I’m officially old.

Today is my birthday and I am officially old. Not because of my new age, but because of how I spent my day. Some highlights:

  • Ran errands
  • Dozed briefly in a comfortable chair
  • Paid a bill
  • Hand-washed my support hose
  • Made a plan to go to bed early (we’ll see how that pans out)

Relax: My day sounds a lot worse than it actually was. In fact, it’s been pretty great. For starters, there’s the obvious reason: I’m still on the right side of the grass.

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Reading the Bible in Yup’ik.

Yet another reason to be delighted by my partner: He reads the Bible in Yup’ik, the language spoken by indigenous folks in western and southwestern Alaska (and the Russian Far East). That’s because DF has been doing home visits for his church, and one of the parishioners is an elderly woman who is much more … Read more

Our Christmas miracle.

Early Wednesday afternoon, DF went to the medical center for a stress test. Generally, a Christmas miracle story doesn’t start that way but bear with me.

Lately, he’d been plagued by serious fatigue and breathlessness, and working his way through medical testing (blood work, EKG, etc.). The stress test was just the latest arrow in the quiver. Or would have been, if they ever did it.

But before they could get started, the medico noticed that DF’s heart was beating as few as 20 times per minute. The average adult’s resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 BPM. Into a wheelchair and off to the ER in the adjacent hospital, from whence he called to report that nurses and doctors were “swarming him.”

Soon after that, he called to say they wanted to implant a pacemaker –and they’d given him the option of doing it then and there, so he could sleep in his own bed that night.

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Midlife love rocks! (Ask me how I know.)

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(Happy Throwback Tuesday! I know it’s generally “Throwback Thursday,” but my playground, my rules. This post originally ran on Valentine’s Day in 2013. It’s a message that bears repeating, I think.)

I find myself in the middle of a Lifetime movie: Middle-aged woman leaves long-term abusive marriage, goes broke, wins a scholarship, stumbles into an unexpected career – and finds a man who’s perfect for her.

A man who’s smart, kind, funny, well-read, musically talented, astoundingly physical and – bonus! – extremely handy around the house.

A man who only gets her jokes but embroiders on them, and who wrote a smutty double dactyl in honor of her birthday.

A man who wants her for who she is, not for the person he thinks he can turn her into.

The experience has been startling, and humbling, and oh so gratifying. I never knew emotions came in this size.

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Monday miscellany: Love and money edition.

If the Policy Genius “Couples & Money” survey is any indication, one of the things COVID didn’t change was love and money. Specifically, it didn’t change how paired-up households manage their dough.

About 40 percent manage their finances together and 22 percent “keep and manage” money separately, which is consistent with PG’s previous two surveys.

A few other interesting tidbits:

About two-thirds (66 percent) say money doesn’t have any influence on their relationship.

Almost one in three (30 percent) have paid off a partner’s debts. In that group, 44 percent have plunked down more than $10,000 to settle their loved ones’ obligations.

Lots of partners aren’t sharing money specifics. That includes topics like salary (41 percent), retirement savings (49 percent), credit scores (54 percent), debt (42 percent), investments (48 percent) and monthly spending totals (53 percent). And one out of five respondents say they don’t know any of those things about their partners.

Speaking of not-knowing: Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of those surveyed said that lying or hiding money could mean the end of a relationship. Yet one in five of them have an undisclosed will or some kind of secret account (credit card, banking, retirement, life insurance).

One way to get around all the secrecy is simple: Talk about money.

 

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Bride of s#!t my boyfriend says.

(Note: Surviving and Thriving is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.)

One of the many reasons I adore my dearest partner is that he not only endures my puns, he collaborates with them. Another reason is that he constantly comes up with his own – some germane to what’s happening in the moment, others that appear out of nowhere.

Can’t help lovin’ that man. Or writing about him: Previous pun compilations (see below) have encouraged groans but also appreciation from readers.

Those recaps were inspired by the fellow who posted some of his father’s pithy pronouncements on Twitter under the name “Shit My Dad Says.” Ultimately it became a best-selling book and even a short-lived television series called “$#*! My Dad Says.”

Sorry, folks: As long as he’s going to come up with these things, I’m going to write them down. Well, I’ll write some of them down. Some are too personal, too smutty or too deeply obscure to translate in this space. 

 

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Yet more s–t my boyfriend says.

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Because I’m a huge nerd, stories about weird medical conditions fascinate me (especially the description of how the issue was diagnosed in the first place). And since my sweetheart is also a huge nerd, he likes to listen to excerpts.

A while back I shared this weird Washington Post medical article about a guy whose sore arm could have cost his life. The diagnosis was “acute compartment syndrome,” a situation in which the pressure inside muscles grows and cuts off blood flow to an entire limb. The poor fellow needed four surgeries during eight days in the hospital. Brrrr.

When I’d finished describing the article, DF said it reminded him of the condition sometimes afflicting train travelers who demand the best and most adorable berth on the train: a cute compartment syndrome.

As my friend Linda B. would say: Gah-ROAN.

One of the most appealing things about DF is his love for wordplay. He and I will embroider on each other’s puns until one of us feels queasy. Ultimately I started writing down the worst (best?) offenders, and back in February 2018 I published a collection of his bon mots and bad puns in the tradition of “Shit My Dad Says.”

(That was the name of a series of Tweets published by Justin Halpern. Later they became a book and eventually a TV show with William Shatner that didn’t last too long, even though the word “shit” was never uttered.)

Whenever he bursts out with another pun, I’ll tell him “that’s going on the list.” Not all of them do make the list, though; some are too obscure (or too smutty) for prime time.

You can read previous installments to get an idea of how my sweetheart’s mind works:

Or you can just dive right in and read this fourth installment. You’ve been warned.

 

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Still more s–t my boyfriend says.

This is the third in a series of posts spotlighting the at-times clever and at-times groaningly awful wordplay in which my partner regularly indulges. When he comes up with another zinger my response (other than laughter and/or eyerolls) is generally, “That’s going on the list.”

Not that I always remember to write them down. And not that all of them are suitable for sharing; some are too obscure and convoluted, and others are just kinda naughty.

Too, some of them aren’t pun-ny – they’re just odd.

About the headline: It spins off the best-selling book (and short-lived TV series), “S#*t My Dad Says.” The author was a guy whose father was given to pithy pronouncements, some of which were definitely NSFW.

The other two posts are linked at the end of this piece. Probably I should beg the readers’ pardon for sharing some of this stuff. But as Dogbert says, “Puns! Never apologize, never explain.”

Here, then is the third list. It almost certainly won’t be the last list.

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Midlife love STILL rocks.

images(Happy Throwback Thursday! In honor of Valentine’s Day I am republishing this post, which originally ran on Feb. 14, 2015.)

I put a card on DF’s coffee cup this morning, even though we’d agreed to opt out of the Valentine’s Day hoopla.

“It’s a frugal card,” I assured him. “Hallmark sent it to me.”

Seriously: I’m a member of the company’s Gold Crown loyalty programs, and Hallmark recently mailed both a love-you card and a birthday card. I was supposed to have had them scanned at the store to earn extra points, but I keep forgetting to do that.

After two years of living together, DF and I still “delight in each other’s company,” as he puts it.

Do we ever. Whenever he walks into the room my heart still does a funny little dance, not unlike the kind you see in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

Sometimes I’ll glance up from reading or writing and catch him gazing at me with what I can only describe as a moon-eyed calf look.

Then he’ll grin ruefully at own besottedness and say, “I really love you.”

I still can’t quite believe that I found the perfect guy for me: smart, caring, well-read, a great conversationalist and the world’s greatest cuddler. DF is always thinking of and doing things for others. He’s more than fair in the division of household chores. Upon request he’ll play the theme from “Astro Boy” on the piano, but will also play Brahms’ Intermezzo in A, which he describes as “the universe in three pages.”

 

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What would you pay to relive your first kiss?

Assuming it was worth reliving, that is. For some, the first kiss is pretty dreadful.

A company called Bid On Equipment decided to survey a couple of thousand people to find out what certain once-in-a-lifetime moments would be worth to them. A few examples of average payments:

Relive the birth of first child: $100,622

Attend a Tupac Shakur concert: $4,991

Be at the “Star Wars” premiere: $11,757

Hear the Gettysburg Address: $26,896

It wasn’t clear whether we’d get to relive childbirth knowing then what we know now about things like epidurals.

 

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