Welcome, February! It’s about time February showed up, I started to think January was going to hang around forever. She certainly left her mark; there are seven foot high snow piles on every street corner.

Since it is now the month of love, this post is about the guy I love the most.

What a cutie.

He has been really into emergency/camping/outdoor supplies lately. We keep receiving packages in the mail filled with things like water purifiers and fire starters. And I am thinking, We live in New York City, what are we supposed to do with this?

But surely when disaster strikes, we will be super prepared and everyone will come running to us for purified water and fire starters. (And maybe we’ll charge them $10 per gallon for our water, and who’ll be laughing THEN, I ask you?)

So last night he came home from the office with another box. With a flourish he pulled out a very ugly, very heavy gray wool blanket (Everyone will be freezing and we’ll be warm under this and who’ll be laughing THEN?!) and a large quantity of thin rope. I smiled and nodded and sat back down in front of the space heater to read blogs.

A few minutes of suspicious silence later, suddenly he declared, “Look! I made a harness!” I turned around to find that he had fashioned himself a harness out of this thin little rope and was wearing it around his hips. “It could hold me up if I was hanging from something!”

Maybe I rolled my eyes a little bit? But secretly I just thought he was really cute. And if there is ever a distaster, or if we find ourselves lost in the mountains, I know I will be in good hands.

Later we were talking about his buddy from work who is Egyptian who’s currently back in Egypt working for DDB via internet/phone. Klane was explaining the current conflict in Egypt and telling me his friend’s crazy stories of tear gas, nighttime safety patrols and all-day protests. In explaining the conflict with the government, Klane said, “It’s kind of like what happened in Tunisia.”

“Tunisia? What is that, a country?” I said.

There was a pause in which Klane gave me a look which clearly said, ‘I am not sure, but I think you are serious in asking me that question. This concerns me.’ But come on, Tunisia?! Who’s ever heard of Tunisia? Right….? (Maybe I’m the only one who hasn’t. Apparently I should have paid more attention in Mr. Andersen’s 9th grade world geography class. I remember Djibouti, and Turkmenistan, and even Tajikistan… but Tunisia?)

It was one of those moments where I’m reminded how well-informed my husband is on so many subjects. He’s a learner. He’s always reading about different things far and wide to learn more, because he thinks it’s fun. Like the other night we were sitting on the couch; I was reading Harry Potter and I looked over to find Klane doing a little research on different types of batteries (batteries?). “Are you looking at batteries?” I said.

“Yes, would you like to know which brand of battery has the longest shelf-life and the largest power capacity and is most cost effective?” he said without missing a beat.

So being married to Klane means I get an education about a lot of random things on a pretty regular basis. And it all ends up being pretty useful in the end. At least if there’s a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, you’ll know where to go for clean water.