I think of him as an East-Coaster, not really a native of Canada.

Yesterday, my husband received notice that he is now a legal permanent resident of the United States. No conditions. Which is kind of good, since it would be inconvenient if My Baby Daddy got deported.

I had no idea what a hoser was before I met my husband. When I was a teenager, a family friend talked his 7-year-old kid into naming their dog “Hoser,” so that he could “yell down the street, ‘Come back here, ya Hoser!’” The seven-year-old was led to believe “Hoser” was a fireman’s dog’s name.

I had some idea that it was some kind of Canadian insult, but I didn’t know what it meant or how insulting of a word it really was. I was absolutely terrified to bring my fiancé home to meet the family with the dog named Hoser.

I sheepishly told him that we’re going to meet a family that I grew up with, and they’re really great, they’re so nice, they really love me, and they’ve always been there for me, and they’re great Christian role models… except that they have this dog… named Hoser.

Fortunately, he laughed uproariously. He put up with the one obligatory Canadian joke from each family member, and that was the end of that.

Mostly, he doesn’t sound like a Canadian. He’s good natured enough to put up with one “hoser” joke when he tells someone he’s from Allover, Canada, but he get’s rightfully annoyed after the third or twelfth joke.

He’s learned to avoid saying words and phrases that would call him out, and bring on the jokes and comments. There’s the tell-tale “oout and aboot,” that brings on the lame (and dated) Rick Moranus jokes. He’s lived in California for eight years, and we’ve been together for five. After a year of introducing my boyfriend, even I was sick of the Rick Moranus jokes.

I’m guilty too. As a graduate student, I debated going into Human Resources. I had two conversations with That Guy about it, and promptly changed my mind because every time the subject came up; he said reZources. “Ack! What is wrong with you, it’s re-Sources-with-an-S!” He’s never said reZources again.

When he gets angry, indignant or flippant, the inevitable “Well, SORE-ry!” will slip out with the requisite huff of air. It doesn’t happen often, but it is really hard not to laugh in his face when that happens. I get an instant mental picture of him as a five-year-old, fighting with his six-year-old sister.

I have trouble distinguishing between differences in pop-culture, and differences in our age. I’d never met anyone under 60 who didn’t grow up listening to the Beatles. I know that Americans eat a lot of crap, but I can’t comprehend that somewhere on Earth, people would actually eat Kraft Peanut Butter. You can’t tell me that stuff isn’t Velveeta flavored with peanut oil. He loves that garbage (if you’d like to send down a care package, he loves Ketchup chips too)!

He’s five years older than I am. Most of his baby pictures are in black and white. Only old people have black and white baby pictures. Last week, I walked into a restaurant bathroom that can only be described as Electric Pink. I hadn’t thought about it in years, so I told him about the perfume marketed to preteens when I was a kid in the 80’s. His response was “Yeah, I had a girlfriend who loved that stuff.” But he was a teenager when I was a preteen.

There are differences in phrases. When we’d tell stories, I’d say “when I was in fifth grade…” He’d say “When I was in grade five…” I made too big a deal out of it, and now he says “When I was in fifth grade…” Part of me feels really awful for that. I took something from him. It makes me sad to hear him say fifth grade.

He likes to follow the elections, and give his opinion about who he would vote for. It sort of makes me feel guilty for having never voted in my life (please don’t hit me). I’ve never voted, and he’s not invited to, so we’d been married for two years before we figured out that he would be a republican, and I would be a democrat*.

A couple of years ago, he got a postcard requiring him to call in for jury duty. He was (the only person I’ve ever met who was) excited about it. He was curious to see what the legal system is like here. When he called in to report, he hung up after hearing computer automated instructions listing the citizenship requirement.

This morning I found Kyran’s guest post on Her Bad Mother’s site. It struck me that it’s hard for me to be mindful of That Guy’s nationality, when it’s too easy to just expect him to assimilate. Kyran laments not knowing where she belongs, feeling Canadian-ish and American-ish. There are a lot of really interesting comments on the post too. I’d hate to think that my husband struggles with the same thing. He’s not much of a whiner, so I don’t think he’d tell me if he did.

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*My personal beliefs for myself and my life lean toward Republican, but I am uncomfortable declaring that I know what is morally right for everyone in the country. Even God gives human beings the freedom of choice to follow or not follow his commandments, why can’t the Republicans?