A marathon plus one

Mr. Gadget and I have been married for twenty-seven years today.

There are many things that can be said about our long and happy relationship--one of which is that soon we will have matching sweaters. As you can see, Mr. G's has pockets, but I don't think he uses them much except as a place to put his hands when having his photo taken, although there may be a few breath mints in there and some small change. He calls this his "Father Knows Best" sweater, since it reminds him of the one Robert Young wore in the old TV show.

Mr. Gadget and I met in a place that most folks who are well-versed in psychology would say didn't bode well for a lasting relationship. We met in a bar. And it almost didn't happen. I had made plans to meet some girlfriends in this particular bar--we only went there because they had a great band for dancing, and we liked to dance. We weren't actual bar flies.... Our meet-up was scheduled for 9 p.m. which left just enough time to join a nice male neighbor who had invited me over for steak on the grill. After a glass of wine at his place, I wasn't really in the mood to go to the bar, but we didn't have cell phones in those days and I knew my girlfriends had already left home. And I've always been ever-the-dependable one.

Mr. Gadget had just popped in for a beer, and to enjoy the music I found out later. As I sat at a table with my friends, I noticed him standing at the bar....he had more hair then, and he was wearing a nice red jacket. He was also wearing some cute little round glasses.....kinda like John Denver used to wear, and I was a huge fan of his.

I ever-so-casually mentioned to my friends that I was going to the restroom, and afterwards I was going to go ask that cute guy over at the bar to dance. They gave me one of those "yeah right!" looks, because, after all, I was a rather shy young woman who would not ordinarily do such a thing, but I'm sure the wine had loaned me some courage. Mr. Gadget was taken aback by my request, and told me he didn't know how to dance.....so I had to think quickly (not exactly my forte) and I offered to teach him.

So that was the beginning of our life together, and little did we realize at the time that all these many years later we would be sitting here in our recliners, in matching sweaters, watching Jeopardy night-after-night, while debating the pros and cons of signing up for long-term care insurance and wondering if we should just go ahead and sign up for another cruise instead.....