Allen Iverson and the quiet gratification of semantics

Official SavingCymbria Iverson Tribute ~We'll miss you!~

The husband and I got into a heated debate last night over Allen Iverson’s retirement. I argued that ’ego’ had to have been a factor in the gifted basketball player’s decision to leave the game. This accusation came across as cruel blasphemy to the diehard fan beside me on the couch.

“He doesn’t have an ego!” My husband was obstinate. “He’s just proud and uncompromising.”

Point. Set. Match.

Update: Way to go Philly for making this post entirely null and void

Portrait of a marriage using the medium of Shepards Pie

Can you guess who is who? Hint: I'm got more curves

We share many things, my husband and I, but a taste for garlic is not one of them. This wasn’t always the case. In our beginnings, we spent countless romantic nights gazing into each other’s eyes over the greasy plastic tablecloths at Shawarma Palace. We planned our brilliant future together while taking turns dipping garlicy potatoes into a small shared bowl of creamy white, ridiculously potent, garlic dipping sauce. Then tragedy struck.

Life happens. People change. A strong marriage must allow for personal evolution, even encourage it. On one of those Shawarma Palace nights I made a mistake, I got carried away in the moment and went too far. I ate an entire bowl myself. The next morning I woke up gagging with the worst garlic hangover of all time. For the next three days all I could smell was garlic, no matter how many times I showered. All I could taste was garlic, no matter how many times I brushed my teeth, frantic and  foaming at the mouth like I’d come home with a bad case of rabies - it sure felt terminal! Even now, just the idea of eating the stuff makes me nauseous. Once you’ve spent three days as a human garlic clove (sorry Robert Pattinson) any notion of it acting as a flavour ‘enhancer’ is long, long gone. 

Ever the gentleman, my husband stayed married to a woman who now loathes his favourite flavour. He’s good that way. I wanted to thank him for all the culinary compromises he’s had to make since then, and what better way than with the fetid plant itself? I ‘whipped’ up the two shepards pies you see above, and tailored them to our specific tastes. Mine was loaded with veggies and sweet potato, while his was all about garlicy mashed Yukon Golds. But how much garlic powder to add? Ah yes, that was the question.

I will make any number of sacrifices for love: time, energy, even the occasional kidney; but testing garlic levels in mashed potatoes isn’t one of them. So instead, I took the logical approach and kept adding garlic until I could smell it. I have been informed by several garlicphiles since then, including my darling husband, that this is not how they do it at The Cordon Bleu.

Once again, tragedy struck.

Apparently I got carried away again, because I added enough garlic to make the thing wholly inedible. And there it sat, on the bottom shelf of our fridge, as a Tupperwared token of misguided, misflavoured love, until Yesterday. It was harder than I thought it would be to throw out, and smellier, but I think there’s a lesson here under all the spoiled ground beef and onion. When you really love someone, and you want to tell them in a language they’ll understand, sometimes you have to be brave enough to taste it for yourself first. I took up golf didn’t I~wink.

Soap operas and sweet potatoes in the produce aisle

I was in the grocery store the other day, when I happened to overhear an age old human drama play out over the sweet potatoes. One of the two men stocking the vegetables flagged down a passing produce manager to ask her advice on a logistical problem – I’m assuming she was higher up the food chain since she was wearing a classy full-length Safeway smock instead of lowly green apron.

Logistics resolved, the three got to chatting about the ol’ days:

“…Now, Harry,” said the older of the two men, “there was one heck of a produce man.” He spoke wistfully, with respect and an obvious, long kindled awe, the way other men speak of Winston Churchill, or Elvis.

“Oh,” cut in the younger man, turning to the woman, whose androgyny was cut only by a tight blond ponytail, “isn’t that your husband?”

Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear her whole body went tense under that smock. She suddenly had somewhere else to be and took off for the swinging doors behind the prepackaged salads.

“My EX husband,” she called back to the men, before disappearing into the bowels of the building.

I felt for her. How hard it must be to live in the shadow of a legend. Any man who can inspire such awe, such reverence, must pay a terrible cost. In choosing greatness, as Harry, and a hundred before him have done, our heroes must leave so many behind. A pickle any way you slice it.

Strengthen your marriage with THIS principle of Marketing Management

Who knew walking down the aisle at Home Depot to buy a fridge could give you better footing on your trip down another aisle…

I came across a key marketing concept during some “light” summer reading: A Preface to Marketing Management, by J. Paul Peter & James H. Donnelly Jr. Selling is top priority in marketing, but how do you make sure the product isn’t returned after sale? The investigation of Postpurchase Dissonance is a hot topic in the field.

Doubts and second thoughts occur when there is a cognitive discord within the buyer’s attitudes and beliefs. Dissonance is most likely when the purchase decision is of psychological or financial importance, and/or the buyer has forgone a number of alternatives with comparable features. Hmmm, that doesn’t set marriage up with favorable odds, does it? I happen to have lucked out with a husband whose “features” are beyond “compare”, but the next section just might be helpful for those of you without a G.W. of your own (which had better be everyone reading this!).

 The textbook gives four helpful ways to prevent and/or reduce Postpurchase Dissonance:

1. By seeking information that supports the wisdom of the decision. (ooo you two have compatible astrological signs, that must clinch it!)

2. By perceiving information in a way to support the decision. (Your husband just went to Vegas without you because he said he didn’t want you getting a nasty burn in the desert sun…and you believe him)

3. By changing attitudes to a less favorable view of the forgone alternatives. (Just remember ravishing Antonio’s foot odour and Joey’s sinister collection of toy clowns)

4. By avoiding the importance of the negative aspects of the decision by enhancing the positive elements. (“He’s not poor; he’s a brilliant musician” – Note: don’t use that argument with your parents, who probably haven’t finished paying off that wedding of yours ; )

The book also suggests Postpurchase Dissonance can be reduced by admitting a mistake has been made. But really, would you want to wake up to a mistake every morning? Didn’t thing so. So if you didn’t hit the G.W. jackpot, just keep this little list in mind. And let’s just hope you have better luck picking your next major appliance *wink*

You’ll never really know your husband

I could draw you map of my husband’s back. It would take hours, but it would be perfect. I’d chart every rise of muscle and bone, every dip in between. Each freckle and follicle would be accounted for. A baby pink pencil crayon would show you the soft blush of his skin after a massage, and you’d learn his magic: that he smells like the warm, delicate layer of sand dust left on your body after a day at the beach.

My husband is a man of gentle grace and stubborn passions. I could map his past for you too, and tell you his dreams for the future. You’d find out the name of the boy he protected from recess bullies in elementary school, and why he needs to order new ‘rifle’ shafts for his wedges.

This is my husband.

But what do I know? I’m just his wife ; )

He and I were being driven home recently by visiting relatives after a supper out on the other side of the city. I was doing my best trying to give directions from the back seat, but I am a chronic pedestrian and can only guide people “as the crow flies”. And since when do crows have to worry about one way streets and highway exits! 

My “darling” husband, an experienced driver, was no help at all. He was stupidly mute. I kept waiting for him to rescue me and chime in on cue with a “left” or a “take Deerfoot”, but he kept right on with his lazy daydreaming, watching the houses whiz by out the backseat window while I did my best to keep us in the same province! 

I felt my temperature rising. Instead of directions, my brain started obsessing on why he was being so frustrating. What did he think this was? Just another job to pawn off on good ol’ pick-up-the-slack-Cymbria? These weren’t dirty dishes, these were his relatives! Don’t get me wrong, I love chatting up my husband’s Aunts and Uncles, but I also like getting home in time for work the next day! Do you want to know the worst of it? His body language was all too clear in letting me know he was getting fed up with me too! Every time I missed calling out a turn, he grimaced in a most un-husbandly way.

When we finally made it home I was fuming. He shut the front door behind him, then gave me a wicked smile that shut me up before I could open my mouth. 

“I almost didn’t make it!” he gasped. ”I thought I was done for when we turned on 17th!”

My husband bolted straight for the bathroom.

Love. sigh. What do I know?
Apparently, not much lol