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I read the following in — of all places — ESPN’s Soccernet. (Talk about a weird location for something like this.)

When you get a text from your loved one saying something like ‘Love You’ or some other pithy comment, the proper response is, apparently, to text back straight away ‘Love You Too’ and, for best practice, add something equally as meaningful and romantic. Failure to do this will result in ‘bad points’ being awarded against you for which the eventual sentence will be swift, unexpected and almost certainly painful.

I learnt this to my cost after failing to observe the unwritten law — which I’ve never read as it isn’t written down — when receiving such a text yesterday morning and then neglecting to reply in the appropriate manner.

Truer words have been written, but not many. Not many at all.

After one of the hardest weeks in my professional career, The Wife and I decided to take tonight off from any job or business responsibilities and go out on our weekly date. Planning on a “dinner and a movie” evening, we started by going over to Sweet Tomatoes, an all-you-can-eat soup, salad and pasta restaurant. After getting sufficiently replete with salads that resembled rainbows more than they did plates of food, deep kettle chili, and ice cream (because, you know, ice cream is a salad related… food… dressing… thing…), we started to head over to the movie theater to finally watch Chronicles of Narnia.

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Arranged marriages aren’t something Americans are very comfortable with, but for a large portion of those coming from places like India and Vietnam, arranged marriages are just another part of life. I was having dinner with a friend today when the topic came up. As it turns out, her family’s been looking to marry her off. Unfortunatelly, they were trying set her up with a guy who… uhm…

Tell you what: how ’bout I just let her tell you how she feels?

I’m sorry, but I’d have to have a few drinks before I’d even talk to him… If I ended up married to him, I’d have to become an alcoholic.

Ouch.

I’ve just spent the last 5 hours helping The Wife set up her classroom for the upcoming school year. It’s her first time as a teacher, and she’s a bit nervous about her new assignment. Over the years she’s had to deal with drug addicts, ex-cons, perverts, Stalinist bosses, and undead kung-fu ninjas, but nothing has — or could have — prepared her for what she’s about to face: inner city youth. (Insert blood curdling scream.)

Her day started at about 6:30 A.M., when she drove out to the school so she could start working on her classroom. The place was a mess, and with just one day until open house (yes, it’s on a Sunday), slacking off was not an option. She had planned to work on the classroom a bit before getting together with her group leader (or teaching mentor, as she’s called) to plan out the first week. As it turns out, she got to work on it a lot; her mentor bumped their planning session until tomorrow.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But the problem was that The Wife was already nervous, a bit down, and feeling way unprepared, so this just added to the desperation. Lucky for her, she had already told me last night that I had to go out and help her. In retrospect, I’m glad she did.

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It’s Monday night. That means it’s pizza night. Then again, at $3.18 per pizza, just about every night is pizza night. Although this isn’t good for my waist line, it’s great for my taste buds. Love the stuff.

So here we are watching a movie and munching some pizza after a long day at work. The movie: Armageddon. Great movie if you like to watch Bruce Willis play the same role he plays in every movie. Also a great movie if you like to watch pseudo scientific action comedies.

Normally, this wouldn’t be the kind of flick that would really make it into my top ten. Or top 20, for that matter. But there’s something special about this movie, since it was the first movie my wife and I ever saw together, four days after we first met in the summer of 1998. Because of this, Armageddon has always been special to us, especially the theme song, I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing.

What’s interesting is that every time we see the movie, she gets amorous. Very amorous. Not to say that this is a bad thing, mind you — it’s actually a very good one — but I just find it interesting that every time we watch this movie, somewhere in the beginning, the following conversation (or something close to it) takes place.

“Aww,” my wife says. “Remember when we first saw this? Our first movie.”

“Uhmm… yeah. And you were dating someone else at the time,” I said, in a flat voice.

“But still. It was romantic.”

“No it wasn’t. To me, it was frustrating, since one of us was trying to woo the other. And if I remember correctly, you only stuck around ’cause you thought I was ‘mentally unstable.’”

“Oh. Yeah. That. Well…” she continued, “Hey. I’m just trying to be romantic, you know.”

This is about the time in the movie where comet parts start raining on Manhattan, with buildings toppling and cars exploding.

“Yeah, I guess there’s nothing more romantic than the violent suffering of other people.”

“Hey!” she yelped.

I laugh.

“But you know,” she said, “you did woo me.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Why do you think I stuck around.”

“Uhm… well there’s that –”

“Besides that!” she retorted.

“Actually, I think it was an act of God. And my cooking.”

The conversation goes on from there. Needless to say that by the end, I’ve usually had a good laugh, and my wife feels guilty that I had to chase her for 4 1/2 years before she finally said “yes” to a date. All in all, it makes for a good little conversation. Every. Single. Time.