New Trend: It's Friday, Let Me Tell You Why I Love...

New Tradition for this blog.

Fridays are now officially "Let Me Tell You Why I Love ..." days.  This is the part of the show I like to call "touchy-feely".  My goal is to tell someone different every Friday just why I love them and what I love most about them.  This week's victim is.....

My husband, James.

For the obvious reasons (duh--I married him!) I will skip all the traditional hearts and flowers and butterflies, the wherefore art thous and the let me count the ways, for a far less traditional set of reasons why I love my husband.

Yes, he's handsome, he's smart, he's talented and he's sweet.  He's also at times a real pain in the ass, but that's part of the package.  There are a lot of reasons that I love him, but these are just a few:

1. He has actually made me pee my pants laughing before.  Sometimes he knows exactly what to say to send me off into a never-ending fit of gut-busting laughter.  Not many people get my sense of humor, sometimes not even him.  But he is comic genius with the litany of fart jokes and bodily functions that pass for high comedy around these parts.  (Hey--admit it, you laugh at it too.  Come ON...it's funny) Sometimes he can just look at me and I start laughing, and he usually knows why.
2. He thinks pirates are way cooler than ninjas, and vikings are cooler than everyone.  Which is the obvious logical choice.
3. He parents my children with me, and sometimes for me.  This in itself deserves both a trophy and a withering look of pity.  He gets why we can laugh at them, but God help someone else if they do.  I also know that he would give his life for any one of us, no questions asked.
4. He has survived 9 years of living with me, which can only best be described as taking a tornado, tying a rope around its heel, and then expecting it to live a civilized adult life in captivity. Not an easy task, and one that many have not been brave enough to try for longer than a few seconds at best.
5. He has a natural way with children that is something you cannot be taught.  Kids flock to him like he is the Pied Piper of XBox or something.  He coaches basketball, and everywhere we go you find kids that he has coached, even some 7 and 8 years ago, that call him "Coach".  He is the best kind of coach there is, because he teaches kids not just how to play the sport, but how to be a good winner and a successful person through lessons learned on the court.  He's fair, he never yells at them, and he never talks down to them like some people do to little kids. They respond by affording him rock star status in the streets of Burleson.
6. He likes what he likes and no one can sway him otherwise.  Sometimes that drives me crazy about him, but I admire that he sticks to his guns once he makes up his mind about what he likes, and never for a moment lets someone else tell him otherwise. He doesn't take crap off of anyone, regardless of who or what they are to him.  For someone who is about as brave as a church mouse, I envy this quality in him so much.  It would have saved me years of heartache if I had ever mastered it.
7. He is, hands down, the best salesman I have ever seen in my life. He could sell cars to Henry Ford, ice cream to eskimos, and snake oil to even the wiliest carnie.  This is something that can't be taught, is hard to learn, and does not come easy to a large percentage of the world's population.  
8.  He cries any time there is a dog or a soldier in any movie or t.v. show.  Any time. And he thinks we don't notice, but we do.  He is as macho as they come, but he does little things that give away what he really is--a giant ball of mush.  Ok, a very hairy, manly, macho ball of mush.  (He would really insist that I added as much).

There is nothing I have said here that I wouldn't, or haven't, told him to his face a million times. He knows how I feel because I am pretty good at telling him, good or bad.  One thing I can say is that we always know where we stand with each other, which in modern relationships puts us pretty much a step ahead of everyone else.  We have a relationship that no one but us understands, but it works for us.  All this because we had a shared fondness for Sammy Hagar and room in our hearts to, despite all the complete crap life has collectively thrown at us, try and find love again, against all odds.  All this because he was the only person maybe in my whole life that I ever felt I could be completely, 100% myself with and not worry about losing. Because he loves me too, and that's enough to ask of anyone in today's world.