Mark and Veta met while working at Spelman College, in Atlanta, GA, where they both were professors. While Veta (unfortunately) doesn’t remember the first time they met, Mark remembers clearly (fortunately for Veta) seeing her for the first time as she was making a point in a faculty meeting. This was 1994, and Mark was married and Veta was in a committed relationship. Pretty soon, they were serving on a committee together, which led them to get to know each other better. And they began going out for regular, friendly, collegial lunches. Over the years, they continued their lunches and their friendship grew. Veta shared her wu-wu interests in books she recommended and in bringing Mark to a meditation workshop. Mark also shared book interests, invited Veta to parties he and other colleagues were hosting, and revealed his artistic side in gifting her with a couple paintings he had made of her. And while their research and teaching areas were different — Mark was a scientist teaching Biology and Veta was an artist teaching dance and dance history — they shared a desire to help Spelman be the best it could be. They were both active in faculty committee work, sometimes serving on committees together, and they encouraged each other in some of the leadership roles they also shared. Both were chairs of their departments, and both had a term as Faculty Council President, heading up what is called the Faculty Senate in other colleges. Eventually, in 2021, Veta retired. By then, they were both single. After not seeing each other for a couple of years because of the pandemic, in spring 2022, they reconnected with a lunch at one of Mark’s favorite haunts, Marlay House, an Irish pub a few blocks from where Veta was living in downtown Decatur, GA. When they scheduled their next lunch, Veta suggested one of her favorite places, Sushi Avenue, also in downtown Decatur. She had no idea how significant it was for a parasitologist/immunologist to agree to eating at a sushi restaurant! But Mark knew and he agreed. And it was a fateful lunch. Afterward, Mark asked Veta if she was seeing anyone, and when she said no, if she wanted to. Fortunately, after a few days she suggested that they meet to talk. The lunch, at Thinking Man’s Tavern, just outside of downtown Decatur, was a long and honest one. (Many already know that Veta’s unofficial middle name is TMI.) That lunch is what they consider their first date, and the beginning of their new relationship. And since that date in July 2022 a lot of moves have happened. Veta moved into Mark’s house for a year, Mark sold his house and they moved into their friend Annette’s house in Pine Lake, GA, for a year, and in the summer of 2025, they moved into a home they bought in a 55+ community in Middletown, DE. (There are other moves in there that total eight, but that’s another story.) They are happily settling into their new home, glad to be closer to their families, enjoying making new friendships with their neighbors, deeply missing their Atlanta friends and looking forward to their years as a married couple.