For Nana and Grampa in Florida — Thanks for the dorky husband. Also, you’ll be glad to know your grandkids can swim

For a few months after my sister’s husband left her, Dick and I were really nice to each other. I cooked his favorite meals (or at least I cooked: not sure if they were actually favorites). He started putting Spot to bed along with her sisters.

Of course he does this completely wrong, letting Spot play for “five minutes” in the big girls’ room before being banished to her lonely crib, but I accepted that it was a nice gesture.

We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary and recounted our highlights, which consisted mostly of remembering fights in exotic locales (remember that discussion in Hyde Park when we went to Iceland and England for Spring Break at Columbia? There’s a reason people head SOUTH for Spring Break).

Then this weekend we went to my parents’ to celebrate my sister’s birthday. My dad got a little upset when I volunteered Dick for some outdoor labor, saying I shouldn’t “take advantage of his good nature.” I think my parents have spent the past ten years living in fear that my shrewish nature might finally push Dick over the edge, and I suppose now they’re really worried: What if Dick decides to follow the Prince of Darkness’s example and leave his innocent wife and three kids?

Well, I got news for you. First: I want Dick to know that if he ever left, I wouldn’t fight him for custody of the kids. It’d be a sacrifice, naturally, but he can have them all to himself. And second, I cannot imagine a person more different from my more-selfish-and-self-centered-than-Lindsay-Lohan-and-Bill-Clinton combined PoD brother-in-law than Dick. Whereas the PoD has both a Bentley and a Mercedes, Dick would like to buy a bike. From DI (like Salvation Army). Because riding a bike would be better exercise than the train.

I could go on, (I could mention our connubial life, and how superior Dick is in that area as well, but I wouldn’t want anyone to think that my sister and I compare notes on that sort of thing. But we do, and Dick is. Much.)

Mostly I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I am blind to Dick’s flaws. He does have a few.

Number one being that he is, in all honesty, a dork. I should probably look in the urban dictionary for a term from this decade, but “dork” just fits. Here he is, pretending to drown. How inappropriate.

dick pretends to drown, susan swims the length from jane on Vimeo.

Just ignore those pet names we have for each other.

And here is Sally doing underwater somersaults. I am afraid that I might be a dork, too. At least I didn’t attempt a Michelle Obama-style bump. It’s humiliating enough to have your high-five go unacknowledged.

sally doing flips in the water from jane on Vimeo.a>.

Dick thinks I should get the kids in swim team. I think he should try driving them everywhere before he starts inventing new activities for them to do. I know, Nana and Grampa, Dick was a star in swim team. But, remember how annoying it was driving him to all those practices?

What? You say that sort of hands-on parenting is what produces such wonderful, dorky grown-ups? Argh.

Well, swim lessons start again on Monday, and I’m planning to keep my dorky husband, and that’s what works for me this week!

Things That Must Go and an LLBean Tote Bag giveaway are this weekend!