The first Sunday of every month is when the Minnesota Philippine Center hosts food vendors. The food is standard Filipino cuisine, which is excellent. Barbecued pork on skewers, pork hocks slow cooked in their own juices with lots of peppercorns, halo-halos for the hot day, and much more. It is all very good and the company is equally good. My filipina wife and I met up with another couple from our town who are the same as us: American men married to filipinas. I frankly can’t imagine married to anyone else. My wife assumes the duties of cooking, washing, and cleaning, and lets me be the man of the house. She accords me respect, and in return I give her respect and love, and daily appreciation for how she is improving my life.

I never thought I would marry again after the train wreck my first marriage turned in to. And it took ten years, and a lot of hesitation on my part about remarrying. But my filipina was firm about it. She wasn’t going to be a live-in girlfriend, she was going to be a wife or nothing. So she’s a wife. And so far, so good.

Of course, it has only been 3 months since we married. So we are in the honeymoon phase. Fortunately, we have a lot in common besides sharing the same birthday (August 20). For instance, we both like working out so I got her a membership at my gym, and she has become a dedicated “worker-outer.” She cooks for me and my four children, who moved in with me after the divorce. She doesn’t complain, she works hard, and doesn’t point it out. So she is like me in that as well.

So life is good. It is always easy to point out the bad parts, the injuries, the sturm unt drang. But that stuff is always here, so pick what you want to focus on. For me, life is good.