Time to make the Doughnuts

Every weekday morning I wake up at 6:18 AM when Christine’s (hereafter known as Dubs, since I never call her Christine) alarm begins to beep and the cute lump next to me groans like it just walked into a door.  I open my eyes, reach over and turn off my alarm, which I set nightly only as a back-up and which hasn’t needed to alarm us for months, and generally think to myself “Time to make the doughnuts.”  I used to say this aloud, and still sometimes do, but Dubs doesn’t really take kindly to light-heartedness in the morning.  I get up, hit the toilet, pull on a Phish shirt, and head to the kitchen to begin the process of making 2 cups of tea.  Through all this, that cute lump is still generally laying like a lump, groaning still, cursing the heavens for making work start at 7 AM rather than a more comfy time like noon.

With the water heading towards a boil, I sit down to a big bowl of cereal while noises begin to escape from the bedroom and bathroom.  The cute lump has become a sleepy but moving figure, and the groans become things like “Ughh, stupid work.  Why’s it so dark out?!”  The cereal eaten, I check my emails, pull up the news, finish the job of making tea, and say goodbye to Dubs at the door.

That’s how my first 20 minutes go every morning, and I couldn’t be happier.  Point of all this?  I’m a man who likes his routines.  I ride my bike the same route every day to my office.  I like to eat a PBJ sandwich every morning about 30-45 minutes after getting to work.  I went months last year eating a Subway footlong every lunch at work (until I realized that despite paying only $5.44 daily for a nice hearty meal, I could do better bringing my own edibles).  Dubs and I take the same walk every day through Balboa Park on our lunch.  Every morn I’m tempted to say “Time to make the doughnuts.”  (It now occurs to me that a lot of these routines focus on food and drink; that’s fine with me).

So as this is a blog about a wedding, it begs the question: how will my routines change once we’re married?  Well for starters I’ll have a shiny ring to contend with (size 8.5, tungsten carbide most likely – I was hoping my finger would be a manly size like TEN or something but the lowly eight-and-a-half will have to do).  I’ll have to remember to call Dubs my wife rather than my fiancee, which is great since wife has far fewer syllables and isn’t a silly French word akin to “baguette.”  But the basics will remain the same.

I’m luckier than Dubs, who will have a lot to contend with after our nuptials.  I won’t have to remember to sign Fitzgerald instead of Wiest on the self-checkout card kiosk at Ralph’s.  I won’t have to contend with two rings on a single finger.  I won’t have to contact organization after organization to tell them that my last name has now switched and no, I’m not Irish, my husband is.  I won’t have to buy a new hairbrush after my last one dropped in the toilet…well perhaps that one won’t become a routine, but it sure was funny.

Changes for me?  One of these days I’m actually going to buy myself a doughnut.