The power went out at 3:59.

"Crap," I said. "It's an hour to sunset. What then?"

My husband decided avoid this question by taking a nap.

I decided to clean kerosene lamps, shower while the water was still hot and there was enough light coming into the bathroom to shower by, dig out candles, and see if I could light the oven without power. (Answer: no, but I didn't try very hard. Stove, yes, however. Verdict: pilotless gas range is annoying in a power outage.)

As I was fiddling with the lamp next to the bed, my husband muttered, "THIS is the thing you're the ant about."

I read until sunlight failed me, and listened to audio books as long as I could stand staring at nothing while doing so. In other words, I filled about ten of the remaining twenty minutes of daylight.

I crawled into bed next to my husband at 5:00. "I'm bored, so you get me."

Heavy sighs from him and the cats I displaced.

At 5:03 the power came back on. "Seven minutes 'til sunset!" Dann said.

I bounced out of bed. "My life has meaning again!"

~fin~

dannimal and I now belong to the same gym, which is cool because our couple rate means we each pay less than when we went to separate facilities. Plus, the place is closer to home, we can ride together and save gas, and I no longer have to risk athlete's foot by showering there.

PLUS, the place is just cool. It's a franchise 24-hour place (SNAP! Fitness, or whatever), but the flavor is very small-town. There are bottles of water available for a quarter, which is paid for on the honor system. The very wise proprietors stock the women's restroom with feminine hygiene supplies, because they clearly know how hard it would be to exercise during an... accident. And they have a very small but very cool selection of reading material, all novels, one in each of the major genres, including a copy of Perdido Street Station. They've earned all the cred in the world with me.

Also, both going to the same gym at the same time? Gets us out of bed in the morning. Dann and I have both noticed the phenomenon that it's very easy to stay abed if there's a warm body to snuggle with. He can get up because he knows that I'll get up if he does.

So, the other morning, on the way to the gym, he commented on this phenomenon in this fashion.

"And I knew I HAD to get up because of the Merbatross around my neck..."

Which I took rather well. I mean, I burst into laughter.

Then the other night, I was mock angry with him over... whatever, and I said:

"I may be a Merbatross, but you're a Dannbatross! And that's the worst kind of batross."

And I normally wouldn't write up a joke in which I deliver the punchline because that's lame, but Dann said I had to, because he wouldn't write up a story in which I got the upper hand.

WORST kind of batross, I tell you.

Mer to Dann: "Let's take a cute picture!"


Too dark.


FAIL.

Let's look at the settings--

Wait, did you just take another picture?


Dann to Mer: "I'm working up to my 'you're weird' face."


Dann to Mer: "Full on 'take my wife, please!' face."


Mer to Dann: "At least *I* have different expressions."


Dann to Mer: "How did you manage to take a picture while checking the picture?"


Mer: "'Cause I'm a dork?"


Mer: "See? DORK."


Dann: This better be cute enough.

And that's the way it was, on our fifth anniversary.

I am not supposed to feel worse after taking a sick day.

I think this is the end*.

---

* Of what, you may ask? Well, let me tell you. My aunt Jean swears that the Cooks (my mother's family) have two afflictions: thin eyelids and an overdramatic reaction to throwing up. I think that there is a third affliction in my genome, from the Haskells, which is assuming that all declines will result in death. Do you feel worse this minute than you did in the last minute? Okay, well, the end is near. My Prussian-Swiss-Dutch mother, in spite of the thin eyelids and the throwing up thing, finds my tertiary drama to be Just Too Much, and blames this on my father's generically British genes. Of course. Which makes all kinds of sense.

Anyway.

Since I'll be dead of flu soon, please do send lovely wreaths to my husband. He won't enjoy them, but it will remind him that I was awesome.

Yesterday, on the way out the door to see Fantastic Four:

Me: (pathetic voice) Hold still. (gloms onto husband) I need a hug.
Hus: (hugging me) You don't need a hug. You want a hug.
Me: Huh?
Hus: You're not sad. You're slightly content.
Me: Huh.

#

Later, in the car:

Me: (after being pensive about it) You know, you've caught up with me.
Hus: Wha?
Me: Well, when we started dating, I knew you. You didn't know me. But now you know my cues, when I'm happy or sad... "slightly content."
Hus: You had this little smile. That's "slightly content." But, yeah, I caught up.
Me: Yeah.
Hus: 'Cause I'm smarter than you.
Me: (smacks husband) Not about this kind of stuff, you aren't.
Hus: (smiles, because he's gotten my goat)

#

For the record, on Friday night, for the third night in a row, Dann and I bickered about going to Coldstone for dessert. Neither of us wanted to leave the (comfortably climate-controlled) house. "I'll pay for mine." "Not good enough. You have to come with me." "Nuh-uh." "Uh-huh." On Friday it got even worse, because dwinn was there, and that upped the ante. "We can't all fit in one car." "Why not?" "Pop cans." "Uh... my car." "Your car is worse than Julie's!" &c.

So, Dann opened a package of butterscotch chips for his dessert instead--despite my repeated urgings to "put those back!" and "those are for cookies!"

He was triumphant until he inhaled a butterscotch chip. And started coughing. So hard he, uh, tossed his not-cookies. I waited for him to stop breathing so I could deliver the Heimlich, but it never came to that, thank goodness.

He came back to the couch after an epic amount of coughing and hacking and retching. (So much he burst a blood vessel in his eye.) "This is your fault," he said. "For not going to Coldstone."

I never said we were Ozzie & Harriet. I just said we know each other.

Personal life update: last night, Dann smeared butter on my cheek. And then onto my t-zone area, which you will note, is a bad place to smear butter on someone with combination skin. I realized (in looking at the butter caked into his ear) that we need a better way to resolve very minor disputes than resorting to 2-year-old "violence." Until he smiled at me and said, "It gives me the warm fuzzies when we do this."

I'm leaving a lot of it out, but there was also catfood on his shirt by the end of his fight.

Escalation of violence is the only way to win. Even when it's "violence."