Secret of a Happy Marriage

Forget the petty squabbles, the silly little differences that arise, above all, forget the anniversaries. Let us rephrase that: both of you forget the anniversaries. Otherwise it doesn't work. I well remember the time when my sister in law caught sight of my forgetful brother coming through his own innocent front door. That day he had forgotten some vital prime number, the engagement, a christening? God forbid, the date of the actual wedding. She directed a look at him that could have scorched paint off a tank.
Luckily Dr. Motes and I, among many other things, always forget our wedding anniversary. And this year it was quite a big one, the 40th. I'm not sure what category that makes it, not up there with the precious metals, but certainly well beyond paper, plastic or plywood. And this time we totally forgot, even when a card arrived, joking about what a good thing we'd hitched up...for a long moment we were saying, Whaaaat the....?

So we both gave a merry laugh and went our separate ways. Of course, some things don't really have a date on them. Like the evening when we first saw "Midnight Cowboy" on Belgrade television. It was in the middle of a cold Balkan winter, and we'd just met each othe, teaching in Kosovo. And Dr. Motes said, yes, it 's Miami and like the song says, that's where the sun keeps shining through the falling rain...and that's where we'll be going...
 And he's totally forgotten he ever saw that movie with me on a cold Balkan night, totally. And he's lucky that I've totally forgotten about it. Totally.
This one's for Cathy!