Eric and Marty

Now for the reality. The picture on my profile was taken in my youth by my former husband. It has always been one of my favorites.

This picture is "now" demonstrating the ravages of time. Eric and I are sitting in church awaiting the beginning of the wedding ceremony of Becky and Dave. My former husband took this picture also. He can be contacted at Roger@RogerSmithGallery.com.

Eric and I have been together since 1999. He has accepted me, my job (with more than a little jumpiness), my son, the grandchildren, all my dogs and cats, my former husband and his wife with remarkable understanding and grace. He does start his car from about 10 or 15 feet outside his car because he has concerns that one of my "clients" or their families may blow the car up. This is not total paranoia. In my last job, one of the clients did hire a professional "hit man" to take me out. Very annoying incident!

I refer to Eric as a potato (even to his face). He's a good man, but he spent his childhood living all over the world--moving every two years. His parents were stationed in all sorts of places including third world countries and moved every two years. Much of his young life he spent on planes. Indeed one of them crashed (bad crash) when he was about 5 years old and on the plane. When he returned from Viet Nam, he planted himself like a potato and has refused to be uprooted since then.

This causes me to complain because I want to go to France, Italy, Greece, Scotland, Turkey, Russia, etc. Eric believes it's dangerous for Americans to be outside the continental borders and refuses to go. It would be difficult to go as I only get one week of vacation a year and there seems to be a constant stream of "emergency" cases. But, I desperately want to go--just on a trip--not to stay. Eric won't even fly. I do not earn enough vacation time to drive to Texas to see the grandchilren so I always have to fly and see them alone. Eric's a potato with a 20 foot tap root! Drives me nuts. However, he has an overwhelming number of very good qualities!

His sister lived in Saudi Arabia for 10 or 12 years. Now, I have no desire to visit Saudi Arabia, but it is difficult to know that I'll never get to travel outside the United States unless I go alone.