Silliness, then and now! ;)

Thanks to my handy-dandy day calculator, and the good luck to have looked at it on just the right day, we celebrated another milestone a couple weeks ago:

4000 days since we met! Haha!

The anniversary of which is actually in a couple days.

I was 17. Matt was 18. Such children!

After spending the evening trying to pelt another car with snowballs and get my window rolled up before they could pelt me (yes, I was the passenger—and yes, I already admitted to being a child), I was hanging out with some buddies in the lobby of my dorm. And, at some point in all this, someone introduced me to "Chris and Matt," who were also hanging out with buddies in the same lobby. (Chris is Matt's childhood/high school best friend and also—completely randomly assigned out of thousands of students if you can believe it! It was so crazy!—his roommate that year in the dorms. Still one of my—our—favorite people ever. Hey, Chris, I've known you for 4000 days! Hahaha!!!)

We sort of a little bit ticked some people off by becoming so engrossed in conversation—Chris, Matt, and I—that we sort of forgot we had previously been engaged with other people. Oops. :) Water under the bridge.... Besides, two soul-mates had found their "other half." Haha! If the world hadn't melted away, that would have been pitiful. Pitiful! ;-)

We talked for a couple hours—until the witching hour when the sexes weren't allowed to be together except in the frigid cold outside or, pathetically, in Food-4-Less. (Our college town was sooooo lame that the only two places open late were Denny's and Food-4-Less!) I remember back in my dorm room that night, writing my best friend Kendra: "I just met the two coolest guys EVER! If we had known them in high school, they would have been our best, best friends—they'd have loved all the stuff we loved to do! They're! So! AWESOME!!!" And, the clincher: "Man, I sure I hope I get a chance to talk to them again. I just feel like they could be such good friends."

I hope I get a chance to talk to Matt again...!! Hahaha!! Eleven years and this little thing called marriage later, here we are....

Highlights of our epic conversation that night:

I had seen Matt for the first time in my life only the day before when he sang a solo in church. My impression through the whole thing was that, wow, I'm intuiting that this guy is totally miserable. He is hating singing this song! (My other impression was that, wow, what a cheesy song. Haha! But I enjoyed that I could tell he hated it, too. :)) So right off when we were introduced I said, "hey! You sang in church yesterday!" Paving the way for the very first thing Matt would ever say to me to be a big...fat...eye-roll.... Haha! He amused me from the start. :)

We discussed the superiority of Dawn Upshaw, and the dreadfulness of many other female singers. Yessss.... (I couldn't believe I'd met someone who actually knew who Dawn Upshaw is. Heaven....)

We discussed so many great movies! Movies my other guy friends had always insisted were not ok for guys to enjoy. Haha! I kept testing them on it, each time just sure they'd finally fail my test and say, "ick! Chick flick!!"

"Ok.... You're going to say you hate it.... But what about.... [I brace myself.] ... Anne of Green Gables?"

This was one of my favorite moments. Matt and Chris look at each other, and without missing a beat! Not one beat!!

Matt: "You little know how utterly wretched I am!!"

Chris: "What if I told you you're fat! Ugly! And a sour old gossip!!"

Hahahaha!!

A few minutes later, I dared to venture into totally futile territory. "Ok, I've been told no straight guy would ever, ever enjoy this movie.... But what about.... Sense and Sensibility?!!"

They look at each other and frown, and I think, ah, it's over. They shrug in unison and Matt says, "eh...." Darn!

"I've seen better Jane Austen...."

HAHAHAHA!!! So they start quoting Pride and Prejudice to me, which I couldn't really enjoy since I hadn't seen it yet, but it was all just so hilarious still. I wanted to go back to all my old guy-friends and say, SEE! See?!! (The funny thing, though, is that it turned out Chris actually isn't straight! Haha! There's still Matt to prove them all wrong. :))

We talked food. We talked concerts and concert venues (don't go to something at Red Rocks unless you're ok with pot, apparently...). We talked composers and operas. We talked films.

And Matt fell in love with me. Seriously. That very night.

And I so could tell.... :)

Three years later, he finally got to tell me he loved me.

It was four years later that he got to marry me.

And it was eleven years later that we . . . went out to Cost Plus on our way back from his mouse lab, with Seth telling me all about the oxygen tanks he saw in the lab, and the shot they gave the mouse, and me telling Matt how while I waited in the car I had noticed on the day-counter on my phone that we had known each other exactly 4000 days today. So Matt bought "a surprise" to celebrate. Turned out to be some sparkling cider that was super-gingery and incredibly excellent. Mmmmm...!!!! Exciting, I know. (It really was so good, though. :)) Haha! Too, too funny. Surprise cider. To celebrate days counted up by your phone.

It's the silly little things that count.... ;-) Still. :)