98

She falls in love with me

After ten hours in San Diego, we decided that we were going to move there. There was no question about it. She was in love with how relaxed people were in the way they spoke and dressed and I was in love with the sunshine in her hair. We're moving to San Diego, there is no doubt about it.

After a weekend in Gruene, we were making plans to move to the Hill Country. Good food, great music and the magic of the hills had us convinced that we were going to buy a house and end up northwest of Austin as soon as possible. We'll live in the Hill Country, there is no doubt about it.

After driving to south Houston and looking at Basset hounds, Rottweilers and lab mixes a woman walked by with a plump, sleepy little mouse of a dog. She had a tiny little tattoo on her belly and looked like a drowsy skunk. She was going to be our skunk, there was no doubt about. it. Her name is Sadie and she has an intrusive nose, but I fell in love with her and Dana fell in love with me.

99

She pisses me off.

There used to be a time when I would walk into a room and the rules would change. I was intimidating (this may just exist in my mind but amuse me).

I earned a reputation for being a tough Marine and a powerful speaker. Yet, this slender marvel of a woman cuts me down with a glance. She goes toe-to-toe with me during my worst tirades and somehow finds, buried in that slight frame, a voice that one would envision coming from a burning bush. It comes from some granite foundation, wells and springs up, "Stop being such a baby".

Love is gentle, love is kind. Love is standing up to a former Marine and putting up with his bullshit with an unquestionable loving grace.

100 Days

One hundred days from today I will be in Cabo San Lucas with the most beautiful girl in the world. She will take my hand, look up at me with those cavernous green eyes and take me as her husband. This in itself is miraculous because I have given her painfully little reason to do so.

I have found around a million reasons that I love her (as of my last count anyway). But since we have to finish preparing for the trip and because I have a demanding full time job, I have chosen to only share the top hundred reasons that I love her.

100 Her laugh

When we first started dating she didn't have one. She was a silent laugher. She would tilt her head to the left, shut her eyes, and nostrils flaring- not utter a sound. It was like watching a great movie with no sound track.

She still tilts her head, turns varying shades of red, and her famous nose still wiggles- but she shares her glee with the room. Every squirn and squeal (and the occasional snort), melts away any reason we have to not share in her delight.