Twenty-Five Things About Anne Marie Kinman Trammell

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I decided to produce a list of 25 Things about my valentine, Anne Marie.

1. For the past few years Anne Marie has made treats to give our neighbors and friends for Christmas. Last year she gave homemade fudge to our new neighbors, chefs at a swanky country club. A few days later they stopped by the house to tell Anne Marie how much they enjoyed her fudge. “It’s so hard to get the texture right,” the neighbors said. “But you got it perfect. It was delicious.”
2. Since we moved to North Carolina, Anne Marie has had three interviews for social work positions. All three agencies offered her a job. She turned the first two down because they would not have offered her the quality of life she wanted.
3. Anne Marie and I started dating at the beginning of the 2000 spring semester when I was at the University of Georgia. That semester I took a statistics class, and I mentioned to Anne that I needed a buy a calculator. She said she had one I could borrow, and brought it the next day. After we got married she confessed that she could not find her calculator she had promised to lend me, but instead of telling me the truth she went to the campus bookstore, bought a brand mew calculator, and gave it to me to “borrow.” At first I thought that was kind of weird. Then I realized I would have done the same thing for her.
4. Anne Marie is fixated on the cooking, preparation, eating, and binging of food. She reads recipe magazines before bed the way other people read devotionals. Her favorite television programs center on either cooking food, eating food, or losing weight. She frequents websites on the caloric intake of Hershey bars. I think Anne Marie is obsessed with food the way a sex addict is obsessed with pornography.
5. Anne Marie worked for four years in Iowa as a nursing home social worker while I was in graduate school. She paid our bills by serving under unreasonable (and borderline psychotic) bosses so that I could achieve one of my goals. Then we moved to Rochester, where she worked for a great company while I served under a peculiar supervisor.
6. When we first met I thought Anne Marie said her name was “Emory.” She still lets me call her “Emory” every once in a while.
7. On the day Anne Marie found out she was pregnant she spent the day trying to decide how to tell me. When I got home from work she was sitting on the couch. “Guess what?” she said. I replied, “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” I’ve never asked her if she was disappointed that I guessed it before she told me, but I think she was happy that I could tell right away.
8. Anne Marie and I have two different definitions of “clean.” To me, the room is clean when everything is put where it belongs—everything has a place, and to that place everything goes. To Anne, the room is clean when there is no clutter in her immediate way—the couch is clean when there is nothing on it when she wants to sit down. Most of the strife in our first year of marriage was resolved once we realized that “cleanliness” is in the eye of the beholder. Now, when I think the room is messy I clean it myself, and that’s okay with her.
9. Anne Marie had never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind until she married me. I had never seen The Sound of Music until I married her.
10. When we were dating Anne Marie told me that she was “too happy to get PMS.” I think that was the moment I realized that I was dating a special woman.
11. Anne Marie spends much of her day today taking care of Cooper while I am at work. She feeds him, changes him, plays with him, takes him out for errands, and puts him down for a nap. It is exhausting work, and when I come home I can tell she is itching for time to herself. But instead of taking a well-deserved break, she starts cooking dinner for “her boys,” then cleans the kitchen, then bathes Cooper, then puts him to bed. And then, before she sits on the sofa for a much-deserved rest, she makes me a pot of coffee. I don’t really deserve her.
12. When Anne Marie worked as a social worker in Iowa, one of her supervisors flew off the handle at her. In his rage he told her to go home. Anne Marie wondered if she had just been fired. A few weeks later it was revealed that the supervisor was kicked out of his house for being abusive, and was squatting in the basement of the nursing home. He was fired soon thereafter.
13. Anne Marie has been skeptical of working in a nursing home ever since.
14. Anne Marie got pregnant about a month after we got married. It was unplanned. A few weeks later we lost the baby through a miscarriage. Anne’s Ob/Gyn had Anne Marie get some blood work done to confirm the baby was gone. The nurse saw our pensive faces, then said to Anne, “Most of my job is spent drawing blood from women who want to conceive. You two don’t have that problem at all.” We left the office, went to Steak and Shake for lunch, and ate quietly.
15. Anne Marie spent one Christmas morning on the floor of the bathroom vomiting.
16. Anne Marie plays the piano. She took piano lessons from first grade until she graduated from high school. The last time she played regularly was in Iowa for the children’s choir at our church in Iowa. She would also play for the nursing home residents from time to time. In high school she played every Sunday morning for the worship service in a little country church. The congregation was made up of about twenty senior citizens. The deacons paid Anne $20 each week for playing. When Anne tells the story she mentions that she was proud to get the money, but I think she was also proud that the church wanted her help.
17. Anne Marie would love to play the flute again.
18. Anne Marie says she does not like confrontation, but she sticks up for herself more frequently than I think she knows. I think working with dirty old senile residents helped.
19. Anne Marie would not be convinced that she could not dance as a seven-month pregnant woman until she tried it. She would not be convinced that she could not give birth naturally until the Ob/Gyn told her, “Hon, it’s been over thirty-six hours. That baby ain’t coming out until we go in after him.” She would not be convinced to abandon breast-feeding until trying to feed Cooper for weeks. Normal people would give up too easily; Anne Marie doesn’t give up. Instead, she burns out.
20. In a similar vein, Anne Marie will wear shoes until they get so worn out they make her feet bleed. Then she’ll wear them a few more months after that.
21. Anne Marie is proud to be Tom Kinman’s daughter, but she is hesitant to call herself a “preacher’s kid.”
22. I cut my finger in Iowa. Anne Marie was out of the house at the time, so I called her and asked her to meet me in the emergency room. I didn’t want to be there by myself. Anne Marie cut her finger in North Carolina. She called me to tell me she was going to the emergency room and told me to go home to watch Cooper. She is much stronger than me—I needed her with me when I got stitched up.
23. One Valentine’s Day Anne Marie treated me to romantic weekend Ottumwa, Iowa. She booked the swankiest hotel room in the town. There was not much to do in Ottumwa, but the trip is one of my favorite memories nonetheless because we got to spend time together without being distracted by anything else going on. After all, we were in Ottumwa.
24. While living in Iowa I was offered jobs in Georgia, Michigan, and Rochester, NY. The Georgia job would have brought us close to family, and the Michigan job would have brought us close to Anne Marie’s best friend. Despite how close we would be to people we love, though, Anne Marie told me not to take those jobs. They would not have been good jobs, and Anne said she’d rather have me happy in my work situation than to just be close to family. She agreed to move to Rochester, where we knew no one.
25. She will be a good role model for Cooper. I know because she has been a good role model for me.