I got a wedding anniversary card from the kid featuring this image, and teasing me about how my life could have been if I had only chosen to explore my Inner Slut. Fine. Rub it in.

    So of course today I will marinade in regret. I mean, LOOK at those boobs. (My one straight male reader can now stop looking at that woman's chestal area and get his mind out of the gutter, thank you very much.)

    If that's what it takes to get those kind of boobs I just soooo want to be a trailer camp tramp.

    Is there a course or something for this?

    Paul and I didn't make much of a fuss over our anniversary. Actually, we didn't make any fuss unless snuggling on the sofa together watching the final episode in the "Dune" mini-series counts.

    No, I didn't think it did. I was just checking.

    We usually don't celebrate on the exact date because it's part of the Christmas rush season and everything just feels hurried and frantic. So instead, we pick a night in mid-January when we're feeling the post-holiday blahs and go out for a really good meal.

    You know, I admire the long paired couples who can go out together alone and do the romantic candlelight and wine dinners without dozing and slumping headfirst into the soup course. I do. But long ago Paul and I faced the fact that alone together we are about as exciting as tapioca and we need help to stay awake in dimly lit dining places.

    After all, a person could drown in soup, eh. We bring reinforcements to prevent dining tragedies. When we celebrate something, we celebrate with friends.

    Last year being our big 25th wedding anniversary, we celebrated on the actual day, going out to a very swank B&B which will let the public in to eat if it's not full with paying guests.

    So Paul and I are sitting there with our friends Ron and Sue pretending that linen, porcelain, crystal and silver are part of our daily eating routine (when in reality it's a big night when the cutlery matches). I notice that there's one other person in the dining room.

    He's a very handsome man, about our age, fairly well known because he hosts a Quebec gardening show on television, and has even written a book. It appears to me he is making eyes at my husband. I figure it's the fine wine I've been guzzling, that I'm misreading the situation, so I whisper a request for a second opinion. My opinion is confirmed.

    My husband is being cruised on the night of our 25th wedding anniversary.

    The spousal unit is a guy magnet, and has always been as long as I've known him. It's created some odd situations in our life because he's completely oblivious to other men. They just don't set off his sexual radar, and I know that, but some men do find him attractive and it still sets off MY jealousy big time. How stupid is that? (Um, wait, no need to tell me, I know how high this rates on the Stupidity Meter, thanks anyway.)

    Oooooh jealousy. There's one I don't handle well. If Paul and I are at a party and he's talking to a new woman, there's only so much time I will let elapse before I drift over and introduce myself as Paul's spousal unit. The elapsed time is based on a complex algorithm that figures in the woman's blondeness, amount of exposed cleavage, and age.

    In my head I know that jealousy is stupid, that a little gentle flirting can be very good for the self-esteem and is basically harmless.

    My heart is so NOT buying this concept, eh.

    Yep, as I sit here and think about the year past and the year to come, I can see I still have lots of growing up to do.

    Oh, and like THAT was news to anyone but me.