The Anniversary Meme

Where did the two of you meet?
At church in 1992. I was in the choir, she was in the congregation.

What was the first thought that went through your head when you first met her?
Well, first, since the average demographic of the church was older than I was then, that she was so relatively young. And tall.

Do you remember what she was wearing?
Goodness, no.

Where did you go for your first date?
Well, it wasn’t until a couple years later. It was to the movies to see the movie Speed.

Where was the first time you kissed?
At her house.

When was the first time you realized you liked her?
Do you mean “like” or “like-like” her? I liked her right away as a person. We became pretty good friends I didn’t realize I was interested in her romantically until some time later, when my then-relationship was falling off the tracks.

How long did you know her before you became a couple?
Maybe 2.5 years. Then we broke up after a year and a half. Then we were off and on (mostly off) for a couple years. Finally, I made one massively concerted effort to find out whether we were going to be a couple or not – tricky because her job kept her out of town a lot. Finally, in mid-November, 1998, it was clear we were a couple again.

How was the proposal?
After talking for a few weeks, it was obvious to both of us that we had procrastinated long enough and that we should just get married. But her brother Mark had gotten engaged to his girlfriend Leanne and had set a January 1, 1999 wedding date. So we didn’t want to upstage them, even in our own minds. So we went to a restaurant in Albany called Justin’s in mid-January 1999 (the 16th or 17th). I proposed, she knew I was going to propose, I knew she was going to say yes.

Do you have kids together?
Well, we decided we wanted to have a kid about the beginning of 2000, but for reasons we never quite ascertained, it just wasn’t happening. Then in March 2004, we did, though the methodology hadn’t changed.

Have you ever broken the law together?
I seriously doubt it.

Do you trust her?
Implicitly. More than I trust myself, I think. She s FAR more rational and level-headed than I, she’s better with money, she’s almost painfully honest.

Do you see her as your partner in your future?
Assuming she can put up with me.

What is the best gift she gave you?
Giving me the Beatles’ mono box set for Christmas 2009. It was expensive, and therefore out of her comfort zone, but i had a pretty short list. It wasn’t so much the music, it was that she DID get out of her comfort zone, and I appreciated that.

What is one thing she does that gets on your nerves?
She STILL can’t load the dishwasher correctly – she even saw a segment on CBS Sunday Morning once – but to her credit, she lets me redo it. Sometimes she’s totally oblivious to what’s going on in the world – I’m not talking a one-day story, I’m talking an ongoing issue – and I’m talking to her about it, and she has no idea what I’m saying. Still, this happens WAY less than it did when we first went out AND it bothers me WAY less than it used to.

Where do you see each other 15 years from now?
Theoretically, I’ll retire and she will do so soon after so we can travel.

What causes the most arguments?
Seriously, I can’t remember the last argument. It used to be over money, and even those weren’t real arguments, but even those are gone.