Now We Are 34

Dear Mike,
Happy birthday! You're a real upstanding guy. I like how you are into mushing right now. It seems like it might outlast your pack goat phase, and maybe even your tear drop camp trailer phase, too. Whatever floats your boat! Just don't ask me to scoop poop every day when you finally get your team of 6 dogs.

I'm glad you are a professor with a PhD. I know a lot of people wanted you to "work for the government" using your Chinese, but I'm glad you didn't go that route (no offense, government). Remember how you finished your dissertation in one year even though you were also teaching 12 credits per semester and had three small children, not to mention a super needy and demanding wife? You rule. I hope some day I can start teaching again and we can share an office and be like a super couple for students to look up to, just like I always looked up to Tom and Louise Plummer and dreamed of marrying a German professor. A Chinese professor is close enough, though. Probably even better, since we all know nobody studies German anymore.

Oh, and thanks for building that Shaker peg rail for me, and for fixing the carport, and doing wallpaper with me, and building a chicken coop, and making a fence in our backyard, and organizing closets all the time. You're good at that stuff. You also did a great job when you put the windshield wipers on our car. And thanks for getting up with Ruby last night when she had a bad dream about Holden destroying one of her paintings. Yes, I was awake and heard the details of her sadness. But I decided to lie still and let you take care of it. Thanks again. You did an awesome job.

So, here's to a great day. I will do my best to get you your traditional birthday hamburger. And possibly a slice of cheesecake? We don't want to get too crazy, though! Oh, why not?

Love,
Carly

PS Sorry I didn't refer to you as either my "best friend" or my "love" or my "sweetheart." But I mean, gag.