I’ve never been much for celebrating Valentine’s Day (or as the more enlightened among us would refer to as Anna Howard Shaw Day), but on this occasion, let’s celebrate my wife, who is sitting across from me with the worst chest cold I have ever seen another human being have. Huzzah, Tracey! You are loved! Despite the phlegm!

A lot of you may or may not know this, but Tracey and I met way back in August of 1997 on our orientation day at Shanghai American School. It was my first ever trip overseas, while Tracey was a wily veteran of two-years overseas in Ecuador. We hit it off at a party at a long-gone establishment called The Long Bar, which is where the Ritz-Carlton is in Shanghai at the moment.