted an entire deer brought home by Wade’s father and she has cooked a snake that she accidentally ran over on the road. She had always wondered what snake tasted like and figured that it would be foolish to waste such a perfect opportunity to find out.

She harbors a strong but quiet spirituality grounding those around her with her calmness and solidity. She is patient and thoughtful only offering up her precious gems of wisdom if you push her, which I often do.

Visiting their cabin one summer Wade took off for a bike ride thinking that I was fine to stay and read on the deck with the sound of the babbling creek soothing my soul, but he was mistaken. My brow furrowed and I began to fume when I realized he had left without me and when I heard Barbara say, “Don’t get angry, get going”, I listened as always and hightailed it out of there. Her advice and intuitive words leave me smiling for days

My mother grew up during the Great Depression in England where something as small as an orange gave her immense joy. During the war her parents fled from Germany and disguised their Jewish heritage, starting over again from nothing. She grew up as an only child with books as her only companions. Her friends lived far away and she was never given any toys to play with.

When she had her three daughters she and our father lavished us with beautiful gifts of jewelry and art that they found while on their travels and provided us with the life that they were deprived of as children.

Nicky is witty and effervescent and surrounded by loved ones who stick close to her to absorb her wisdom, intelligence, spirit and laughter. “When you are not being extremely difficult your presence fills me with immense happiness”, she tells me in her sing-song British voice.

In addition to adoring their children and grandchildren and being the one’s their family and friends flock to, both Barbara and Nicky pay fastidious attention to life’s small details finding pleasure and beauty in everything around them.

A conversation does not go by without my mother poetically describing the day, “the sun, through the frosty cold, is shining on the glistening trees”, she tells me bringing me back to my beloved New England trees.

As we attempt to make cookies over the holidays and light the menorah while  decorating the Christmas tree we hope that we are giving our children the same love and teaching them the same values that our our mother’s taught us.

What they gain from the holidays may be a more modern and less defined belief system but it is filled with love and incorporates the best of the worlds that we individually both grew up in.

Oh Dear!