Eight years of wedded bliss

I think when I was lavishing praise on my wife at some point on this blog, indicating that her only real flaw is that she's sometimes (OK, often) late,usually trying to squeeze one more thing in, someone scoffed mightily. Well, it is about the only one that I notice now. Well, that and her need to tell me more about Dancing with the Stars than I need to know (which is to say, nothing). Or that innate ability to talk to me about something important just after I've turned off the lights. But this is all minimal stuff.

The more substantial problems we had in the past - the reason we broke up for a time (1996-1998) before we got back together - has to do with, for her, me being too judgmental (if this is wrong, she can clarify it in her OWN blog, if/when she starts one), and for me, her operating on assumptions not in evidence. I can think one specific example of this. She was visiting my apartment and she and/or I were cooking. She put the hot pan or pot on the counter, assuming that it would be heat-resistant; it was not, and the paint began to melt. One does not like to leave visible damage like that in a rented apartment. It made me crazy, not that she scorched the surface, but that she assumed.

Oh, and the other thing was that she didn't keep up with current events. At all. I'd make comments about something that had been in the news for a month, and she didn't understand what I was talking about. She's much more on top of things, especially about politics and government, just by listening to five minutes of NPR news in the morning. I was listening to former CIA head George Tenet on one news program, and she rightly noted that it was pretty much the same as the stuff he said on another, even though she wasn't even in the room either time. She even delves into other areas: when she told me (SHE told ME) Roger Clemens was re-signing with the Yankees, she knew he had been with the Houston Astros during the previous season; the 1994 version of Carol would neither have read/heard that nor would have been interested enough to retain that.

So, I'm less of a pill, and she's more engaged, and we have a great kid together. It's all good. Happy anniversary, honey.
***
Most New Yorkers vote today on the school budgets; some vote on school boards, though Albany do not. Albany does vote today on the library trustees, 17 candidates for four slots. A good friend is high on Dennis Gaffney, but at this second, I haven't decided fully on the other three. Polls open 7 a.m.-9 p.m.