The Birthday Boy

Today is Rob's birthday. It's a total bust, as birthdays go. The first few years we were together I'd desperately try to find one present that was special enough to be saved for a birthday, out of the many I'd purchased for Christmas. I'd try to find the enthusiasm to make him a cake after all the Christmas baking. Or we would try to celebrate at the various relatives as we completed our annual Christmas family travels. Once we even tried a party. People are kind of busy, though, at Christmas. 

A few years ago I hit on a great idea --I'd get both Rob and Emma a birthday gift on my birthday, which is wonderfully smack in the middle of no other holidays --August. So Rob got his birthday gift a few months ago (an iPad), and today we'll just go out for a nice family dinner. With a rain check for a walk around the Milwaukee Museum of Art after I get my hip replaced and can walk again.

Which brings me to one of the fabulous things about Rob --he'd rather go to the Milwaukee Museum of Art than a football game. Neither of us has any interest in team sports --especially the commercial type. I hated living in Ann Arbor with football Saturdays and hated it even more when I was convinced by a college boyfriend to actually attend a game. The first thing Rob noticed about me was my music collection, and the first thing I noticed about him was that he loved talking about art and music. (We were so grateful when Emma popped out as a girl-baby, so our family's lack of socially-acceptable manliness wouldn't be a problem.)

Rob has a music room. He and his dad built a set of bookcases for his vinyl, and we bought a set of cases for his CDs. His collection numbers in the thousands, and spans all genres except for Rap and Classical (well, we have some classical, but neither of us really has the education or interest to delve into that genre).

For a long time Emma was a definite music-companion for him, and much of her musical taste has been formed by music they have listened to together. A few of her favorite bands are XTC, Vampire Weekend, and The Beatles. 

Rob has a YouTube channel, and belongs to a Face Book vinyl community. He makes videos and write reviews. All of this sometimes interferes with his paying job of teaching math at the college :-)

Rob is also a fabulous nature photographer, although that has taken a back-seat recently. He loves to take macro photos, like these.

He still manages some of this in the summer, and I have dreams of wall space covered by his framed photos (I have some in my office). 

He turns 50 today. I couldn't ask for a better husband, and although we have our moments of disagreement, we always come back to a lot of shared love. Hopefully our pensions will still be viable in five years and he can retire to work on his hobbies :-)