Twenty Snippets for Twenty Years

Sean & I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary this summer.  It has been a pretty darn good 20 years.  Here are 20 things about my husband and me you may or may not know.

1. My mother likes him best of all.  It's true.  We voted, my dad, my brother, and me.  It was unanimous.  When we announced the results, my mother didn't argue.

2. Sean isn't really romantic, but tries really hard for me.  I am a romance sap.  I love romantic movies, TV shows, books, commercials.  I can cry at anything- hallmark cards and sappy commercials get me every time.  Sean simply doesn't think this way.  It's practical and works for us, but often fails in the romance department.

3. Sean is a grammarian, and it's rubbed off on me.  I was probably more of a grammarian than I would have admitted when I met him.  I knew and adhered to grammar rules, but it's gotten worse.  I once corrected an essay for one of my USYers (it wasn't given to me corrected, but I couldn't help myself).  Marrying Sean has just made this worse.  Our children (and grandchildren I hope) may be the last on earth to use who and whom correctly.

4. Sean is a punster, and it hasn't rubbed off on me at all.  I come from a family of punsters.  The result is I tend to simply pretend it isn't happening. When Sean met my extended family for the first time, and heard all the puns, he said, "What happened to you and your brother?"  No, I cannot control him.  In fact, if he tries to keep it in he may explode.  I saw this once.  It wasn't pretty.

5. Sean hates laundry.  The first year we were married he didn't do a single load of laundry.  Even now he will only do it under duress, and only folds the square things (unless forced by guilt).  I usually let him get away with this.

6. Sean dances goofily around the room.  I don't laugh at his jokes so he is always looking for other ways to make me laugh.  I like physical humor (Dick Van Dyke, Abbot & Costello), so he tries for that.  It's so ridiculous I usually end up laughing.

7. We laugh a lot in bed.  Silly things happen when couples are tired and sharing their days.  Some of the laughter comes from ridiculous things we say, others from moments and happenings we could never actually share with others.  Laughter is great foreplay.

8. Sean falls asleep while I am talking to him.  This happens on a regular basis.  I am a night owl and he is a morning person.  He "pumpkins" (his word, taken from turning into a pumpkin) at about 10:30 PM. After that his brain slowly shuts off.  He often has full conversations he cannot remember or falls asleep mid-word.

9. Sean makes a killer omelet.  I cannot.  Actually I probably can, but I do not have the patience for it.  I always end up with scrambled eggs.  Sean can do it, so I just let him.

10. We both love chick flicks and action-adventure movies equally.  The night we found out I was pregnant with Keren was the night before Sean's university roommate's wedding.  Scott wanted to go out, and I wanted to sleep, so with my blessing the two guys headed out.  Did they play pool?  Did they go to a bar?  No.  They saw Serendipity.  I bet others in the theater thought they were a couple.  On the other hand, we both love the Dirty Dozen and the scene in Sleepless in Seattle that makes fun of it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coOYa4h98M4).  Actually, I may even like blow-them-up, action flicks more than Sean.

11. Sean like to think he's an in the moment/fly by the seat of his pants guy, but he really doesn't change his plans quickly.  Even when he's flying by the seat of his pants- he is sure of his trajectory.

12. Sean proposed on the side of the road, in the dark, and woke me to do it.  We were driving cross-country from LA to NY.  Neither of us loved LA, so Sean planned to propose on the border after we left California.  A romantic attempt (and very well conceived).  Unfortunately, we crossed the border in the middle of the night.  There was no where to pull over, and I was sleeping.  So, plans awry, he pulled over as soon as he had the opportunity; turned down the radio (down, not off); woke me, and said, "Will you marry me?"  I replied, "You pulled over to ask me that?"  We were headed to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, snow-capped mountains in Colorado, a beautiful campsite in Kansas, St Louis, Chicago, and NY, and he proposed in the dark, in the middle of no where.  I took a picture of this first thing we saw after he proposed.  It's a sign that says, "Unloading of livestock prohibited."

13. I yell, but Sean holds a grudge.  Not serious ones, it's the silly things about which he's bitter.  Actually, I think he likes the story.  Here are two grudges: a) He only got 1 bite of our wedding cake.  The morning after we had to go back to my parents home to get our stuff due to an accident with a can of Raid (Don't ask). Sean saw the top layer of our wedding cake, and took a huge slice.  I made him put it back so it could be frozen for our first anniversary.  On our first anniversary we were at Ramah Poconos, no where near the cake.  We never saw it again.  It was yummy too.  Bummer.  b) We never went to Turkey.  When we were in Israel for our first year of marriage, Sean wanted to go to Turkey.  He wanted to take an overnight ferry where we'd reserve a deck chair for sleeping.  I said no.  We went to Tzfat and bought an Ebgi artist's print of a wedding scene instead.  He loves the print, but still complains about Turkey.  Last week when I was angry at him Sean asked if the yelling was helping the situation.  I said, "Yes!  It's getting my frustration at you out!"  He let me yell.

14. We are Lady & the Tramp.  We didn't want a traditional bride and groom as a cake topper, so we spent months looking.  Finally, frustrated, I saw a ceramic Lady and the Tramp in the Disney store.  I bought it; had it wrapped, and brought it back to Sean's parents' house.  When Sean opened it his mother said, "Oh my God, it's perfect." and so it was.

15. Neither of us can teach without the other interrupting.  Anyone who's seen us teach knows this.  When one of us is teaching the other either interrupts or makes comments from the sidelines.  About 6 years ago we decided we'd each run 1 seder, Sean one night, me another, since our styles are very different.  That lasted almost until we finished singing the order of the seder.

16. Together we make the perfect rabbi.  For undergrad Sean majored in psych.  I majored in sociology, specializing in the Jewish community.  At JTS Sean concentrated on Talmud.  I concentrated on History.  Sean took more halakhah classes.  I took more Bible, plus all the pastoral psych I could get.  Sean's military background offers a wide range of experience.  I've seen synagogue life from all sides.  We both have education experience, hospital experience, and counselling experience.  Most of the time we arrive at the same decision, but our paths to get there rarely cross, although they often parallel.  We are each wonderful rabbis, but together- watch out.

17. We have blanket wars.  Sean is a blanket thief.  No matter the temperature or the size of the blanket,  each night he rolls over, grabs the blanket, and pulls.  It's like a dog turning around before sleeping.  It can't be stopped.  I wait until he drifts off an give a huge yank.  Even so, I lose the war most of the time.

18. I am Sean's Rashi.  Sean's odd sense of humor leads him to make comments in the oddest of places (both physical places and figurative places). It often leaves others staring oddly at him in wonderment.  While I usually ignore his strange quips, in these moments I try to jump in to bring clarity to the moment, like Rashi explaining a difficult piece of Talmud.

19. Sean and I each have three addictions.  The first we share- books.  If we had to choose between food and books, we'd probably choose books.  The second we sort of share.  I am a TV/movie addict.  Sean claims to not like TV, but is more of an addict than I.  An addict cannot control his addiction.  When given just a little bit, he is drawn in, absorbed by the addiction.  TV is that for Sean.  I watch while doing a million other things.  Sean is drawn in, fully absorbed to the detriment of all else.  The result is he avoids all TV, but really feeds the addiction vicariously through me.  The third is independent.  I am addicted to fudge.  Sean loves scratch-off lottery tickets, and buys them wherever we go.  I think my addictions are more satisfying, but his are probably cheaper.

20. Twenty years into our marriage, and we are even more content and in love than ever.  It's true, everything really does better with age.

Happy (almost) anniversary to my wonderful, fun, trying to be romantic, goofy, grammar-tested, brilliant, loving husband.  Here's to another 20 years, and then another.

I love you.