Today is my anniversary. I can't say how long we've been married because then you'll start adding, LOL. But it's been a long time.

Part of being married is learning to enjoy some of the things your spouse likes. It's a give and take. We tend to like a lot of the same things, but then there are those things that we each tolerate on some level (football, me; antique stores, hubby) for the sake of the other one.

And then there's the things we discovered together. Those are the most fun of all, and I usually don't remember whose idea it was in the first place.

So, for the fun of it, here's 10 things that we love (or love to do) that we discovered together (in no particular order):

1. Listen to Tom Jones. It's been 10 years since one of us said, “Hey, what's the deal with this Tom Jones guy? Didn't women used to go crazy over him or something? Wasn't he about as popular as Elvis at one time?” Tom is way cool. Even Jordin Sparks chose a TJ song during Idol (and sang it twice).

2. Stargazing. We took an astronomy class together a few years ago, and both decided we loved spending nights under the stars, slewing a telescope toward little points of light. In Europe, we had star parties on mountain tops, complete with wine and snacks. 🙂

3. Gadgets. Hubby is the gadget guy, always up on the latest info regarding the coolest toys. Somehow, he enmeshes me in his web, and I find myself wanting to go to CompUSA just to gawk at the gizmos. Weird, huh?

4. Wine. We met in Germany. Hubby was a beer guy, and I cut my teeth on sweet German Rieslings. It took a few years, but our tastes gravitated toward reds. Now, we love to split a bottle of Bordeaux or good American Cabernet, Shiraz, Merlot, etc. We have a wine bar right down the street, and love to go tasting. Neither one of us blinks at a $25 bottle, though we don't buy that too often.

5. Independent or arty films. We still love a good Hollywood blockbuster, like those Bourne movies, but we love to watch movies about people as opposed to explosions. Movies like The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Lost in Translation, Broken Flowers, Big Night, The House of Mirth, Good Night and Good Luck, The Matador, etc.

6. Food. We'll pretty much try anything once (within reason — it has to be edible in America, you know), and we're very eclectic in our tastes. I think we both love Italian food the most, but not the kind of Italian you get when you go to the Olive Garden, for instance. We love the real deal, the stuff we got in Europe, the stuff that doesn't have a meatball in sight. I don't think we're foodies in the sense that we're food snobs, but we do like good fresh food prepared simply.

7. Anthony Bourdain. He's a recent pleasure, and we both love to watch him combine our two favorite activities: eating and traveling. I'd add that he's a fine writer too, at least in the vignettes he writes for the show. Haven't read his books yet, but they're on the list. He can be a jerk, but he's hilarious as well. And he really WILL eat anything once. (Steer penis soup? I don't think so!)

8. HGTV. Probably, hubby loves the shows like Groundbreakers and Landscaper's Challenge more than the decorating shows, but he still likes Designing to Sell and House Hunters. I'm sure I tire him out with HGTV, because I will view it non-stop, but he enjoys it too (just not as much as I do). We get ideas, and we talk about what we'd like to do in our own house.

9. Fresh ground coffee. We didn't drink coffee when we first met (young enough not to have acquired a taste for it yet), so that was something we discovered together. We went through the foo-foo phase, where we bought flavored coffees. We went through the Coffee Mate phase. Now, we grind our coffee fresh every morning and drink it with half & half. 100% Kona is our favorite, but that's hard to get now. And expensive when you don't live in Hawaii anymore. 🙁

10. Battlestar Galactica and Firefly. Other than a passing Star Trek fancy, neither one of us was a big space opera kind of person. Now, we've watched the entire Firefly series at least twice (and we're getting ready to do it again), and we're seriously into the new BG. We missed Season 3, due to moving and all that, but we're impatiently waiting for it to come out on DVD. And the DVR is already set to start recording Season 4.

So that's it. Ten things my sweetie and I like, or like to do, together. I'm sure I could think of more, but that's a good enough list to remind me of why this man is my favorite person in the whole wide world. As if I could forget. 🙂 What sort of things have you discovered that you like to do with a significant person in your life? (It could just as easily be a child, or maybe even a parent.) Would you have discovered this thing, or liked this thing as much, if you didn't have someone to share it with?