I arrived at Boucherie in West Village in NYC a little early quite nervous about my first date with Kari. She was lost, late, and went to the wrong Boucherie which later I have found to be quite a common occurrence. lol. She was definitely a stunner and right off the bat I was enamored. We started talking and I could tell she was nervous and for some reason I found the need to verbalize that, ugh what a nerd I am. She politely giggled and we stumbled passed the awkwardness into delightful chatter about everything from Africa to Brazil. Great conversation, good French food, and a compulsive ordering of a very expensive white wine by mistake made the dinner fly. We decided to continue enjoying each other’s craziness and headed to Bell Book and Candle for a night cap and dancing. As a gentleman I rode the subway to Brooklyn accompanying her home for safety of course and jumped in an uber home all the way back to Locust Valley. One kiss and I was hooked and couldn’t wait to see her again.

While Shaun is talented at sports and dancing, I seem to excel at getting into ridiculous accidents without actually breaking anything — aside from my baby toes. There was the time in October 2024 I injured my jaw… eating Jamaican jerk chicken. I was working a Nephew & Wray Overproof Rum promotion at Miss Lily’s in the East Village with a girl named Lucy when the owner generously bought us dinner. One enthusiastic bite later, my jaw clicked, tensed up, and sent me into mild panic mode — while poor Lucy watched the left side of my face slowly balloon. And I was in so much pain. We were convinced I dislocated my jaw! The next day, Shaun and I were in Hartford for Coach Assaiante’s retirement party & homecoming alumni weekend at Trinity College, where we found the closest thing to a doctor at the event — one of his former classmates who happened to now be a dentist. What an introduction. After a quick exam near the Squash courts, the diagnosis was a bruised muscle. Treatment: ice and humility. Then 2 weeks later came Manek & Tessa’s Florida wedding weekend — which was beautiful, fun and free of disasters. The chaos waited until we were home. I caught the flu and decided it was brilliant to make hot Emergen-C and drink it in bed. Add boiling liquid, a cuddly Kubo attempting to snuggle, Ragsy wisely supervising from afar, and two soaked layers of pajamas — and in came Shaun to the rescue. He rushed me to urgent care, where I was treated for both a second-degree 2” x 3” burn and the flu. Most impressive, though, was the week in August 2025 when Shaun took me to the ER twice in six days — once for choking on salad (endoscopy included) and once for a neck injury from… lying down for a nap with Kubo. Somewhere in between those days, he watched me trip over the under-bed storage drawer and quite literally fly across the room while putting laundry away. Through swollen jaws, burns, ER visits, and airborne moments — usually with one dog involved and the other supervising — Shaun has remained reliable, caring, and completely unfazed. Life with me may be unpredictable, but I’ve found someone who meets every unexpected moment with patience, love, and a willingness to stand beside me through it all!