. . . about Jeanine, on the 30th anniversary of our marriage:
- She can dance.
- She never met a glass of wine she didn’t like.
- When we first met, shortly after she returned from two years in Japan, she taught me some basic Japanese phrases, the first being “Jeanine is very beautiful, isn’t she?”
- She’s good with money: not too loose, not too tight.
- The way her breath smells. No kidding. There’s this wonderful smell her breath gets sometimes. There’s no rhyme or reason about when or why it happens, but it’s awesome.
- She’s trustworthy in every way.
- She trusts me. I have lots of friends, many of them women, and she is supportive of that.
- The first time I farted around her, she laughed.
- She respects that, once in a while, a husband might need to leave the table, pick up his phone, and check the A’s score.
- I can talk with her about my work, and she understands.
- I can not talk with about my work, and she understands.
- Peyton.
- Walton.
- Most mornings she makes the bed. Unfortunately for her, I’m a bit like Erma Bombeck – who said “Noone ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed” – but Jeanine accepts this about me.
- She loves my parents.
- She laughs a lot when she’s around my brothers.As do I.
- She exercises, meditates, hangs out with friends, gets acupuncture, eats right, and does other things to take care of herself.
- She responds to a variety of names: Jeanine, Geneva, Jeaniqua, Jeanita, Nita, Juanita, Jeanine Silver Jones, and more.
- Sometimes she gets grits eyes. I don’t know what that means either.
- She’s on a spiritual journey and has introduced me to people, experiences, and ideas that I would not have known without her.
- She didn’t divorce me after our first fight, which began when I criticized the way she was washing the car.
- Her eyes.
- Her family.
- Special Mommy-Daddy time.
- She tolerates me being out of the house for long hours on the weekends, running with friends. Maybe she likes it?
- When I’m lying in on my left side, meaning my good ear is buried in a pillow and my almost deaf right ear has to do all the listening, she never mumbles just to tease me. She’s not tired of kale yet.
- When she had the magnets surgically implanted in her feet and my hands, so that I would rub her feet whenever she puts her feet in my lap, it was a painless procedure.
- When we fold sheets together she doesn’t complain that it takes me twice as long to get the corners lined up.
- At lunch, if I catch her with her office door open, she will share the chocolate she keeps in the drawer of her desk.
- She makes coconut cake for my birthday. Which is in 6 days. Hint hint.