Married to Mr. Right

I love being right. I hate being wrong. So was my Mr. Right actually the wrong man for me?

My husband has opinions about everything. He’ll pontificate about the best restaurants in town, or jump into conversations about smart phone technology. He’ll propose driving directions to places he’s never visited, or offer advice on how you can improve your cooking. Ask him about politics in Egypt, and he’ll have an answer for you. Ask a financial expert about the state of the economy, and Laramie will step in to help explain. “How can you possibly know that? You’re a programmer,” I scoff, but it doesn’t stop him. When I mentioned what I’d learned about tongue placement in a recent singing lesson, Laramie said, “Well, I’ve been telling you that for years.”

A few days ago he decided to solve my shirt-buying problems. You’d think this was strictly a ladies’ domain, but there was my husband in our bedroom, examining each of the six shirts I’d bought to check sizes. Pretty soon he knew more about them than I did. “Look at this,” he said, laying a regular-sized shirt over a tall-sized shirt that had given me sleeve problems. “The sleeve on the regular is half an inch shorter than on the tall. I bet if you go down a size you’ll get sleeves you like.” Or, “That shirt says it’s a size 26, but it’s way too huge. I bet you need a size 22.” After considering all the options, he wrote me a chart with optimal sizes, numbered in order of their probability of fitting me. Then he sent me back to the store, with the command to buy nothing in a size he hadn’t personally approved. Armed with my chart, I insisted on the size he recommended, instead of kow-towing to kindly salesladies who brought me size talls because I was taller than they were. Finally, I found something that fit.

And that’s how he works. Whether it’s the subject of singing or shirt shopping, Laramie doesn’t back down because he lacks experience. Instead, he applies his engineer’s brain to the subject, scrutinizing details that form the whole. He notices how machines are put together and how my raised tongue blocks my singing sound. He follows random links during his hours of net-surfing (“Honey, do you REALLY need to be doing that right now?” “Of course, it’s for work.” When a guy works on internet search, he can claim that for just about anything online) to stumble onto music videos about Keynesian economics or obscure mathematics papers or tidbits about the family that inspired the Great Brain books (sorry, readers, but the family actually lived in Price, not fictional Adenville; “Uncle Will” was a composite character introduced to show events in the Wild West, and “Papa” once owned a saloon.) A snoop into his internet history turns up pages on uniform polytopes, uniform tiling, tesselation, rhombicdodecahedrons, the Walters map collection, Nikolas Schiller, constitutional amendments, the Google art project, and John D. Fitzgerald--and that’s from a single hour’s surfing. Never heard of a subject? Well, with a little Google magic and the application of reasoned logic, my husband can become an instant expert. And then, when I say “That’s not how you teach a kid to ride a bicycle,” he can say “One website says it’ll only take them an hour to learn it this way.” And he’s right. Again.

It's hard to resent his uncanny abilities when so often they work in my favor. I need clothes for a trip to Costa Rica? Laramie takes me to REI and scours racks for the perfect pair of nylon pants. I need to fit a Peeps into a soda bottle so I can try out my new air pump? Laramie rolls the marshmallow bunny in waxed paper and slides it right in. I need a game on my new phone? In an instant, Lar’s installing Angry Birds. I season my curry with cardamom instead of cumin? Laramie identifies the problematic ingredient, strains the sauce to remove it, and breaks open a cardamom pod to help me remember exactly which spice is which. I hesitate over which restaurant dish to order? Using built-in machine learning algorithms, Laramie selects seafood pasta as the menu item most likely to meet my preferences. “I’ve grokked you,” he explains. And the pasta tastes great.

So how does it feel to be married to Mr. Right-all-the-time? I guess sometimes it’s all right to be wrong.

Happy Valentine's Day, honey.

Gotcha?

How Alex read the "Got cha" conversation heart during dessert:

"Goat catch"

A Primary Child Explains Genesis

A primary 6-year-old summarized the 6th day of creation, in which "God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so." (Genesis 1:24)


"On the sixth day Heavenly Father made creepy things. Like spiders."

2-Hour Igloo

Becca "Reads" the Book of Mormon

Since we started Book of Mormon reading at night, even Rebecca is becoming familiar with the lingo. Right now she's holding a copy on her lap, narrating: "And it came to pass..."

Mommy meals

Came back after a long Primary Presidency meeting and poured myself a bowl of creamy salmon chowder. While it heated, I cleaned up the table, where my kids had left their soup unfinished. Can't stand to waste it (that's salmon and real cream, folks!) so I slurped it down as I cleaned. Guess what? By the time the timer beeped, I wasn't hungry anymore.

Kids describe a greenish sunset

R: "Green sun!"
A: "Grass in the sky."

Competitive praying

Alex: "I'll say the prayer. Dear Heavenly Father--"

Rebecca folds arms. "Dear Heavenly Father--"

Alex: "Wait! It's my turn. I'm saying it. Dear Heavenly Father..."

Rebecca: "Dear Heavenly Father..." (Jumbled prayer noises from both)

Alex covers Rebecca's mouth. "Stop!"

Rebecca (muffled) "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen!"

Prayer over.