ROBBIE!

This is a post about my husband. I don't have a picture in my photobucket, cuz i'm a lazypants and i'm technologically challenged!!

So, let me make a word picture of Rob -- right now he's down in the rec room jammin' on his guitar and singing away!!! I love it when he does that! He likes to do that late at night - provides me with some great bloggin' tunes!

I met Rob when he had just turned 16. woah. . . he's 44 now!!!! AI YI YI!!! I cannot believe that we are that OLD. Summer camp was the place-- everyone's just a hormone in running shoes. . trying to see who's gonna 'go out' with whom. The previous year I had a busy 'dance card'!!!! oooh la la, i was a floozy!!! stringing 3 guys along at the same time (it helped that 2 weren't campers, only visitors of other campers). I didn't even notice Rob that year! I remember his dorky friends, who strode around the campground wearing these 'robin hood' hats with these tall, arcing feathers that bounced crazily when they walked. I regarded them with what can only be described as disdain. *They had those giant L's on their foreheads!!!!* I guess Rob was guilty by association??!!! heh heh. .

When winter came along that year Rob caught my eye at this divisional church gathering. . i was in this speaking competition - his band was playing. There he was!!! right on the platform. . . this tall, skinny drink of water. . . feathered hair a la 'Bay City Rollers'. . blue eyes. mama! what a hunk (we said that in the 70s). Now it was his turn to ignore me! Can't say I blame him, as I was wearing a turquoise, chocolate brown and cream-coloured, striped velour tunic top, not one of my best fashion moments! I didn't even get close to him, for all the people that were there!!! I moped all the way home. Life went on. .

That summer I finally met him, Rob, the guy I would marry. I have no idea how on earth a 14 11/12ths year-old girl could POSSIBLY know that this boy she was crushing on would be her husband several years later. Indeed I knew. I didn't tell him that for quite some time. . scare the poor guy off or what?!!! "Hi, you're cute. . I know that we're gonna get married." Chalk 1 up for female intuition.

*Rob is tall. That was a big thing for me. . since I always wanted to be able to wear heels and still have my man be taller than me!!! I had dated a couple of shorties, and i got tired of slouching and wearing ballerina flats.
*Rob has beautiful blue eyes. Well, I think they're beautiful - and yes, women can certainly say that men are beautiful! why not?!
*Rob is a gentleman. I noticed right away when we started dating. . he would hold doors open for me, he'd open the car door and shut it after i was seated. He would walk out the outside always and when we crossed the street, he would switch so that he was on the outside. His mom taught him these things.
*Rob is exceedingly patient. How handy for me since I am quite the opposite.
*Rob is very 'relaxed'. . . one of his favourite things to do is sit in his recliner downstairs and watch TV. When we walk I always tend to end up 'pulling' him along if i don't slow down. . i find this sooo difficult!!! We've definitely got our 'oil and water' things. Speed is one of them.
*Rob is shy. Yep. . he's not the most talkative guy you'll ever meet. I had to really get his attention at camp that year of our meeting. The custom at the time was to steal people's Levi tags from their jeans - I tried my best to steal his - which never did end up happening - but it kinda got his attention what with me groping his butt and all. .
*Rob is hilarious! He does crazy, silly things sometimes. . he's like this giant boy. He has spikey hair (which i love). He wears a beaded choker, and earring in one ear and wears skater shoes. About his silliness. . one of his ongoing things is putting his hand, palm side up on any surface on which it seemed likely that i would sit. He's got me so many times with this maneuver. . i'm kinda wise to him now (should be after 28 years !) He will say random goofball things, like "OOGA BOOGA". . . for no reason at all. He will poke me just to bug me or try to 'do me in'. . which meant tickling me until i almost became incontinent. . which i truly hated. He stopped that many years ago *thank God!*
*Rob is musical. He plays the cornet (a style of trumpet) really nicely. He thinks he's no good. . i think he has fabulous tone. He plays the guitar , again I think really well. . he started when he was about 12 on this old guitar of his mom's - taught by this cool French Canadian guy who was a resident in the seniors' home his parents ran. "Ghostriders" was among his first songs! Rob sings really well. I love his voice, it has a ton of power and he has a lot of passion for what he sings, that's just so cool. He makes a great song writing partner too!!! I do the words, he does the tunes. . thank God. . since I can't write a tune to save my life. A while back, he recorded a song at this travelling booth at "Sportsworld" and he gave me the copy of it for part of my birthday present, which i thought was so romantic. . until I heard it!!! It was called "Since I Don't Have You" I thought "WHA???! Is he trying to tell me something here?!" . . turns out he just liked the song!!! I razzed him for a long time about that one! He did sing to me at our wedding. . i dissolved into tears, OF COURSE.
*Rob fixes things. He does it for a living now -- Rob is THE handyman of all handymans. He builds anything i ask for. . shelves, desks, book cases. . He does plumbing. . he does electrical, he fixes our vehicles, he fixes appliances. When he was a kid he took stuff apart to 'see how it worked'. . then he would try to put them back together. No one in his family knows where this came from, but his Mom says that it must come from his Opa Roed. He even looks like his Opa -- tall, with deep-set eyes, strong brow line and features, long face, long limbs. . he's definitely a Roed - and he has the Roed SHNOZ!!! but that's okay. . i have one ear that sticks out more than the other one. . so there!!! *he does tease me about this!*
*Rob is a great dad and granddad!!! When the girls were newborns he would walk the halls with them when they cried. . he'd change diapers, feed them bottles when they were weaned. . a real hands on Dad. His fave activity with the babies was nap time. . He would say to me "I think the baby is sleepy." to which i would say "ya think?!! He'd get a receiving blanket and put it on his chest, snuggle the baby against his heart, wrap another blankie around the 2 of them and he'd put his own head back and the 2 of them would fall asleep, while me the SUCKER would do dishes or laundry. . . oh man!!! He knew the secret! relax. . stop running around like a crazy person - things will wait. . our daughters are babies now, but they'll grow up and then they won't need me any more. He's right. I'm sure the girls are thrilled with their Dad. . he's a good combination of silly and strong. He'd try to get them to learn all about 50s music by quizzing them incessantly. . "Who sang Peggy Sue?". . Lindsay was a more willing participant. . she'd reply "Buddy Holly". . KK would always just say 'I can't know that, Daddy.' He'd play guitar for them at night before bed. . and he'd let them make up their own silly songs as he plunked out simple chords. . This is where KK would shine, making up imaginative songs about tigers and such. . He always sang the "Smack your bum" song. . which made the girls laugh! He'd imitate Guy Smiley from Sesame Street. . . the game show shpiel. . .SO FUNNY! made the girls squeal with laughter. Only imitations i had in my bag of tricks were Scooby Doo "RRRAY, RAGGIE!" and a weak Elmer Fudd "Ooooh, that wascally wabbit!!!" I had to face it long ago. . i'm the foil, Rob's the comedian. Now we've started a whole new round with our 2 grandkiddies!! Opa is cool! Opa is fun! They love Rob!
*Rob doesn't dance well. . d'oh!!!! i'm immensely sad about that - cuz i've long had these visions of us floating across the dance floor, ballroom style, or discoing (yes, I used to drag him out dancing with me in disco's hey day!! he was a good sport!) Unfortunately he's kinda got 2 left feet. . our couples dancing consists of us hanging onto each other and just kinda step shuffling around in endless circles. . but there's no one i'd rather shlump around with!
*Rob is colour blind. . to him, white is pink and vice versa, etc. He cannot distinguish shades at all. He once bought this pair of bottle green cords. Even though we'd only been dating about a year then, i thought this, given his dislike of the colour green, was really strange!! So I asked him why he was wearing green pants. He said "They're not green, they're navy blue!" I had to get our friends to tell him, cuz he refused to believe me!!! that was HILARIOUS! I called him "Mr. Greenjeans" forever!!! (anyone remember Captain Kangaroo?!!!)
*Rob makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world!!!! oh yeah!!! I taught him once, and he just took it from there and elevated it to an art form! No one in the family dares to attempt these delicacies.
*Rob laughs loudly enough to wake the comatose!!! He slaps anything convenient, often the floor, as he will fall out of his recliner if something is funny enough.
*Rob collects 'dinky cars' and mechanical toys. . He has thousands of these. They're everywhere in our house. . I even have to sleep beside a display case of the things. . He used to assemble model cars and sometimes model airplanes.
*Rob's a night hawk - just like me!!! We are so much alike this way. . its weird - almost as weird as our shared love of 50s music when we met. . He thought when I told him i also loved 50s music that I was just saying that to impress him -- when he came to my house for the first time and saw my album collection his eyes popped !!!
*Rob is a movieholic - we have watched countless movies. . they've all become one big cinematic blur to me! but i'm almost as much of a buff as he is. .
*Rob is a great husband. He knows when to say "Yes, Dear" and when to say "No, that doesn't make you look fat." and the ever famous husband line: "Yeah, I heard what you said."!!! He never swivels his head to look at some other woman, if he does turn his head its cuz there's a classic car going by! He knows that dealing with me is sometimes like walking across an emotional minefield!!! and he seems to know what to do if a bomb goes off!!! Rob never puts me down and always builds me up. I find it hard to believe sometimes when I look at old pictures that we have an almost 30-year history!!! Are we those kids??!!! Is that possible??! I still remember that first night at camp when we seemed to 'click'. . and it was almost 'lights out' - curfew and we had been sitting on the old well cover by cabin 7 *out of bounds!!!* talking and sitting so close together. . we had to head back and he took my hand and held it as we ran. . my little teenaged heart did this back flip and it was just the best feeling ever in my life!! We still hold hands and now we're grandparents!!! ahhhh!!!

So, now you know a bit about Robbie! (which is what i love to call him). I do apologize for my rather lengthy posts, ppl!! I just cannot seem to ever, ever keep it short- especially when i write about things or people I care about! I think that i will post about my other family members. . but some other time. . its late!!! (again!)

Thanx for your extreme patience with my long-windedness!!! You guys are awesome!