a very happy birthday to my wife, who turns a youthful quarter-century old. how do i love thee? let me count the ways.

i love you for being the love of my life. i love you for being my best friend.

i love you for your sweet nature. i also love you for being so proud of your good nature.

i love you for making alphabet soup for me when i'm hungry at night. i also love you for thinking that a louse is a brown insect that lives on trees.

i love you for bringing me my medicines and water every night, and making me breakfast. i also love the way you bring me all your soda cans to open for you.

i love you for always being there for me, whenever, for whatever. i also love you for thinking that leaflets we receive, addressed to 'the resident' of our apartment unit are, very respectfully, addressed to 'the president' of our apartment unit.

i love you for finally figuring how to work the tv and sound system after half a year. i also love the way you beamed so proudly when i came home from basketball to find that you had turned on the tv and sound system, all by yourself, for the first time. even more, i love how enlightenment descended upon you because you needed to watch desperate housewives and i wasn't home to set it up for you.

i love you for playing command and conquer : generals and counterstrike with me over our lan network. i also love the way that a new gucci bag or pair of ferragamo shoes adorns your desktop as wallpaper everytime i look over at your computer.

i love you for poking me awake at night when you can't sleep and want a hug. i also love you for waking me up again by pushing my arm off, and kicking my leg away, after you decide that my appendages are too heavy and that you no longer want a hug.

i love you for waking up happy when you've had a good dream. i also love you for needing to walk around for a week with a bandaged toe, because you got so angry with me during a dream that you kicked out with all your might at my dream persona (while my back was turned, no less). only to find that, in real life, you were facing the wall.

i love you for tolerating my snoring in your ear. i also love you for snoring in my ear. (ok, this one isn't true.)

most of all, i love that you love me unconditionally, and that you won't care a whit when you find out that i didn't have time to buy a birthday present for you.

have a happy birthday. think of happy things, and happy places.




happy 25th, hon.