Three months ago, I posted 101 Fun Facts About Jenny, which inspired a lot of feedback and discussion. I loved that it helped many to get to know Jenny a little better. But, coming up with another 101 fun facts about the most amazing wife ever? Piece-a-cake. Here we go:
1. When first married, Jenny and her husband lived in two different locations as their work-places were about 50 miles apart.
2. Jenny always drove no faster than the speed limit.
3. Jenny regularly slept with a shirt on her face to keep her head warm and to keep the light out of her eyes.
4. Jenny owned 29 pairs of shoes.
5. Overall, across her career, Jenny worked more than 70% of the days she took “vacation”.
6. Jenny‘s home office set up included a sit stand desk so she could get the right height for posture an ergonomic mouse to address her number one risk for cumulative trauma disorder and a halo lamp so she could look her prettiest for the camera.
7.When the family did a crossword puzzle together, Jenny encouraged each member of the family to use his own color pen. That way, When the puzzle was done it could be seen that it was a group effort.
8. Jenny’s parents once had her then current teacher over for dinner. How many parents do that these days? Jenny was in first grade at the time.
9. Jenny preferred to make the Costco trips for her family. The exception was when drinks were needed. Like apple juice or water. For those, she would send her husband so he could pick up those heavy items.
10. Jenny had a pair of shoes dedicated to exercising indoors.
11. Jenny’s husband was once prescribed medication for depression. Concerned about side effects Jenny asked her husband to not take the drugs and instead signed him up for a series of exercise classes. It worked.
12. Jenny was a member of RPI’s ski club.
13. Jenny took a golf class at UCLA.
14. The most recent time Jenny was in costume for Halloween was in the 1990s. She dressed as a witch.
15. Jenny used her patience to save money. For example, Jenny purchased Halloween decorations and Christmas ornaments and even the family's Christmas tree itself at fire sales that happened after holidays.
16. To minimize storage requirements in the refrigerator and also sugar intake Jenny required that each year her birthday cake be no larger than enough to serve four at one sitting.
17. Jenny was fully vaccinated for COVID.
18. In the 90s, Jenny bowled regularly. The bowling stopped when her boyfriend and future husband couldn’t stand losing to her.
19. During a vacation in Kauai Jenny was a foster parent to a dog.
20. Jenny always had a perfect annual health check up. One basis for this was her exercise routine. She was fastidious about getting at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. She kept an exercise log.
21. In 2002 Jenny and her husband took a trip to Munich. At the end of the trip, her husband left on an earlier flight and Jenny had half a day to spend on her own in Munich anyway she wanted. She chose to go to the Spielzeug Museum, a toy museum featuring teddy bears.
22. Jenny won her school spelling bee in 5th grade.
23. For that spelling bee, one of Jenny’s parents recalls being very nervous for her. However, she was perfectly calm and collected.
24. The tea Jenny enjoyed the most were the loose tea leaves with strong flavor that came in a tin. The Dilmah brand is a good example. She had a supply of fillable tea bags for this purpose.
25. Although Jenny loved all of her family members and extended family members, she was especially close to cousins on her mother side in Southern California. She visited them regularly throughout her childhood and had fun memories of them. Their presence was a key factor for Jenny ‘s desire to go to law school in Southern California.
26. For law school, Jenny was also accepted to USC.
27. The dinner Jenny most often prepared for her family? It’s a tie between some short pasta, like bowties, spaghetti sauce and salmon.
28. The dessert Jenny reached out for most often after dinner was ice cream.
29. Jenny ‘s first full-time job after law school was in Newport Beach, California.
30. During her Orange County days shortly after graduating from law school, Jenny was a tennis court regular. She was a baseliner.
31. As a hard-working associate for a law firm in the late 90s Jenny was part of a litigation team dedicated to Apple.
32. Although never a competitive basketball player, Jenny was nevertheless a good shot. Throughout her life, she would go undefeated against her husband and sons in games of H-O-R-S-E.
33. As a seven-year-old rascal, Jenny loved to pinch others.
34. Jenny was one of the few people at her company to have a key to the storage room. Pre-COVID, she would frequently use it to exercise.
35. When exercising in the family room, Jenny usually does so to music. However, when possible, she would exercise while watching a sporting event. Her favorite sport to exercise along with was NFL football.
36. To identify Jenny‘s handwriting look for the number six. The bottoms of her sixes look like pigtails instead of neatly closed loops. See the upper left in photo.
37. Jenny was usually pretty stoic. However, the ending to Toy Story 3 moved her to tears, just like it did to everyone else.
38. Jenny was a member of her high school’s color guard.
39. The decision of public versus private school for the kids was left up to Jenny. She decided on public because she wanted the boys to go to school with their neighbors. However, she always believed the kids who went to a private school would get more individual attention.
40. Jenny knew asking her kids, “How was your day?” was a question at the dinner table that would lead to nowhere. So, Jenny would make it a point to come to the dinner table with a current event in mind that was controversial or interesting in order to stimulate conversation.
41. While at home, Jenny loved to exercise during meetings. One of her favorites was to do arm exercises while standing.
42. Ever since college, Jenny never believed in the efficacy of pulling all-nighters. She was a proponent of going to sleep when she felt tired no matter how much work there was to be done, and waking up early in the morning to address it.
43. Jenny had always wanted Tyler to go to Rice University. In her honor, Tyler will apply. However, he really has no intention of going there.
44. Though a righty, Jenny was primarily a left-hand mouser.
45. Jenny took French in high school.
46. When waiting for the water to get warm for a shower, Jenny asked her family to use a bucket to catch the water while it was warming up. Ever the conservationist, Jenny would use that water for her plants.
47. Though the kids wanted a dog for years--and Jenny was a dog lover herself--she didn't want her family to own one because she didn't want to ever leave a sad, lonely dog in the house.
48. Jenny had three requirements for her wedding venue. It needed to be local so that she could control the wedding preparation more easily, the wedding and reception should be at the same location so that guests would not need to drive and park twice. And, of course, it had to be beautiful. The Palace of the Legion of Honor fit the bill.
49. When Jenny’s then boyfriend proposed to her in August 1999, it was with an engagement ring from target purchased for $77. The diamond was real though.
50. Jenny loved to wind down the evening watching Saturday Night Live with her husband. Her favorite SNL comedians were Aidy Bryant and Kenan Thompson.
51. Jenny had a name for the gross, textured coating that built up on unbrushed teeth: “fuzzy sweaters”.
52. Whether Jenny was making spaghetti with meat sauce or meatloaf Jenny used to ground turkey from Costco
53. Although a patent attorney for Siemens healthcare, Jenny was also informally a recruiter of models to help demonstrate the capabilities of her employer's ultrasound imaging.
54. On December 29, 2016 Jenny made this bowl (photo below) in a pottery class she took with her friends.
55. She painted the pig on her bowl as a nod to Tyler, who at the time drew flying pigs, sometimes as an Easter egg, on his homework, art, etc. The monkey is "Banana Sam", who lived in San Francisco. That, in turn, is a reference to Dylan. After hearing the name, "Banana Sam", she called her older son, "Red Bean Dylan".
55. When selecting a dentist for her family Jenny prioritized proximity to home above all else. Her husband and children remain grateful for that.
56. Jenny‘s preferred walking surface was a high school or regulation track. She appreciated its level nature. If she had the time, she would bike to either where the kids went to middle school or their high school to get access to a track.
57. Jenny was once the PTA treasurer when her kids were in middle school.
58. For Dylan's Boy Scout troop, Jenny volunteered as the Service Hours Recording Coordinator.
59. The one musical for which Jenny had a curated playlist on Spotify is Crazy Ex Girlfriend. The family continues to play that music from her account.
60. Jenny was a strong believer and extravagance leading to a person being spoiled. So, even though she had an endless stack of spa gift certificates she would allow herself a visit at most once every year or two.
61. One candy bar that Jenny enjoyed not liked by the rest of her family is Almond Joy. She had them all to herself every Halloween.
62. The only college math class that Jenny took that her husband did not was probability and statistics.
63. In her backyard in Santa Clara, Jenny once found a cat taking shelter near the air conditioning compressor with nursing six kittens.
64. With the help of a coworker, Jenny was able to get the kittens spayed, neutered and adopted out. Jenny adopted the mom as her own.
65. The only method by which Jenny would defrost meat is by leaving it on the counter overnight at room temperature. She never used a microwave for this purpose.
66. The one occupation that Jenny repeatedly mentioned that she would be interested in if she were not an attorney is to be a DJ for a classical music station.
67. Throughout her married life, Jenny never wore stockings.
68. When Jenny met her future husband, she described herself as a centrist. However, for the rest of the time they were together, and she never once voted for a Republican for any office.
69. While at RPI, Jenny slept so much in her history class that she got a reputation. One morning she was awakened by a phone call from someone purporting to be her professor. She was told that she was sleeping too much in class. Jenny apologized and said that moving forward she would stay awake. She then heard laughter down the hall. The call was actually a prank by some guys in her dorm who were also in her class.
70. Jenny claimed she absolutely needed meat in her diet. However, she did have a craving for a vegetarian meal once in a while. Whenever she had such a hankering, Veggie Grill was her spot of choice.
71. When the weather got cold, Jenny would drink tea. Lots of it. She always used one of four mugs--two from UCLA Law, one a souvenir from Pittsburgh and one from KUSC. All four were obtained prior to meeting her future husband.
72. When eating out, Jenny preferred ice water to drink. Occasionally she’d have fresh-brewed hot tea or homemade lemonade. But, never soda.
73. Jenny washed her hair every other day.
74. Jenny’s favorite sports to watch, in order: Vikings football, Oakland A’s baseball, NFL, college football.
75. Of a couple of dozen or so Christmas ornaments in her household, Jenny's favorite is this one (below) which happens to feature Tyler.
76. The selected height for Jenny‘s sit-stand desk is 28.9 inches. Of course, that’s for the sitting position.
77. A common theme to all the causes that Jenny supported financially is their focus on helping women and children.
78. About 10 years ago Jenny’s company moved its offices to another site. Jenny was told she could take any wall art home with her as a part of the move. She selected prints of two paintings. Each one features a horse.
79. Jenny never weighed herself at home. She would be weighed only during her annual visit to the doctor.
80. Jenny’s husband volunteered to be the webmaster for Dylan’s troop and scouts. However, it was actually Jenny who answered all the questions associated with the role and carried out its responsibilities so that her husband could focus on the family and work. Because the role was virtual, nobody ever knew.
81. To combine her love for music and exercise, Jenny once ran a race in Orange County, where a chamber orchestra performed at each kilometer marker.
82. Jenny’s favorite fruit to pick was strawberries.
83. By mass, Jenny ate apples more than any other fruit.
84. Jenny's rules for heating the home: Central heating can be on only if there are people in three different areas of the house. Otherwise, use a space heater. No heating is to be used overnight. Just layer up. These rules still govern her home today.
85. Jenny completed or took part in 20 courses on masterclass.com. The most common themes were negotiation and relationships.
86. When going out, and given the choice, Jenny would always choose brown rice over white.
87. Jenny‘s bike size, which is often measured by effective top tube length, was 17 1/2 inches.
88. Jenny chose the coasters used in her home and they reflected two of her passions: one set features the Minnesota Vikings and the other set features operas by Puccini.
99. Everyone has a pet phrase for describing the unlikelihood of an event happening. For Jenny it was, “When monkeys fly out of my butt.“
90. Jenny posted two large maps on the wall behind her computer monitor. One of the United States, the other of the world. She did this so she could study geography during her meetings.
91. Jenny preferred salted butter to unsalted, the trunk to the backseat for any cargo and ballpoint pens to fountain.
92. Jenny's favorite go-to condiment: Trader Joe's Everything but the Bagel Sesame Seasoning Blend
93. Jenny gave birth to Dylan and Tyler by C-section
94. Though trained as an engineer and an attorney, Jenny’s strongest categories when watching Jeopardy were related to literature.
95. Jenny collected National Park quarters with Dylan. It started with the Coin Collecting merit badge for Scouts.
96. Because the tenderest meat is up against the bone, Jenny would prepare pork chops only with the bone in.
97. Jenny only rarely ate eggs. But, when she did, she wanted them over-easy and just a tad runny. And, it was usually for lunch.
98. In its most recent quarterly publication, Child Advocates of Silicon Valley acknowledged Jenny for her work as a CASA volunteer.
99. Jenny kept her devices for dedicated purposes. She had an iPod where she stored her songs and she kept no music on her iPhone.
100. For Christmas 2022, seven families donated a total of 25 items in Jenny's name to Child Advocates of Silicon Valley
101. In 2022, friends of Jenny's have contributed more than $10,000 in Jenny's name to the Fistula Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, Child Advocates of Silicon Valley and Partners in Health
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