Remember the Sweet Things: One List, Two Lives, and Twenty Years of Marriage

getting out of the warm bed to turn down the heat(which he assumed was his responsibility)and always saying with a grin as he climbed back into bed, “Here I am again.”

his pride in his grass: “The boys down at Village Lumber tell me it’s never looked better.”

after I’d chewed him out for shrinking some of my cotton shirts in the laundry, standing at the washing machine, pretending to read a label: “This one says, ‘Rub with fine sand, then pound on a rock.’ “

on my first day of student teaching, the apple he left on the kitchen table with “a note to the teacher.”

his superb navigation, always, but especially getting us into port at the Marquesas Islands, after 25 days at sea, within 15 minutes of his estimated arrival time

rolling out wonton skins, singing “Bringing in the Sheaves” in garbled Chinese