20 years of marriage - toot, toot!

Well, the hubby and I just celebrated 20 years of marriage!  We have been together since the fall of 1992, which puts us together for almost 23 years.  All marriages have their trials and tribulations, but ultimately our love has grown stronger with the passing of time.

Speaking of the passing of...time, I thought I would celebrate by sharing one of my favorite Chad and Christy stories.  This is from way back in the day, back in 1992.  We were a young couple - Chad had just moved out of his parents' house and into his own apartment in Richfield, Minnesota.  I moved in with him shortly thereafter and we began our lives cohabitating as a couple.  We loved to spend every waking second with each other and did everything together, including shower - even when a shower together just meant showering together to save time and no hanky panky.

In this particular instance, we had been out drinking and eating the evening prior.  I, in my size 5 glory, ate whatever I wanted to, because when you're in your young 20s and you smoke cigarettes like a chimney, you don't really need to be concerned with calorie consumption.  All we had to worry about was ourselves and having a good time!

So we're in the shower together, and I have to...well, fart.  My belly had the remnants of cheap booze and day old food.  This could not be good.

Chad was standing under the shower spray and was busy washing his hair - so I'm hoping and praying this works out well for me.  I let one go.

Oh. My. God.  This was the silent stink bomb of the century.  We're talking epic nastiness here. Although it made no noise, this stink bomb was lethal and all I could think of was, WHAT  HAS CRAWLED UP MY ASS AND DIED? and please oh please, let me get away with this!!!

I was not so fortunate.  As I said, Chad was under the shower spray washing his hair and I could literally see the smell hit him.  He's happily lathering his hair, and then he stops moving.  His face screws up and he looks like he's just swallowed a bug. I am busted!!!

He finally says to me, "Did you.....fart?!?!?!?"  The tone of his voice was so accusatory - like I had just committed some sort of heinous, unspeakable crime - so my natural instinct to his tone of voice was to deflect, deflect, deflect!

I innocently say to him, "Nooooo!  Did YOU?"  My question was met with silence.

I thought it would be over at that.  However, I was not so fortunate.  Chad starts to begin his own investigation into the noxious odor that I had somehow just created.  He turns - and I kid you not - starts sniffing. the. grout.   He's literally got his nose up against the tile grout and is smelling it like a bloodhound trying to sniff out drugs.  Only it's not drugs -- I think he's trying to ascertain if something has died and is rotting in the walls. 

By this time I'm done showering and I have stepped out and am toweling off.  I am so embarrassed and I want to move on.  However, Chad is still busy in the shower trying to solve the mystery of the dead animal.   He's now muttering to himself about contacting the apartment's superintendent and putting in some sort of maintenance request to find out what's going on.  I begin to have visions of Schneider from One Day at a Time showing up at our door, hair all slicked back with a pack of smokes rolled up in his sleeve asking to examine our shower for the "problem". 

I start to giggle.  I'm trying really hard not to show Chad I'm giggling because I'm afraid I will give myself away.  Sure enough, Chad opens the shower curtain and points his finger at me -- he says he knew it was me all along.  (Suuuuuuuuuure you did -- that's why you were sniffing the grout!!!)

We have had a good many of laughs over the shower story over the years.  I am very grateful that despite my special eau de parfum explosion that day, he decided to marry me anyway.  He's a good man...definitely a keeper. Although he has gotten me back, so to speak, in the toot department over the years, nothing will ever rival the shower bomb of 1992.

:)

Pinch Me!

Pinch me!  I have to be reminded that this is real and I'm not dreaming!

It's interesting how much my life has changed in the last year and a half since moving to Houston.  I recently was offered a job in downtown Houston and I accepted.  I would have never thought I would be working downtown in such an enormous city.  I have the option to commute via bus and my employer will pay for it, but so far I haven't had the courage to give it a try.  Perhaps some day in the future I will give it a try.

So I would be lying if I said the commute is a breeze.  It's not.  It takes me an hour in the morning and an hour and fifteen minutes in the evening.  The thing is, an hour commute is quite normal for Houstonians.  Once you get used to it, which I totally have, it just becomes a part of your daily routine.

 



Took this shot with my cell phone - this is where I work, on the 30th floor.  Parking is actually located inside the building, so there is no parking ramp three blocks away that I need to travel to and from. 

The most interesting thing to me about downtown Houston is its vast tunnel system.  In Minneapolis, everything is connected via skyway system.  In Houston, everything is underground.  It is amazing to a "foreigner" like me how it all works. 

Above is a cell phone shot of my walk through the tunnels to get to one of the food courts.  There's so much more than food courts down there - there's convenience stores where you can buy cards, sundries, etc.  There's boutiques, restaurants, banks, etc.  It's a sub city down there.  I LOVE IT!

 

 

Here's a snapshot of one of the many food courts in the tunnel system -- looks like a typical mall food court, but again, it's all under ground!

 

 

Of course, my favorite part is the fact that I have my own office.  It's got a gorgeous view and well, let's face it - it's not a cubicle.  Nothing wrong with cubicles, as I have been assigned to one for most of my adult working life.  I just happened to get lucky as the senior paralegal position I am in supports the general counsel and the CEO, and my office is located between the two executives.  I don't know what to do with all the extra space - I have put some of my own touches in it since taking the cell phone snapshot below - but you get the gist from looking at the photo.

 



 

 

If you would have told me a year and a half ago that I would be in this position, I would have laughed and laughed....yeah right!  Me!  Working downtown!  Hah!  And loving it? No way!

 

:)