Snuffleupagus

Here's the thing about Nordic Boy. In all the excitement of the new
house, moving, repairing, unpacking, and improving, he has
sped up to ten times his normal speed. What I mean by this is that,
despite appearances to the contrary, he can, especially when it comes to home improvement, spaz out. I say "despite appearances" because Nordic Boy is one cool customer. He's got that whole quiet,
mysterious, furrowed brow thing going on. Not everyone can pull off
the furrowed brow thing. A lot of times, it just makes dudes look
cute but vacant. Like Jordan Catalano, or Matt Dillon. Nordic Boy,
however, has the look of someone who is thinking about something deep and important. And he is. He comes up with brilliant observations. I'm telling you, blindingly brilliant. I'll prove it to you. He was the one that pointed out to me that James Cromwell's career has been bookended by being paired opposite two very different lemon-faced redheads. In Six Feet Under, it was his George to Frances Conroy's Ruth. But twenty-five years ago, it was his Harve Miller to Lucy Lee Flippin's Eliza Jane Wilder in Little House on the Prairie. Cromwell excels at romancing the prunefaces. Nordic Boy should win...well, SOMETHING for noticing this.

So, although he seems reserved, enigmatic and totally unflappable,
there are times when he completely revs it up a thousand and gets
somewhat hyper-active. He saves this sort of behavior for only his
closest friends and loved ones. "For your eyes onlyyyyy. Only for
youuuuu..." Remember Sheena Easton? And how she started out all
squeaky clean and then got mixed up with Prince and started singing
about her Sugar Walls and all like that? This has abso-toot-ly
nothing to do with what I am talking about. I just had to have a
Sheena moment.

Anyhoo. I refer to this phenomenon (I'm back to talking about Nordic
Boy, keep up, will you?) as the Snuffleupugus Syndrome. You know how Big Bird was the only one who could see Snuffy? Well, there are
certain non-calm, non-zen-like behaviors that only I (and a very few
chosen others) can see him do. The other people who know him would never believe it. He does things like make up a dance called The Bowling Ball, where he folds himself into a ball and rolls himself
across the floor. Yes, I know he's playing it fast and loose with the
term "dance," but that's what he calls it. The people outside of his
circle refuse to believe this could be possible, because he is known
for being the calmest, coolest, deepest, most zen-like mofo ever. But
it IS possible. And you guys better believe me, unlike Susan and
Gordon and Maria and Luis. Buncha blind a-holes who never saw Snuffy. Damn them all. (And I know that they all eventually saw Snuffy. But that was too flippin' late for me, after spending my entire childhood feeling so, so sorry about it. That's RIGHT. Feel sorry for me, people.)

So, in the past weeks, in the excitement of moving, Nordic Boy has
moved entire pieces of furniture and appliances out of the old place
and into the new, painted the entire house in one day (different
colors for different rooms, even-- see the pretty picture with the super cute color squares on the wall? Even Heidi Klum, looking out of the magic tv box is impressed),

Heidi Klum loves it!,
originally uploaded by Librarian Girl.

ripped out all the old floors and put in new hardwoods all by his lonesome, rewired the dining room light, installed new blinds, put in two new outlets, torn out the scary Murphy bed, put up kitchen shelves, put in a new electrical panel in the garage, added circuits (look at me acting like I know what that means), fixed our leaky washer, put in a new threshold on the back door, dug 12 large holes for a backyard fence that he will build, installed new window screens, and put together one of those giant custom closet thingys. We have only been here for a month, people. And this is in addition to his forty-or-fifty-hours-per-week job. "Doing stuff around here doesn't feel like work," he says when I try and tell him to sit the hell down. "This is totally fun." My inherently lazy self has no concept of what the fug he's talking about.

So most days I get home from work an hour or two after him. I just
know when I get home he will have dinner cooking and some home project done within the span of that two hours. And as he works, his brow will be furrowed and his steely blue eyes will be penetrating.
Thinking up some fresh new James Cromwell trivia, keeping dinner warm, and doing home repairs. How much more dreamy can this guy get?

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl