My husband's so white....

... he thinks he's Roman.

So, every single time someone uses the word decimate, my husband has a cow. Unfortunately, it's used a lot in disaster movies, alien invasion movies, and spy movies. Those tend to be the movies he wants me to watch with him. Thus, I hear that word used a lot.

Unfailingly, he always has to tell me how they're using the word all wrong. Originally, "to decimate" was to take 1/10th of something... namely, one-tenth of a mutinous branch of the Roman army. It was used as a form of punishment for an unruly lot. Roman military units that were being punished would be divided into groups of ten. Then they would draw straws. One out of every group of ten would be killed. The word decimation is a Latin derivative meaning to "take one tenth".

Okay, obviously, the word has changed immensely over time. Decimation now means mass scale slaughter or massive destruction. That's how it's widely used today. For some reason or another, though, my husband feels that we should only use the word like the old Romans did, as if Roman Phalanxes are still stomping around the world. So whenever we watch a movie and the planet gets "decimated", I await the inevitable, "Oh, we're okay. Only one-tenth of us died."

He doesn't know how good he's got it.

So, I cautiously approached my husband with this blog and the first few posts. Needless to say, the reception was NOT the best in the world. He claims that I make him sound like a cursing, hairy behemoth with a temper. I told him that people would know that I was exaggerating a little, but he pointed out that this is a blog. They're going to take it as truth.

We talked about it for a bit, and then I told him that if this blog would have a negative impact on our marriage, I wouldn't continue it. He sighed and said, "I'm okay with it. Even if you make me sound like a hairy redneck."

What he doesn't know is how much this blog benefits him. I now hang on his EVERY word in a way that I never did before. If he was talking about sports, I'd grunt and tune him out. If he wanted to talk about the 10th spy movie we saw this week, I'd tune him out. If he wanted to tell me about some cool video game he was playing, I'd listen for a little bit and then tune him out. Now I listen to everything he says because there might just be something that could go up on my blog.

He's really very lucky I started this blog.

My husband is never wrong...

... when it comes to my mother. Being married into some Asian families has it perks. I talk to my mom frequently on the phone in order to stay fluent in Thai and also because she's just plain fun to talk to. We talk about my kids, my dad, my family in Thailand, and Plants vs. Zombies. Sometimes we talk about eBay, and I try to figure out how she's managed to buy stuff off of eBay without my help. She is a woman of many mysteries and awesomeness, and so we have much to discuss.

Until my husband gets involved. Sometimes while I am talking to my mom on the phone, my husband wanders by and asks me a question. Usually, when I'm on the phone he leaves me alone, but every now and then, he can't contain the words that he thinks I need to hear. 80% of the time, whatever he has to say makes me smile, but then I end up scowling pretty fast.

Why? Well, as soon as my mom hears my husband's voice at all no matter what he's saying to me, she declares, "He needs you!"

Then she hangs up on me.

She does not wait to find out if he actually needs me for anything important, and she doesn't wait to find out if he is just shooting witty one-liners at me. She assumes that he must be starving to death, drowning in the sink, or performing cardiac surgery on a neighbor. Whatever he needs is vitally important, and I must see to it immediately.

I often call her back and ask her why she hung up on me. Her answer is always that she heard my husband and that he needed me. I've stopped explaining to her that he doesn't really need me, and I just count my blessings that he'll always have my family's support. He now, however, gets the evil eye if he comes near while I'm talking to her.

"Honey, I will never eat you..."

My husband and I have a bad habit of talking late at night before we go to bed. I really should know better by now after nearly 10 years of marriage. We always end up talking about the most bizarre stuff. I think it's because my husband loses all his filters after about 1 a.m.

So, we finished a movie one night. I can't remember which one, and we started talking about the movie. We ended up wondering if we could eat another human being, and suddenly, my husband turns to me and says, "Honey, I love you so much that I would never eat you."

He went on to declare that if he was on a deserted island with me, he would just waste away and not eat me. I had no idea what to say to this, so I just went on to say that if he died first, I could live a while eating him. I encouraged him to eat my corpse if I died first, which I probably would. I am quite a bit smaller and weaker than he, afterall. He went on to proclaim that he'd kill himself with a stray coconut so that I would end up eating him.

If this isn't true love, I don't know what is.

I am a failure

No, really, I am. In the eyes of Asians living in this country, I have failed horribly by marrying a white guy instead of a nice Thai guy. At my wedding, a friend of my parents actually told my brother that he cannot do what I did. He needed to marry a nice Thai girl. My brother, however, is not a failure for two reasons: 1) he was born male and 2) he actually married a Thai girl.

My poor parents. I feel for them. I really do. I've saddled them with this strange guy who does really strange things that they simply cannot understand. I know some of the things he does completely baffles them. What kind of man wears shorts all the time? What kind of man has to shave as much as my husband does? What kind of man goes to bed at 4:00 am when he doesn't have to? (Okay, that last thing isn't as much a white thing as my husband's just weird.) What I don't dare tell them is that my husband isn't really a typical white guy either. He's just plain weird.

I use his whiteness as a convenient excuse for all sorts of things. He dropped a curse word in front of my little girls? Oh, that's just because he's white. He yelled at the waiter for poor service and demanded that the guy stop dribbling iced tea all over our coats? Oh, that's because he's white. He treats me with respect and love? Oh, that's just because he's white... No, wait. That might just be because I picked a good husband despite the color of his skin.