Today, Maria and I are finally celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary, which actually occurred on June 10, but we are just catching up with it. We’re heading to check in on Carol and Ed Gulley, then to Massachusetts to hole up for one night in a cheesy motel, go see a play, go see the Mr. Rogers movie, have dinner and hit a museum in the morning.

I have the perfect anniversary story to tell, it involves the crocheted gun (above) that Maria carried when she marched for sensible gun control some months ago after the Parkland, Fla., shooting.

Friday night, we invited some friends over for dinner, and I was cooking some pizza for dinner, and I couldn’t find the metal pie pan I usually use to serve the pizza at the dinner table. After much banging and crashing around, I yelled out to Maria if she knew where it was.

She didn’t answer at first, then signaled me to come out into the living room, where she was standing with a smile on her face and pointing to the corner. I was confused, all I saw in the corner was the crocheted gun (an old pellet gun she crocheted for the demo in a baby blanket.)

I couldn’t imagine why she was pointing to it. “It’s in there,” she said, a bit sheepishly. I needed to use it as a backdrop to  hold the thing together.”

So the moral is if you live with Maria, you might well be living with a crocheted gun, and it is not surprise for the metal pizza pan to be commandeered in the name of art. Everything else I wear is.

“I needed it,” she explained.

This, of course, is what I love so much about Maria. We are excited to be celebrating our wedding, the most consequential event of my adult life, as it turns out.

I love you so much, Maria, and thanks for loving me back. We caught one another at just the right time, and for all of the best reasons. Be back tomorrow. Stay dry and cool.