The Master o’the House is generally an excellent man. He gets points every day for being married to me — a near lethal mix and walking contradiction of pathological optimist and constructive pessimist. He gets serious extra points for even liking me.

He’s an excellent dad, too, who loves the RT in spite of the fact that the RT and I conspire against him by an unfair genetic linking thing that he doesn’t have the code for.

He’s great with numbers. Mmmmm…..numbers. Everything is about numbers. Baseball box scores, poker, football stats, blackjack, retirement fund investments, stairs in those castles we stomped through last summer, MSNBC in the morning, and helping figure out things like “what percent is 27 of 79?” off the top of his head in 2.3 seconds. Numbers. Nothing with letters. Read? Only if he’s captive on a plane somewhere over the U.S. and several hours from his destination.

If you cut him, he would bleed sports. Yes even things like Frisbee Golf and Curling. He knows obscure rules for Little League, Baseball, and Football, and is correct 99.99% of the time on calls made before refs or umpires. His idea of a good time is telling what kind of pitch will be thrown (or called by the catcher) before they get around to it. And he has been the best damn Little League coach this side of the Mississippi. Really. Except he’s semi-retired now.

He’s also an incredible sous chef — trained by yours truly over the last almost two decades. He makes a mean pot of coffee (French Press style) and breakfast on Sunday.

He does laundry, vacuums, and irons, too, but no so much any more since I’m supposed to be doing it all myself now that I’m a house potato. And he doesn’t complain that I’m not doing a very good job of keeping up with it all, either.

Yep. He’s an excellent guy. Totally.