Our 8th Wedding Anniversary 2017

For our 8th Wedding Anniversary, Kevin and I spent most of the day engaged in potty training Miranda, including at the public library, with disastrous effects. In the evening though, Kevin got us a babysitter and we went to Old Fields for dinner, and then got another drink at Orto. We actually managed to have interesting conversation not related to the kids! As for the marriage in general, I remain convinced, even more than last year, that I married the best person ever.

 

8th Anniversary selfie at Old Fields

Profesh photo from April of this year

We've done good work in 8 years!

Ten Years Since We Met 2016

Ten years ago, Kevin and I met for the first time in the outdoor seating area of Mudhouse coffeeshop in Charlottesville.

To celebrate our ten-year anniversary of meeting, we went about 20 minutes east to North Fork to a vineyard we'd heard good things about, the Paumanok Vineyards. We did a white wine tasting and I liked all the wines we tried, the 2012 Sauvignon Blanc, 2012 Chenin Blanc, 2011 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay, and 2012 Riesling. My favorite was the 2011 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay, so we bought a bottle of that and sat outside with cheese and crackers.

Sitting outside by the vineyard

Yum.

 Paumanok Vineyards

The closed a little early and practically had to push us out the gate. Even the rain didn't hamper my enjoyment of the wine and the setting. But no matter, Kevin had a plan B, which that there was a relatively new whiskey and bourbon distillery with tastings. On the way there though, I saw a chocolate shop and Kevin turned around. The North Fork Chocolate Company had tasting too! Some of the chocolates are good, but don't ask for recommendations unless you want to know what not to eat, as that's how they unload the unwanted chocolate.

Here comes their next victim

In clockwise order fromt he top left: Salty Dog, Ice Cream Sundae, Bourbon, 75 Dark Organic

I loved the 75 Dark, get that.

The Salty Dog tasted like licking an actual wet dog

I also made Kevin stop so I could hug a huge tomato on the side of the road.

 Finally, we got to Long Island Spirits, which had more of Suffolk County vibe. It is perhaps sometimes a dance club? Kevin did the bourbon tasting and I alternatively sniffed or licked a little liquid from his glass because it all resembled nail polish to me.

Long Island Spirits

Bourbon tasting

State of the union: Crazy in love.

Our 7th Wedding Anniversary 2016

Our 7th wedding anniversary was on the heels of our big trip to Japan, so we weren't of the mind that we deserved anything too extravagant. But we did think a date night night was in order. I urged we get Mexican because we always get sushi, but we ended up getting Mexican food, margaritas, and then sushi for dessert. Not normal but very fun.

That's about right.

Our 6th Wedding Anniversary 2015

We gambled our anniversary date on a horse. In 2011, we went to the Belmont Stakes with our friends. The best part was that we could just walk over from our house in about 20 minutes. I tried to go again a few years ago when one of the horses won at the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, the first two legs of the Triple Crown. But when that horse scratched before Belmont, I lost motivation.

Still, I love horse races (Gold Cup and Foxfields being my most frequent horse races) and the fact that we live so close to Belmont, called me to the Belmont Stakes every year. Plus, it's a really big deal in our town. They have a town celebration in honor of it the day after every year. One main problem with going has been that it's always on the same weekend which is also our anniversary, my mother's birthday, and Great-Grandma Ruth's birthday so we never have a lot of motivation or a readily available babysitter.

A few things happened this year to motivate me. One is that the race fell exactly on our anniversary and we weren't sure what to do for anniversary anyway. We just went to a fancy night our for our 5th anniversary (6 months late) and a big trip isn't in our budget or time allowance right now. The second thing that happened was that American Pharoah won the first two races. It was at least theoretically possible that we could have a Triple Crown win on our anniversary. The third thing was that our kids had gotten used to a hired babysitter over the last 8 months. So we knew who to call so we could go to Belmont for a little while.

But Kevin was concerned. While we had a really good time in 2011, Kevin was less than impressed with the actual horse track facilities. He was worried that our anniversary wouldn't "be nice enough." I thought this was a little strange considering he loves dive bars. My counter-point: what if it's the Triple Crown? So off to the races we went.

In front of the ivy-covered windows of Belmont Park

While we were emotionally betting on American Pharoah to win, we did not actually bet on American Pharaoh to win because the payout would be pretty low. We'd have to bet a lot to gain anything if he won, and that would mean we'd lose a lot if he lost. So we bet on some less likely horses #6 (my pick because 6th anniversary yo!) and #8 (Kevin's pick). Then we did a trifecta bet that American pharoah would win, #6 would be second (my choice again), and #8 would be third. The trifecta bet had a least a chance of having a nice payout for our very little $10 bet.

In line to place our trifecta bet!

YAY!! TRIPLE CROWN!!

American Pharoah became the first triple crown winner in 37 years! Oh but the horses came in 5, 6, 7. Oh well. Still totally worth it. I will post a video of everyone running out of the stands cheering as soon as I get caught up on videos.

Also, I often post something about our actual marriage in my anniversary posts. This is my thought this year. Each spouse has the responsibility of being the best spouse they can be- not as the temptation drives many- to make the other person be the best spouse they can be. In other words, as a wife, my job is to be the best wife I can be, not to make Kevin be a better husband. He's a great husband any way, and yes, I can talk to him about whatever problem I have, but my main focus is to be more loving to him in the way that he would most appreciate me showing him love. For me, love is very "showy": words, kisses, hugs. For him, love is very action-based. I can love him best when I do things to support him at home, in his career, his mental state, etc. He is awesome at doing these things for me probably in part because he feels they're so important for him. So that's what I'm working on. I hope that my effort is itself a show of love on my way to actually achieving what he wants.

Our 5th Wedding Anniversary 2014

Even though our 5th anniversary was the least eventful- we just stayed in Long Island, took the kids to the park, and ordered some Indian food - it was also the best. That's because I'm psyched about being a family of four. I've never been in a family of four, and I love it.

The 4 Clous on our 5th Wedding Anniversary

Five years is always a good time to check the status of things. If someone had asked us what our 5-year plan was when we got married, happy and "2 kids" would have top of my list. Granted I would have also had "student debt paid off," "house purchase," and "wedding weight" on my list but it's no fun if I have nothing left for my 10-year goals right? The state of this union is strong!

The kids are awesome.

At the park

James drew our family! L-R: James, Me, Miranda, and Kevin

When we went to Sunny and Trey's wedding three months after we were first married, Sunny and Trey asked us to give "newlywed" advice. Being so new to the institution of marriage we gave advice about relishing the feeling of being a newlywed. Our attempts to stay in this mindset must have been somewhat effective because my friend Rachel remarked almost a year later that she couldn't believe we were still in the "honeymoon phase."

Picture of us at Trey and Sunny's wedding, September 2009

By the time our friends Lukas and Sarah were getting married a year after us, I warned Sarah that the first year might involve a "testing" of the new limits of the relationship- sticking your toe just over the line to see what you can get away with now that the other person is stuck with you! Of course, shortly thereafter you remember that you don't want to push the other person's limits because you love the person and want them to be happy. That was in June of 2010 and that was before we had kids and before losing my dad.

Brooklyn, June 2010

Here are my thoughts on marriage after another 4 years: the most important part of marriage is picking someone good in the first place. Obviously I love Kevin, but life is really hard, harder than you think it will be when you're young, and so sometimes I think that it's even more important that I like him. If you respect and even admire the person your spouse is, it's easy to keep loving them and to love them even more as the years go by. If you don't exactly respect them, then it's easy to forget to love them over time.

 

Street fair in our town, June 2011

Here is the three-part test I would apply for marriage: 1) Do you love them? (Duh.) 2) Would you go into business with this person? (If not, why not? Yeah, that's going to be a problem in marriage too.) 3) If you want kids, do you want your kids to be exactly like this person? Because you actually don't have any control over that, and your kids will carry your heart around forever. That's basically it.

Martha's Vineyard, June 2012

Of course, Kevin did and would pass my test, but not just pass it, he exceeds it. I think he's awesome. He can do pretty much anything he sets out to do, he's hilarious, loyal, and great at all the relationships in his life: husband, father, son, brother, and friend. He's smart. He's soulful. He's cooperative but challenging in the right proportions. I will never win the lottery (mostly because I don't play the lottery) but I hit the spouse jackpot.

Vegas Baby! June 2013

I know a lot of people say they love their spouse more than the day that got married, but here is some evidence that I do. Kevin didn't just sit with me when my dad was sick, he did everything he could possibly do to help. He talked to doctors, he weighed options when the rest of us were panicked, he helped my mom even on days I couldn't make it to the hospital. I've talked about this before, but especially now that we have kids, it's a comfort to know that I have someone I can rely on to be a good parent, give good advice, and stand up when things get really hard, like when they're sick.

These days instead of trying to toe the line I try to stay far away from the line. Like in another room if I can. But sometimes I get tired/hungry/uncaffeinated and find myself in the general area. Hopefully, I'll get better at that in the next 5 years. In the meantime you can enjoy Kevin's posts about my ridiculous complaints. When they stop, you'll know I've mastered that. Anyway, 5 years! Woo!!

Things My Wife Complains About #25: Not Reading Her Mind

My wife doesn't expect me to be a mind reader, but the concept of mind reading comes up so frequently that I've come to believe that she actually does believe in mind readers but not in a way that she's willing to admit, lest this undermine her credibility as someone who believes in logic but nevertheless expects me to understand what she's thinking, more or less, all of the time.

It's not unusual for my wife to begin a conversation so deep into the story that I have no idea (a) what the story is about, (b) whom or what the pronouns refer to, (c) why she's angry, and (d) why she's angry that I'm not sufficiently angry on her behalf. A theoretical example:

Wife: "Can you believe she didn't return it to her after we'd just talked about it?"
Me: (infinitesimal pause) "No."
Wife: "Unbelievable! So you take her side?"

Ericka in front of the Sphinx in Vegas

I can't give a real example because I never have any idea what she's talking about in these stories. Sometimes my wife is so thoroughly involved in a conversation existing entirely within her head that she grows incredulous that I don't interrupt to take her side. Interrupt what, I might ask. It's like you don't love me at all, she might say. Or she might not say anything before growing angry at my silence.

Possible solutions!

1) Emphasize the impossibility, given current science, of reading anyone's mind
2) Get angry at my wife's refusal to defend me in my mind
3) Suck it up and learn to read her mind (hard)

Things My Wife Complains About: #12 Treating Her Badly in Her Dreams

Sometimes my wife wakes me up in the middle of the night to complain.

She might say, for example, that was so mean what you did. When I counter-complain that I have no idea what she's talking about, she assures me that I was very mean to her in her dream. When I counter-assure her that she's being unfair, or at least slightly insane, she refuses my logic. Sometimes she asks for an apology.

Every once in a while my dream-life doppelganger does something truly reprehensible, and she holds it against me all morning.

Possible Solutions!

1) Never allow wife to fall asleep
2) Convince wife that, as Freud suggested, all dreams are wish-fulfillments and she unconsciously desires whatever bad treatment she receives
3) Enter wife's dreams through Avatar-like technology, so I can battle my malicious double or at least avenge his wrongdoings (hard)

 

Things My Wife Complains About: #11 Failing to Predict or Identify Where She Wants or Needs to Be

My wife likes to do things sometimes. It's difficult to say when, as many times she prefers to do nothing, but when she does want to do something, I'm often given several seconds to determine what to do and where. The other night my wife texted that she was on Lexington and Third (two avenues that run parallel for approximately ten miles). She was hoping I would meet her, and after multiple counter-texts (sample text: where are you?), I called to determine what stretch of Manhattan she occupied. After a conversation in which I failed to guess her location (87th street) or where she wanted to go (unknowable), I was chastised for not knowing either of these things. When she returned, she decided that I didn't want to go anywhere, potentially on account of not loving her.

Two days earlier, I had been critiqued for neglecting to have memorized the weekday timetable of the Port Jefferson branch of the Long Island Railroad, a line I've taken nearly three times in my life. In my wife's defense, I was given almost an entire minute to direct her through Penn Station while she repeatedly bemoaned her inability to locate the Port Washington branch.

Possible Solutions!

1) Always stay no more than fifteen feet behind wife, even at the risk of surrendering my career or entering womens' bathrooms
2) Meet at the Pizza Hut on 50th and 7th, no matter what
3) Commit every bus, train, and plane schedule to memory, identifying fashionable spots at each stop (hard)

First Married Christmas in NJ 2009

We had a nice first-married Christmas Eve with my parents in New Jersey. Dinner was Cuban-style Noche Buena with pork, delicious black beans and rice, and yucca (by special request). Dessert was flan and toron. Really fantastic.

 

Me and Kevin on Christmas Eve

My cute parents

We also had a bit of a photo shoot. My mother just about lost it when Kevin was photographing and he requested that we act "ferocious" instead of the old Tyra Banks stand-by "fierce."

We are ferocious!

Christmas day itself we stayed home and had Chinese food for dinner in tribute to what Kevin's family was eating on the Cape. This time, I graciously let Kevin eat his fortune cookie, despite his accusations on Things My Wife Complains About.

Things My Wife Complains About: #10 Eating Fortune Cookies

After purchasing a tree, dragging the stand out of the closet, putting the tree up, watering the tree, and stringing the lights, my wife complained that the lights were not distributed evenly enough around the tree. That might be post worthy, but something happened immediately after the conversation that was even more post worthy, which was my wife giving me a fortune cookie that I opened to discover the following message:

"It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness."

Flush with the thrill of serendipity, I triumphantly held the slip of white paper before my wife, who willfully ignored the ancient wisdom of mass-produced fortune, complaining instead that I had eaten the cookie, which she felt entitled to eat, even though she had just eaten her own fortune cookie, message unknown.

Possible Solutions!

1) Don't eat anything before offering it first to wife.
2) Convert to Judiasm and purchase electric menorah.
3) Cancel Christmas and/or Chinese food (hard).

Things My Wife Complains About: #9 Not Putting Her to Bed at the Exact Right Moment

My wife prefers being awake to being asleep. It's one of the reasons I married her. Although she loves being awake, it endlessly annoys her that I don't put her to bed at the exact moment she wants to go to bed. I italicize wants because one must differentiate what my wife believes she should do from what she wishes to do. It's my responsibility to recognize this dichotomy, make a unique nightly decision in her best interests, and enforce this decision in a way that respects her autonomy. When I fail to do this correctly, which happens six to seven times a week, it is her burden to complain.

Possible Solutions!

1) Remove all light bulbs, so as to give the apartment more of a sleep-inducing feel
2) Replace collapsing, spring-less mattress with mattress that massages muscles, doesn't cause one to wake in excruciating pain
3) Rock and roll all night and party every day (hard)

First Married Thanksgiving in MA 2009

We had a lovely first-married Thanksgiving on the Cape. We went to visit Kevin's mother and her family. His mom even made my favorite dish of sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. Kevin's cousin Katie doesn't usually make it for Thanksgiving so we missed her this year.

I'm used to spending holidays on the Cape. Besides spending the last two Christmases with Kevin's family, my dad's family has been spending Thanksgiving on the Cape for many years. This year we got to have two Thanksgiving dinners, one with the Rogers, and one with the Shutes!
I was completely spoiled this weekend with loads of old family pictures from Kevin's mother and grandmother. Kevin also drove me around to get my hair cut (I cut it all off!) and nails done, and Christmas Tree Shop-shopping. I am one well-rested happy wife.

With Kevin's mom

Kevin's grandparents have been married for 59 years!

Nesie, Steve, Gramps, Dickie, Chris (not pictured Mary)

One of the best parts of seeing the Shutes is watching my cousin Griffin grow up. I hate it when I don't see children for many years and they hardly remember who I am. I didn't get to spend a lot of time with my brother when he was growing up, and if I had to do over again, I would go out of my way to see him more. I missed seeing my other cousins Graham and Rachel grow up as well. Now I worry about the same thing with my friend's babies.

With my parents

Cooking dinner together


The yearly burning of the sweet potatoes and marshmallows

Good times!

Things My Wife Complains About: #8 Loving Fake Football Players More Than Her

Most men aren't happy that the word "fantasy" now refers almost exclusively to men hurling themselves into other men, but that's the world we willingly created. I've chosen to embrace this world by creating a fantasy team so formidable it has yet to lose. My friends from college and I spend a not insignificant amount of time each week tinkering with our teams, proposing trades to each other, vetoing trades to each other, and writing newsletters about our teams' performances. So when I'm submitting an article to said newsletter late on a Monday night instead of, say, going to bed with my wife, she complains that I love my fake football players more than I love her. She couldn't be more wrong. The players aren't fake, just the entire world we've built around these them. Big, sad difference.

Possible Solutions!

1) Convince my wife to accept my vice as innocuous, social, and even educational, at least until I drive down to Delaware to place several teaser bets on teams my players are on in critical Week 15 match-ups.
2) Create a fantasy league for my wife based on "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" with points granted for tantrums, Kate emasculating her husband, children mugging for the camera, and Jon defending his dalliances with twenty-something women by claiming he's doing it for his children.
3) Watch a movie or something instead (hard).

Newlywed Advice 2009

In 2009,* three months after we were married, Sunny and Trey asked us to give "newlywed advice" at their wedding as part of the tradition of seven blessings in the Jewish ceremony. I was thinking it would be fun to update our wedding advice every five years or so, as we grow in our marriage, and to revisit what we thought in the past.

Here's what we said at Sunny and Trey's wedding:

Kevin: Nobody will ever look at with you with as much love, admiration, and happiness as your wife on your wedding day. So look at her a lot.

Ericka: When you go to Bali, tell everyone you are on your honeymoon. It's the only time you'll ever get to do it, and it makes people instantly understand how in love you are and they treat you well. It's also a good time to practice being really nice to each other for the rest of your life.

Kevin: Indulge the temptation to play with your ring: it's cold when you leave your hand out the car window; it clicks when you pick up a drink. People look at you and know you did something right.

Ericka: Get used to saying "my husband this" and "my husband that," even when it's better to just say his name. It's a fun and strange transition. You feel adult and loved.

Kevin: Trey is one of the smartest, most ambitious, most kind-hearted men I've ever met, and Sunny is clearly his match. They deserve a lot of happiness, and we feel blessed to support them on this day.

I think the main themes were to appreciate each other and to shamelessly celebrate your love. That seems to be very "newlywed" indeed.

Seeing each other for the first time on our wedding day

*Full disclosure: This post was retroactively posted in 2014, but the advice was what we wrote down in 2009.

Things My Wife Complains About: #7 Not Having Opposable Toes

Last night, while struggling with something or other, my wife bemoaned her lack of opposable toes. When I pointed out that nobody has opposable toes, she declared, "Well, that just sucks."

I don't even know what to say about this one.

Possible Solutions!
1) Get lots more sleep.
2) Study captive chimps to learn their secrets.
3) Mate with a lower-level primate and hope that evolution blesses your child with opposable toes (hard).

Romantic Signs

Tom Shovelton has put a fresh rose at his wife's bed every day for the 60 years they've been married. This makes me think of how Kevin brings me a glass of water every night so I don't wake up and complain I'm thirsty. Sometimes we forget to take away a glass before adding a new one and pretty soon his sweet gesture looks like that awesome scene in the movie Signs. I'm a lucky woman.

Things My Wife Complains About: #6 Posting Boring Updates to Her Blog

The Belle and Sebastian song "My Wandering Days Are Over" begins, "You know my wandering days are over / Does that mean that I'm getting boring?" It's a rhetorical question. Of course, the narrator is getting boring. If his wandering days were still going on, he might be a little not boring, but too bad they're over. Right now, he's probably writing a boring blog or reading a boring blog or having a boring conversation about reading or writing one. Those are the only options in the modern world.

Eventually, my wife will complain about Things My Wife Complains About, and things will get really meta. In the meantime, things have become only mildly meta, as I'm using her blog to register her complaint about how boring her blog is.

Proposed Solutions!

1) Resist the temptation to catalog ever trip, concert, athletic event, wedding, baptism, bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, quinceanera, spelling bee, parade, rave, exorcism, and intervention and only update the blog when something interesting happens.
2) Redirect the mission of the blog to documenting inherently interesting topics like unintentionally hilarious NFL apparel.
3) Only do not boring things all of the time (hard).

Things My Wife Complains About: #3 Planning Enjoyable Activities

We have a fun little weekend planned. M. Ward in the sweet seats in Central Park then the Red Sox-Orioles game in Baltimore with friends from Charlottesville. A husband might feel pretty satisfied organizing these two events--satisfied, that is, until he learns his wife wishes neither event had been planned! It turns out wife is a busy bee, and all this fun hangs over her head like the sword of Damocles.

Proposed solutions!

1) Don't plan enjoyable activities.
2) Plan enjoyable activities that are certain to be derailed by natural disaster (pity we can't enjoy these 1989 World Series tickets, for example).
3) Plan enjoyable activities that don't actually exist so that when they're mysteriously cancelled, you benefit from planning them, as well as not having to go (moderately hard).

Things My Wife Complains About: #2 Allowing Her to Nap

While showering before work yesterday, I committed the previously unknown crime of allowing her to take a nap on the couch. When she awoke, she chastened me for allowing this nap to happen, pointing out that had I brought her coffee in the middle of my shower, her nap probably wouldn't have happened. These solutions propose themselves!

Proposed solutions!

1) Interrupt shower to serve wife coffee (hat tip to wife).
2) Shower in middle of night while wife is already sleeping.
3) Hook coffee IV to wife's arm, provided bag is weightless (hard).

Blowing Through Nap Time (2008)

Things My Wife Complains About: #1 Her Coffee Being Too Heavy

Occasionally my wife complains about things, and occasionally I will document them, as well as proposed solutions. The long-term goal of this project is to catalog every complaint, so as to have an easy resource for problem solving. I enter into this project with the counter-productive acknowledgment that many--if not most--complaints are presented without hope--or even desire--for resolution.

On to complaint #1!

During the twenty-minute walk to the DMV on Tuesday, my wife offered a new complaint, which is that her coffee was too heavy to carry.

Proposed solutions!

1) Encourage wife to drink coffee from a straw.
2) Don't make wife coffee.
3) Alter the molecular structure of coffee to make it less heavy (hard).

 

Drinking coffee (2006)