5 things I love about Ryan

Dear blog-readers, for Valentine's Day I thought I'd post a sappy list of reasons I love my spouse. He doesn't read my blog so he won't see it, but the rest of you will know. They may not seem especially specific but they are things I value in him.

1) He's a protector

My spouse has this urge to protect people who he thinks are unfairly treated. I call it his "defender" or "white knight" tendency. He will always take the side of a person who is being picked on. This comes up most notably when we're volunteering for church nursery and he has a keen eye for figuring out who the "popular" three year olds are and which ones need a little extra attention, but applies beyond just kids. He's incredibly loyal to people he cares about and defends them above all.

2) He's a committed learner

When Ryan sets his mind to learning about something, he really learns it, and understands it, and works to get better at the things he's learned. He studies even though he's not in school anymore. For example, right now he's studying tax law because he's a volunteer tax preparer for low-income families and he wants to make sure he does it right.

3) He's health-conscious (& sexy!)

I would not workout as much as I do without Ryan. He's committed to taking care of himself through running and other exercise and it's inspiring (though admittedly sometimes annoying) me to be better myself. And of course, being fit makes him pretty easy on the eyes. ;)

4) He knows when to apologize

This sounds weird, but one of the things I love about Ryan is his awareness of his own sin. He's very conscious of it and is quick to apologize for those faults and works to fight against them and be a better husband, and I think that kind of self-recognition is a rare skill. Especially in white men who tend to have big egos.

5) He's funny and fun to be around

Ryan's introverted, so I think many of you reading my blog might not know him all that well. When you do get to know him well, he's really funny - he does a lot of silly voices (another thing that comes up when he plays with kids) and I love that. Sometimes (like today, when I was trying to take a nice photo and he kept doing silly faces) it can be over the top but mostly it's fun.

Bonus (because I couldn't limit to 5) - Ryan makes an effort to be a good listener and not interrupt someone when they're talking. The problem with this is that sometimes he gets frustrated with me for not ever giving him a turn to speak. In my big family, interrupting each other is a given - it's annoying, but a given. This makes it challenging for me to remember to listen to Ryan, but makes him an excellent listener when I need to think through something out loud.

Star Wars is for girls too!

I was at Target today, and I saw this display of cards:

Six "Cards for Kids" for valentine's day. How cute! But then I looked closer, and I noticed something:

The Yoda card was SUPER cute (it says "Be Mine, Will You?" on the inside!) but it's labelled "for a boy" (so is the super man one). That annoyed me a bit. I think Star Wars has made great strides to try to include powerful women (yay, Daisy Ridley!). So maybe we don't need to label the Yoda card as "for a boy" or the wonder woman card "for a girl"? And why is the wonder woman card PINK? Also, the Hello Kitty Card is pink - Hello Kitty is typically wearing a red bow, so why pink-ify her? The really annoying thing was that they DID have cards that weren't labeled by gender:

So why bother to label it at all, if there's the option of just saying "for kids"? Girls can like Star Wars too! Boys who are inspired by wonder woman can grow up believing in truth, justice, and loyalty. These cards weren't just letting kids be kids, they were forcing fandoms by gender.

Don't call me dear, and other general fuming

Today, I had a plumber come to look at a shower leak we've had going on at our house (it's an easy fix problem, phew!). He was really nice, and I'd definitely recommend his services, except that at the end, one thing bugged me. He handed me the invoice for his services and said "Ok, you're all set my dear!" 

Uh, what? We LITERALLY just met. And I'm a grown woman, not a little girl (though, I think if they're not your kid, it's a little presumptive to assume their parents are OK with you using that kind of intimate language). So, unless you're my Dad or my husband, you have no place to call me "your dear". 

I'm giving this guy the benefit of the doubt that it was just a slip of the tongue and he didn't mean anything by it, but it's part of a systemic issue that women are "dear" and "sweetie" well past childhood while most guys loose similar terms, like "buddy" after teenage years.

Another story from this week - a former project manager of mine (it was a short-term task that's over now) has recently been featured in an APL wall mural. I congratulated her on it yesterday, and she said "oh yeah, my friends have asked how I got highlighted on that, with the APL founder and other old guys, and I said, you know what, they probably thought old white man, old white man, we need a woman between them, a woman who's maybe an ethnic minority, so they picked me".

She was downplaying it, which was probably some imposter syndrome, but also, she had a point - the mural IS focused on balanced race and gender. Which is fine, but if we're going to represent it on our walls, let's represent it in our halls too! Let's make sure our wall mural represents the reality of our hiring. I love where I work, and I think there are a lot of efforts to promote diversity of thought and diverse teams at APL, but now, the mural bothers me, rather than inspires me, because I feel like it was forcibly designed for graphic appeal, instead of dwelling on the awesomeness of my former manager.

Anyways. both those things were kind of bugging me so I thought I'd come and share my frustrations on my blog a bit. thanks for listening, folks!