I love you.

Dear EMLNTGB (aka wife):

You are the center of my universe. You are my my best friend and my caregiver and my confidante. You are the person with whom I laugh every day. The person who I look forward to seeing and speaking with every day. The person I think of just about every waking hour. An inseparable part of me. The person who gives me hope that humanity has good in it. The person who loves my family. ...Who accepts me and friends as we are and finds the beauty in us, even though we are flawed. Especially Yoav. And Dave. The person who knows how to say yes to life. I cannot imagine life without you.

I love my wife. Let me go on as to why. You are my buddy, reminding me of innocent childhood friendships. You are strong and yet flexible. You come from the same background and can laugh at many of the same things. But never in a mean spirited way.

I am amazed by you. Let me explain a bit of background for the rest of our readers.

In 7 or 8 or 9 years now (how long has it been?) she has grown with me, shrunk with me, become older with me. Experienced life with me. Defiled her sense of humour with me. And in all these years she has become loved more and more. She has earned my trust and my respect. She puts up with my misanthropic ways. My quirks and terrible jokes. And put up with my impatience and complaints about the most trivial of things. How does she do it?

It mangles my mind to think about how she has faced all the challenges. That I use a BlackBerry as a flashlight at night at 3:00am and wake her up with my incessant messaging... That I repeat myself and am so critical and noone escapes the scourge of my criticisms (at least I include self-deprecation which makes it all ok I think). That I interupt her while she is speaking so that I can listen more carefully to what our squacky parrot is trying to say.

How does she do it? It amazes me.

She gracefully handles that I hate being touched given my harlow-monkey-like tendencies. That I sing loudly and think I am awesome. That I have the patience of a 2 year old macaque and the attention span of an ocelot. That I do just about no chores around the house especially over the last year (at least I can blame illness for the last year). That I make derogatory jokes about Brampton. That I eat cheese and chips in bed at night. And rattle the bag during her favourite movies. That I hate chick flicks and any film that doesn't introduce a plot right away. That I always check if she is crying during the emotional parts of movies.

That I write blog entries about her. That I like to hide things like a teapot in her purse. That I always will buy the cheapest bread if I can get away with it. That I steal all the sheets at night and let the dog push her off the bed. And love when the dog farts in her direction. That I like to hide in public places and watch while she searches for me. That I like to call her silly pet names (McBunnerson, Gizzard, Dark Lord, etc). That I like to make rivals for her, out of any other female in her age range.

Anyways, back to your loveliness, my dear. You are lovely and I could not ask for a better partner in life. I love how we play the most ridiculous games (throwing away clothing into the pacific ocean, to see which articles float back... and then watching you rescue them). I love "dressing up" RC cars under a box and then scaring tennants in our building as the box "chases" them... planting dandelions and weeds with you in the building's flower bed. I love walking the dogs with you and fantasizing about kicking the small annoying barky ones who bother our dog. I love improv-ing with you. And I love listening to you try to sing. And I love watching you blossom in your new career and see how great you are at it.

For all these reasons, memories and affections I award you my favourite wife award:






I look forward to many more years of laughter, silliness and to experience and enjoy even more life with you. To grow old together and to laugh in spite of the vissitudes of life. I want to grow old and ugly with you but with the spirit of innocent children inside. Not too ugly mind you.