12:59 a.m. Today was the 55th anniversary of the birth of my beloved Igor. He is, I can safely say, the very best husband in the world. The best. There can be only one, and I have him.

I would now like to take you on a tour of Igor's world so that you, too, can know greatness.

First, we have the TV chair. You'll notice right away that the cushions look all misshapen and awry. Well, I try to fluff them up every morning, but after a bit of TV slouching, this is how they end up. Igor actually sits on the knobby little green pillow on the seat just because I put it there. He is the type of person who doesn't complain -- who else would put up with a lawn chair instead of a L-Z-Boy recliner, which he would dearly love?

It's just that we've only recently moved into this house and the rooms sort of took us by surprise. We have yet to buy the furniture for this room. We also plan to rip up the strange gray tiles that you see on the floor, but that's another story. For now, this room is where we watch TV and this chair is where Igor sits and aims chips and salsa in the vicinity of his mouth. The arms usually hold soda or beer -- Igor almost never gets control of the remotes.

Again, he doesn't complain. It's such a nice quality in a husband, and one that I don't praise often enough.

Next stop on the Igor tour is his favorite spot in the whole wide world -- the old couch. We've had this sleeper couch for about 11 years now and I'd really like to get it slipcovered one of these days. For now it's stuffed in an upstairs sewing room/guest room and every night after TV watching, Igor goes upstairs to "work."

I could easily go there right this minute with the camera because TV is over for the night and he is actually "working" right this very minute, but I won't. It's his birthday. I'll let him "work" in peace for a few more minutes. I know he's deeply involved at the moment. He will have his birthday present, the new Patrick O'Brien sailing adventure, draped open across his chest.

And now we come to Igor's desk, where he works when he's here in the house. Under all the papers there is actually an "out" box and an "in" box. Igor is currently writing the last chapter of a book for Time/Warner called Unsolved UFO Mysteries; he's also the publisher of UFO Magazine.

As you can probably surmise from the photo, Igor isn't a neat freak. Every week the desk accrues a new layer right on top of the old one, and the one before that, until I finally come through when he's not looking and sweep all the papers away for filing. By the next day the desk will look exactly like this again.

But what you can't see is the excitement that is always in the air when Igor is in the house. He has a natural enthusiasm that is irresistible, and things are always swirling and happening around him, from the first phone call at 6 a.m. until well past the dinner hour.