HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDON!

This is my handsome husband. His name is Brandon. Yesterday this Handsome Husband Brandon turned... well, he might not like me to say so. But, okayyy, he turned 37. It's a rather distinguished age if you ask me. It's the age at which mere men become Nordic Seafaring Lumberjack Captains of Commerce, apparently. O captain my captain! 

Last night, after an afternoon celebrating the birth of Brandon by making our way s-l-o-w-l-y through Brooklyn Heights (throbbing head colds, check mate), I got myself on the computer and did up our astrological charts, just for funsies. Henry Holbrook's chart is fascinating. And TERRIFYING. (Never trust a Scorpio!) Mine is what you'd expect--all of the feelings, kind and fair, with a tendency to way overthink just about everything. (Fellow Libras born on a full moon, you feel me.) (Maybe.) Brandon's was rather beautiful to read through, actually, and confirmed what I've always suspected about that ginger, which is to say, complicated. And now we are going to talk about that.

Brandon Holbrook is the most magical combination of stars and suns and moons, and such a puzzle. Left- and right-brained, Brandon is the Yin but he's also the Yang. Where the rest of us are more or less one-note--Huck all charm and charisma, me all love and feelings--my Holbs is your typical symphony. Or, to put it another way, he's a plate of chicken and waffles. You know, all the things, all at once. Sweet yet savory, sensitive yet stiff, critical yet sympathetic, generous yet stringent. Of all the Virgos, Brandon is the Virgo-est. I will enjoy for the rest of my life learning to understand and wrap my head around this man that I married. He's such a beautiful soul.

The world loves a Brandon best, I think. He's got this sort of gravitational pull. I felt it the first moment we met, and continue to feel it every day. Even when I'm at my angriest with him (which isn't that often), I just can't stay away. I belong right there. So might everybody, I suspect. Brandon can set a room at ease, be both encouraging and frustrating simultaneously. He's the life of the party. He's the anchor and the sail. 

We call it Birthday Season at our house and it's sort of a silly joke, but it's taken on such a sweet significance to me lately as we age and our personalities further blossom and dance and mesh (and sometimes don't mesh, haha). Brandon and Huck and I, we are different fruits of the very same season, harvested under the same golden sunlight. Apple, butternut, cranberry; carrots, beets, and arugula. We're sweet, nutty, tart, peppery; very different, but when combined we make up a delicious, sometimes odd little salad. Brandon is probably the lettuce. This has become a really terrible combination of metaphors, someone should make me stop already.

Oh Brandon Holbrook, you're a beautiful little mystery, and aging like a fine cheese. We're so glad you're ours! May this year be your best year yet.