Lab-grown diamonds for Val Day

(597 words)

Lucy was about 6 when we found a pingpong ball-sized chunk of coal during a stroll along the train tracks.

“Here,” I said, “now if you take this and squeeze it really, really hard for a long, long time you can make a diamond.”

She squeezed so hard I feared she was going to make a turd.

I mention this because a story in today’s Washington Post reveals how secretive engineers in suburban DC have mastered a way to create authentic, lab-grown diamonds in just eight jiffy weeks.

The lab-grown diamonds can cost 40 percent less than the natural kind. It’s likely the prices of all diamonds will continue to spiral even more as the technology spreads.

This is good for two reasons.

One, the mining of real diamonds has a depraved history. Ruthless diamond companies have used child labor, untenable extraction methods, and “blood diamonds” have been used to finance wars.

The second and more selfish reason is, man, it’s likely the lab grown diamond trend will drastically deflate the cost of gems and I’ll one day be able to afford a Volkswagen-sized diamond that’ll show the world how much I love my wife.

I suspect I’m like a lot of husbands — wives, too — who especially on this day wish we had a social eloquence to let the world know how grateful we are to have the one we’re with.

So much of it seems so phony. It’s contradictory, but being heartfelt on a day symbolized by hearts ain’t all that easy.

Facebook flattery coming from someone so innately sarcastic as me would feel fraudulent in ways a humongous lab-grown diamond would not.

Ironically, big, gaudy diamonds somehow seem subtle.

I confess to feeling crass envy whenever I see wives of friends weighed down with lavish jewelry.

I wonder where I went wrong that I’m in no position to buy her nice things and, inevitably, I wonder if it was Val, not me, is the one who went wrong.

I remember the nervous excitement I felt taking my meager savings and driving to the Clark Building in Pittsburgh to buy her a humble engagement ring. I was working for peasant wages at the newspaper then and figured I’d one day be able to trade it in for something more dazzling.

Little did either of us realize then, but 20 years later I’d be in a position where peasant wages were aspirational.

She eschews materialism and I can’t afford to buy her nice stuff so I guess in that way at least we’re the perfect couple.

I wish I was the perfect husband, the perfect father … a white Barack Obama who, incidentally, hasn’t done a solid day’s work since January 20th either.

Maybe one day I’ll have the means to shower my wife with the things she deserves 

Having said that, I realize it’s going to take a lot of lab work for me to become that kind of husband.

More than I have time for today.

If you’re a husband feeling today like I do, sad that you can’t splurge on an eye-popping diamond, do your best and swear you’re trying to do better.

And take heart.

You can always, no matter how meager your means, offer a tender kiss, a gentle hug.

Dazzling things sometimes result when you start with a little squeeze.

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Capt. Mark Kelly, the heavenly hubby

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Valentine's Day re-run: Capt. Mark Kelly the heavenly hubby

Happy Valentine’s Day — and isn’t that a wonderful redundancy? How could Valentine’s Day be anything but happy? This is from way back in ’11. 

On this Valentine’s Day, I’d like to salute Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of recovering gunshot victim, U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.

He’s succeeding in looking like Earths’s most steadfast husband while preparing to abandon his brain-damaged wife to go on a million-mile jaunt with six of his buddies.

Yes, every happily married couple needs a little space.

The news of her recovery since the January 8 shooting that left six dead and 13 injured has been astonishing.

That anyone could be shot through the head and suffer relatively minor injuries is either a miracle or evidence that much of the average human brain is full of lots of stupid or otherwise useless grey matter.

I don’t think that’s the case with Kelly. To me, the guy’s a genius. Clearly, he’s using his full brain.

I’m not suggesting he doesn’t love his (second) wife. He and Giffords met in 2003 at a Young Leaders Conference in Beijing.

Or so I’ve read. I wasn’t invited. Even if I had been, I’d have been unable to attend  having previous obligations at the Middle-Aged Followers Conference here in Latrobe.

Truly, it is a great love story about a very appealing couple (http://tiny.cc/bowbo).

Yet I can’t help but marvel at Kelly’s deft ability to maneuver public opinion into crowning him husband of the year at the very instant he’s planning to blast off from his wife’s hospital bedside to go into outer space.

I know husbands who struggle to wrangle spousal okey-dokies for long golf weekends in Myrtle Beach.

It’s a pity. I’ve had some of my best times there with the boys. We play golf, cards, get a little drunk and spend the nights enriching one dollar bill at a time the mysterious college funds of pasty-bedecked girls whose names all seem to end in the letter “i.”

When you look at it that way, it sounds almost wholesome.

The matrimonial reluctance to spend time apart baffles me. 

I’m convinced marriage benefits from more time apart -- and don’t confuse that for cynicism. I’m a man who loves his wife and his two darling daughters, one who just happens to revel in every chance he has to get the hell away from them.

Like the sky-bound Kelly, I need a little space.

Of course, so does my wife. The kids, 10 and 4, are at an age when they are acting increasingly like war-minded Romulans.

They’re driving both of us crazy. But it’s a lot easier for me to justify up and vamoosing than it is for her.

Like Kelly, one of just 65 NASA astronauts, I can always claim my credentialed travels are business-related. (“Honey, do you think I WANT to spend four days in New York City?”)

I’m sure, rather than New York, Val wishes she could board a space shuttle for a months-long mission exploring the effects of cabernet on low-gravity, stressed-out mothers.

A really long space vacation would be her dream vacation right now. Me, too. I’d love to arrange a two-week space flight for just the two of us. Instead of things like ant farms and petri dishes, we’d freight the craft with Snuggies, pillows, books, cases of wine, and the complete DVD collection of “The Sopranos” series, which we’re getting back into.

The seclusion would be heavenly.

But we had trouble Saturday arranging a babysitter for lunch and an afternoon matinee of “The King’s Speech” (loved it!). How are we going arrange two weeks of lunar day care?

The logistics would be out of this world.

So we’ll hustle through another half-assed Valentine’s Day hoping conversely the two of us can soon enjoy both more time together and more time apart.

Me, I’ll be watching in admiration as Kelly on April 19 boards the Space Shuttle Discovery for two weeks away from his healing wife, time he can spend gazing down on earth, and basking in the knowledge he’s circling a planet where millions of wives swoon, “Now, there goes a husband who really cares.”

The only way I’ll be more impressed is if the space shuttle makes an unscheduled landing for four days in Myrtle Beach.

Capt. Mark Kelly, a heavenly hubby

On this Valentine’s Day, I’d like to salute Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of recovering gunshot victim, U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.

He’s succeeding in looking like Earth’s most steadfast husband while preparing to abandon his brain-damaged wife to go on a million-mile jaunt with six of his buddies.

Yes, every happily married couple needs a little space.

The news of her recovery since the January 8 shooting that left six dead and 13 injured has been astonishing.

That anyone could be shot through the head and suffer relatively minor injuries is either a miracle or evidence that much of the average human brain is full of lots of stupid or otherwise useless grey matter.

I don’t think that’s the case with Kelly. To me, the guy’s a genius. Clearly, he’s using his full brain.

I’m not suggesting he doesn’t love his (second) wife. He and Giffords met in 2003 at a Young Leaders Conference in Beijng.

Or so I’ve read. I wasn’t invited. Even if I had been, I’d have been unable to attend  having previous obligations at the Middle-Aged Followers Conference here in Latrobe.

Truly, it is a great love story about a very appealing couple.

Yet I can’t help but marvel at Kelly’s deft ability to maneuver public opinion into crowning him husband of the year at the very instant he’s planning to blast off from his wife’s hospital bedside to go into outer space.

I know husbands who struggle to wrangle spousal okey-dokies for long golf weekends in Myrtle Beach.

It’s a pity. I’ve had some of my best times there with the boys. We play golf, cards, get a little drunk and spend the nights enriching one dollar bill at a time the mysterious college funds of pasty-bedecked girls whose names all seem to end in the letter “i.”

When you look at it that way, it sounds almost wholesome.

The matrimonial reluctance to spend time apart baffles me. 

I’m convinced marriage benefits from more time apart -- and don’t confuse that for cynicism. I’m a man who loves his wife and his two darling daughters, one who just happens to revel in every chance he has to get the hell away from them.

Like the sky-bound Kelly, I need a little space.

Of course, so does my wife. The kids, 10 and 4, are at an age when they are acting increasingly like war-minded Romulans.

They’re driving both of us crazy. But it’s a lot easier for me to justify up and vamoosing than it is for her.

Like Kelly, one of just 65 NASA astronauts, I can always claim my credentialed travels are business-related. (“Honey, do you think I WANT to spend four days in New York City?”)

I’m sure, rather than New York, Val wishes she could board a space shuttle for a months-long mission exploring the effects of cabernet on low-gravity, stressed-out mothers.

A really long space vacation would be her dream vacation right now. Me, too. I’d love to arrange a two-week space flight for just the two of us. Instead of things like ant farms and petri dishes, we’d freight the craft with Snuggies, pillows, books, cases of wine, and the complete DVD collection of “The Sopranos” series, which we’re getting back into.

The seclusion would be heavenly.

But we had trouble Saturday arranging a babysitter for lunch and an afternoon matinee of “The King’s Speech” (loved it!). How are we going arrange two weeks of lunar day care?

The logistics would be out of this world.

So we’ll hustle through another half-assed Valentine’s Day hoping conversely the two of us can soon enjoy both more time together and more time apart.

Me, I’ll be watching in admiration as Kelly on April 19 boards the Space Shuttle Discovery for two weeks away from his healing wife, time he can spend gazing down on earth, and basking in the knowledge he’s circling a planet where millions of wives swoon, “Now, there goes a husband who really cares.”

The only way I’ll be more impressed is if the space shuttle makes an unscheduled landing for four days in Myrtle Beach.

Matrimonial sarcasm for Valentine's Day

My domestic wife speaks with a foreign accent detectable only to married men. It’s not German. Not French, nor Spanish.

The accent is sarcastic.

So I understood immediately she wasn’t being complimentary when she said, “Man, that’s some outfit you have on there.”

She was expressing a matrimonial concern that my disheveled appearance might offend the sensibilities of the people I encounter as I go about my daily routine.

I work all alone, use the drive-thru ATM and the self-scanner checkout at the grocery store. Other than family, my days are near devoid of human contact save for the lone appointment on the daily social calendar: Happy Hour with the boys. That’s it. Just me and about a dozen other dudes who -- and I don’t wish to seem judgmental -- are even uglier, balder, rattier and more ape-like in appearance than me.

And who cares? We like each other for who we are. The guys are always expressing how much they care about my well-being by asking things like, “You ever gonna pay me back that $20 you owe me?”

Yeah, right.

So my wife’s subtle shot at my appearance stings.

I remember back when our union was new and we’d be destined for a night of fine dining or a swank party.

I’d be dressed in my most dashing tailored suit, nice shoes shined to a high polish, bright accessories, a $60 silk tie dangling from my neck like a sartorial exclamation point.

She’d look at me, sigh with adoration and say those exact same words: “Man, that’s some outfit you have on there.” I could practically see the cartoon hearts floating out of her eyes.

I suppose I should describe the outfit that caused today’s sarcastic reaction.

The tattered gray cargo pants are dappled in the princess pink she and the girls chose for me to paint the walls of the second bathroom I now use only during intestinal emergencies.

I have a black Wild Turkey t-shirt beneath a green and olive pullover sweater that’s covered in a partially buttoned drab green, flannel-lined wind buster coat/shirt. For footwear, I’m wearing camouflage boots that keep me from slipping on the driveway I’ve shoveled 12 times in the last five days.

On top, and I just noticed this, I’m wearing a Wild Turkey hat that, dig it, matches my t-shirt. What a stylish coincidence! If I could time travel four hours into the future, I’d complete the promotional ensemble by sipping a nerve-soothing glass of the fine hooch.

But the outfit she was so pleased to disparage sends an important message during this, the most bitter winter of my 46 years. It says, “I don’t care what anyone thinks about how I look, I want to be warm . . . and drink Wild Turkey!”

The first part of the message is key.

My sole motivation is to be defiantly warm. If the Queen issued me an invitation to high tea I’d breach etiquette by insisting she provide long novelty straws so I could sip the Earl Gray through the fuzzy opening in my big puffy parka.

Because a winter like this makes me feel a kinship with the sailors serving in nuclear subs patrolling beneath Arctic Circle ice packs.

Venturing outside isn’t an option. The tedium is relentless. Morale is low. We’re all suffering from a cabin fever so acute that little things like the way we dress can become points of conflict.

One sassy sailor may insult an otherwise handsome sailor and hurt his tender feelings so much he may want to crawl into a bottle of Wild Turkey until the mission ends and it starts looking like golf weather again.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Valentine’s Day is Sunday. Maybe I’ll give her a thrill and dress up as the dashing young man who used to make her swoon all those years ago.

I’ll tell her that it’s worth it for me to dress up every single day, weather be damned, even if the only people who see me are the ones who matter most.

I’ll just have to convince her I’m not talking about her and our daughters. Not the boys in the bar.

See, I’m fluent in matrimonial sarcasm, too.