Simpsons and the art of marriage

Has anyone seen The Simpsons movie yet? Tubby Hubby (TH) and I went to see it over the weekend and when we came out, he said: "I think I appreciate The Simpsons more after I got married."

How true. I never used to pay much attention to the bickering between Marge and Homer but ever since I got married, I notice I keep turning to TH and saying: "That's you!"

In the movie, Homer tries to persuade Marge to keep Spiderpig and she is not amused. Then he makes the pig belch like him and Marge can't keep her stern face. Homer says: "Aha, you smiled. I'm off the hook!"

That's exactly how TH wins arguments. He tries to joke me out of my anger and the moment I laugh, he knows he's in the clear. I really must work on keeping a straight face better...

What's your sign?

Joanne's post set me thinking about love horoscopes. When I was younger, I used to be addicted to star signs.

Every time I met a cute guy, I would sneakily try to find out his star sign (both Western and Chinese) and then go back and check if we would be compatible.

When I met Tubby Hubby (TH), though, I was so in love that I didn't dare to check our signs to see if we would be compatible. What if our horoscopes weren't a match?

Funny thing is, we actually are. I'm Sagittarius and a Dog while he's Libra and a Rabbit. A perfect pairing both ways.

Guess some things are written in the stars!

Tubby Hubby, the camera freak

Tubby Hubby (TH) has a week off in between jobs and plans to spend it doing photography.

He claims that he hasn't had time for it as he's been working so hard.

I don't bother to argue. I've just pasted this cartoon on his camera bag:


Says it all, don't you think?

Buy an original painting – save me from TH's smugness!

Tubby Hubby (TH) has two hobbies – photography and ancestry tracing – which he spends inordinate amounts of time and money on. Last time I went home to Malaysia for a weekend, he binge-bought $200 worth of scanned wills that may or may not have been his ancestors'.

"Why can't you find a useful hobby?" I ask. "Something that we can retire on?"

He does some stock photography (www.istockphoto.com/namussi) but makes barely enough to cover the cost of a filter.

"A hobby isn't supposed to be useful," he retorts.

But he has the last laugh. I am taking up oil painting and the flat is filling up with lots of expensive canvases, covered in even-more-expensive paints, that are obviously going nowhere.

Anyone wants to buy an original Ong-Wood just so TH can stop looking so superior?

Men are such babies about pain

I'm on IVF, a long and painful procedure involving surgery and lots of injections. But TH still manages upstage me in the whining stakes.

The night before my egg pick-up (day surgery), TH wakes me up. "My back hurts," he says. I'm bloated with hormones, my tubes hurt and my stomach is growling cos I am fasting before the op. But guess who gets the sympathy – and massage?

Am now on daily progesterone jabs. It's intramuscular so the needle is about 2" long. After the jabs, I can barely walk but I grit my teeth and limp to the bus-stop anyway.

I am lying prone in bed because my legs can't support me when TH pulls a muscle in his back – again. "Don't be such a baby," I tell him.

"It really hurts," he yells back. "Try having a little sympathy."

Sympathy? My back, insides, thighs, bum, tummy are torturing me at the same time. Don't talk to me about pain, mister.

Does your wedding ring date you?

When we got married, TH and I thought we were being different by choosing simple platinum rings compared to the fancy stuff on offer. But my brother, Darric, got married 10 days before us and his band was exactly the same.

Which got me thinking: Is there a fashion for wedding bands? Bridal mags always tell us to choose something unique to us but is our choice influenced by what's in at the time?

I did a non-scientific survey of my friends and here's what I found:
Less than five years: Simple platinum







Five to 10 years: Dual-tone gold or diamond-studded white gold (a la Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt)






10-15 years: Simple yellow gold







More than 15 years: Elaborate diamond yellow gold

There's something special about flowers

Ever since I complained in my column that TH never gave me flowers, I've been getting them in bunches.

TH usually gives me eight, not six, stalks each time – because eight is a lucky number "according to you Chinese", he says. Besides, we held our wedding dinner on the 8th of August.

He usually doesn't wait for an occasion to give them so that they'd be more spontaneous. But two days ago, I received some for our 3 1/2-year wedding anniversary. Deep red roses, just the kind I love.

SMSed my mum and she was so envious. She hasn't received any from my dad despite being married almost 40 years.

Poor Mummy. Maybe I'd better order some for her for her next wedding anniversary.

Picture of TH and me

This is us having fun at Voyager Estate in Margaret River. TH doesn't usually look this gormless, I can assure you.

Hits and Mrs is alive!

Welcome folks! I see you have managed to navigate the intricate workings of the Internet to get to this blog. Bear with me as I am a virgin blogger so I'm going to muddle my way through.

I tried uploading a picture of Tubby Hubby (TH) here but it seems to keep giving me an error message. So those of you who are curious to know what he looks like will just have to wait a bit while I get some techie guy to sort it out for me.

Anyway, before you go, here's something that's been puzzling me all morning:
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/games/magic-gopher-central.swf

Anyone have any idea how that works? I'm sure it's something that can be explained statistically or something. Am going to bug wannabe-statistician TH when he comes home from work today.