How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

Today is our 28th wedding anniversary, at least I think it is.

I’m positive today is our anniversary; it’s just that I’m still trying to calculate which one. I can’t remember whether Carol and I took our 25th anniversary trip two years ago or three years ago and I have to nail that down before I can figure out the … oh, hell, you know the real reason.

I’m a guy. I forgot what year we got married.

This does not mean I take this anniversary for granted, not by any means. During anniversary No. 17, for instance, our most fervent hope was that we would both make it all the way to No. 27, which we almost certainly have done, even allowing for margin of error.

Anyway, all of these calculations got me to thinking about some of the other numbers we have accumulated together.

Let’s run down the list (some numbers may be approximate):

Two apartments.

Three houses.

Eight jobs, including at least one embarrassing one involving a weight-loss clinic.

Two childbirths (one of us was slightly more involved than the other).

20 parent-teacher conferences.

145 tearful homework sessions.

14 trips to Wyoming.

One trip to Hawaii.

One bout of cancer.

10 nerve-wracking doctor’s visits.

60 routine doctor’s visits.

12 business trips apart.

12 consoling long-distance phone calls.

Five backpacking trips, just the two of us (and somehow, we’re still married).

600 plays (and somehow, we’re still married).

50 Seattle Mariners games, in person.

3,000 Seattle Mariners games, on radio or TV.

Zero Seattle Mariners World Series games.

Five trips to the emergency rooms.

400 sleepless nights.

200 sulking sessions.

1,200 venting sessions.

4,000 saying things to each other in “funny” accents.

Two taking-kids-to-college trips.

Two weepy drives home.

3,000 hand-holding sessions.

1,200 walks together.

300 pep talks, when one or the other’s courage needed bucking up.

4,000 visits to the grocery store.

4,000 arguments over what kind of cheese to buy.

30,000 meals eaten together.

30,000 meals in which my plate was clean before hers was half-finished

Three parents’ funerals.

Three times in which we held each other, silently, in an attempt to ease the pain.

1,000 times in which we held each other, silently, for no particular reason at all.

250 “discussions” about money or lack of same.

20 discussions where we pretended, briefly, we could afford a mountain cabin.

Six cats.

Three dogs.

2,000 disagreements about how to treat the cats and dogs.

6,000 evenings when we said to each other, “I don’t know. What do you feel like for dinner?”

Three traffic accidents.

10 brief bouts of insanity, when we wondered why we ever got married.

300 parties, in which we both had a good time.

Five parties, in which someone drank too much and said something stupid.

750 times in which one of us panicked over something minor and had to be talked down off the (metaphorical) ledge.

20 times in which one of us insisted that the other must “go to the doctor and get that looked at” while the other insisted it was no big deal.

100 home-improvement projects.

95 home-improvement projects which resulted in arguments.

10,000 days in which we thanked our lucky stars we found each other.

220 days in which we weren’t so sure.

And finally, 28 wonderful years together. Or maybe only 27. As I said before, some numbers may be approximate.