Today marks a fourth year of wedded bliss. The schedule says the traditional
gift would be flowers or fruit (score me a thoughtful partner for eating a
banana for breakfast?). Modern gifts: appliances. Postmodern gifts:
Thai food.

A little known factoid: D. and I first met in 1985, the year that marked the
middle school convergence of our smallish cohorts from the public elementary
school I attended and the Catholic elementary school she attended. The
rural elementaries were only a block apart, and their recess areas shared a
chain link fence. Up to the time of the merger, interaction amounted to this: each of our classes would send one strong,
brave soul to the fence to fight the strongest, bravest soul from the other side
(the ambassadors of animosity adolescent phase, we might call this).
Meanwhile everyone else (except for D. and me) stood at a distance and threw
what few small rocks they could gather. I’m not kidding. The two groups merged
into a single class in seventh grade. That’s when we met: 1985. We
discretely handed off notes in Mrs. Heitman’s 7th grade English class. I
remember it like it was 22 years ago.