{"id":1080,"date":"2007-11-09T08:52:29","date_gmt":"2007-11-09T13:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2007\/11\/09\/all-about-beloved\/"},"modified":"2007-11-09T08:58:49","modified_gmt":"2007-11-09T13:58:49","slug":"all-about-beloved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2007\/11\/09\/all-about-beloved\/","title":{"rendered":"All about Beloved"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This went &#8217;round the blogosphere about a month ago and I filed it away for just such a brainless Friday during NaBloPoMo as this, but I first saw it at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slouchingmom.com\/2007\/10\/slouching-dad-unmasked.html\">Slouching Mom&#8217;s <\/a>place so she gets the linky love.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Who is your man?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ca.geocities.com\/danimark@rogers.com\/images\/wedding_small.jpg\" style=\"float:left; margin-right: 5px;\"> Beloved.  (When I started blogging, everyone had a pseudonym.  Tristan&#8217;s middle name is Louis, so he was Luigi, and Simon&#8217;s middle name is Francis, so he was Frankie.  It took me about two weeks to realize I couldn&#8217;t blog about them without using their real names &#8211; it was too awkward and fake, and we don&#8217;t have a drop of Italian blood in our combined family lines &#8211; but I kept Beloved first for an affectation, and now purely with affection.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. How long have you been together?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Twelve and a half years, since March of 1995.  Married since July of 1999.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. How long did you date?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We didn&#8217;t exactly date.  We lived in separate cities (me in Ottawa, him in London) for eight months but were exclusive from the day we met.  For most of that year, I&#8217;d drive to London every second weekend.  He moved to Ottawa and into my apartment on New Years Eve, 1995.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. How old is your man?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Two years younger than me.  He&#8217;ll be 36 at the beginning of December.  (Family trivia:  with the exception of my mom and dad, in every couple in my extended family &#8211; both sets of grandparents, my brother, my cousin, my aunt &#8211; the woman is older than the man.)<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/82143085\/\" title=\"Photo Sharing\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/41\/82143085_317a749998_m.jpg\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" alt=\"A kid on Christmas morning\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><strong><br \/>\n5. Who eats more?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He does.  His favourite snack, as a &#8216;starving&#8217; student back in the days when we first met, was an entire chocolate freezer cake or a dozen doughnuts washed down with a litre of milk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6. Who said &#8220;I love you&#8221; first?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Um, can you believe I don&#8217;t remember?  I *think* it was him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7. Who is taller?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He is, just barely.  He&#8217;s got about two inches on me.  I love how we fit together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>8. Who sings better?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Him, no contest.  He has a lovely, resonant singing voice that comes from deep in his chest.  I couldn&#8217;t carry a tune with a wheelbarrow to put it in.  Although I do have a better memory for lyrics, which seems patently unfair.<\/p>\n<p><strong>9. Who is smarter?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A couple of years ago, I might have said I am.  Now, I&#8217;m not so sure.  He has more edumacation than me (a university degree in fine arts, a college diploma in animation, and a couple of semesters in a prestigious illustration program) and a much better memory, but I think I&#8217;m a little bit quicker of wit &#8212; but just barely.<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\n10. Whose temper is worse?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, dangerous question.  We both have temper issues.  Mine is quicker to flare and blaze out, his is more dramatic when escalated.  We are constantly working on this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>11. Who does the laundry?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s a 75\/25 split, with him on the 75 side.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>12. Who takes out the garbage?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He does.  That job is attached to the cat litter in our house, which is all his.  One of the niceties of being regularly pregnant!<\/p>\n<p><strong>13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Um, we both do.  On the right side of our own beds, that is.  He snores and twitches, and I&#8217;m a light sleeper, so for now he sleeps in the guest room.  I think we&#8217;re headed for twin beds once the Player to be Named Later claims a room of his own.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ca.geocities.com\/danimark@rogers.com\/images\/minimark.jpg\" alt=\"Daddy and his mini-me, 2002\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>14. Who pays the bills?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I do, which suits both of us.  I have obsessive control issues over this one, thanks to my practice marriage.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>15. Who is better with the computer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He is, by far.  He even teaches programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.  When we first moved in together in 1995, I had a little 486 with Windows 3.0 and knew way more about computers than him.  It took less than a year for him to be more facile with computers than me, and he&#8217;s since left me in the dirt.  I&#8217;m good with social media but a Luddite with everything else.  Thank goodness for live-in tech support that works for dirty favours!<\/p>\n<p><strong>16. Who mows the lawn?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mostly I do, because I like to.  Same with shovelling the driveway.  He does it maybe one time in five.<\/p>\n<p><strong>17. Who cooks dinner?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I cook, he cleans up afterward.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>18. Who drives when you are together?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Early in our relationship, I drove the majority of the time.  Since the boys were born, I&#8217;ve relinquished my hold on the steering wheel &#8211; with the exception of road trips, and especially through Toronto.  See temper question above!<\/p>\n<p><strong>19. Who pays when you go out?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think he does most of the time, but I&#8217;ve never really noticed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>20. Who is most stubborn?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Me.  I&#8217;m also more opinionated.  And who is most easy-going?  That would be Beloved, thank goodness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Probably me.  I like closure and official endings to disagreements, whereas Beloved likes to just pretend nothing happened.  Unfortunately, this prolongs and even escalates a lot of disagreements into full blown arguments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>22. Whose parents do you see the most?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mine, by far.  My folks live around the corner and we have dinner together at least once a week.  His dad and stepmom visit us, or we visit them, a couple of times a year, but we haven&#8217;t visited his mom in a couple of years.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ca.geocities.com\/danimark@rogers.com\/images\/daddykiss.jpg\" alt=\"A new daddy\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>23. Who kissed who first?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Aren&#8217;t these things usually mutual?  Neither one of us could resist the magnetic attraction, but I guess he was the more forward of the two of us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>24. Who asked who out?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There was no &#8216;asking out.&#8217;  We met in a bar, and he (no joke) invited me back to his apartment to see his sketches.  We were a couple from that first night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>25. Who proposed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The more of these questions I answer, the more I realize how non-traditional our relationship is.  There was never a proposal, from what I can remember.  Marriage was always on the table, it was just a matter of when.  When we finally went out and bought an engagement ring together, he carried it around the mall and dangled it in front of my nose like a carrot as he went into all his favourite (electronics) stores, knowing for once I was at his mercy.  He finally slipped the ring on my finger in the parking lot of our favourite restaurant just before dinner.<\/p>\n<p><strong>26. Who is more sensitive?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Too close to call.  We&#8217;re both soppy romantics, but I think I&#8217;m a little tougher in some respects.<\/p>\n<p><strong>27. Who has more friends?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Me.  I&#8217;m a social creature, and he maintains that he hates people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>28. Who has more siblings?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We each have one &#8211; he has a sister and I have a brother.  Having a three-child family is unprecedented in our immediate families.<\/p>\n<p><strong>29. Who wears the pants in the family?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ha!  I&#8217;m not answering this question on the grounds that it may incriminate me.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/postcardsfromthemothership\/21364133\/\" title=\"Photo Sharing\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/15\/21364133_b3ff08fb43.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"160\" alt=\"Daddy's crazy!\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>One of my all-time favourite pictures.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This went &#8217;round the blogosphere about a month ago and I filed it away for just such a brainless Friday during NaBloPoMo as this, but I first saw it at Slouching Mom&#8217;s place so she gets the linky love. 1. Who is your man? Beloved. (When I started blogging, everyone had a pseudonym. Tristan&#8217;s middle &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2007\/11\/09\/all-about-beloved\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;All about Beloved&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}