Counting the ways

Perhaps it's because it is winter, with the cold days reminding me of all the warmth and joy and happiness in my life that make those days bearable, but I've been thinking a lot about my relationship, the wherefore and the why.
That I love D is not in question. How could I not? But I have a habit of trying to qualify and quantify my feelings towards things, either as an intellectual exercise or because I'm a stubborn bastard who NEEDS to know the core reasons behind everything. So I've been trying to figure out why I love her. It's a futile exercise, as anyone knows, and D herself would probably claim that it's primarily pheremones and body chemistry (she's a cynic through and through).
While I could not come up with an answer to the question, I did remember a number of instances, anecdotes, and moments that really drove home for me just how endearing she is.
The other day D and I were walking to the arena to go skating. She was carrying both pairs of skates, so I called her a pack mule. Her response: "No, I'm a Sherpa. Neigh!" So I paused, grinned, and looked at her. "Let me get this straight." I said, "Are you under the misapprehension that a sherpa is a goat?" And she looked at me with chagrin and replied, "Yes?"
Another instance that occurred when I was still living with my brother makes me chuckle every time I remember it. It was either a day I was finished work or we'd just come through the door, but we were sitting on the couch and D decided to tell a story about her day. She explained that she'd been driving along the road and she saw the cutest animal. "It was brown and furry, and it had this tiny little tail and it looked a bit like a pig! It ran away and dropped into a hole in the ground!" Now my brother and I looked at each other, each knowing EXACTLY what animal she was describing, and we said in unison "Are you perhaps referring to a ground hog, by chance?" (yes, my brother and I both speak like this.) How D managed to live twenty five years without seeing a ground hog baffles the heck out of me.
My brother and I want to publish a book of D's made up words, too. Here's a couple of my favourites:

Debattical: To take a long break from an argument
Influtry: The fourth branch of the military
Broccolie: A false statement about being a vegetarian OR a fraudulent green vegetable

For some reason I can't remember the rest of the list right now (brain fart) but if I remember them I'll put them down.
I love that she's such a capable and together person, more mature and responsible than I will ever be, but who can drop her guard and be unabashedly silly and blissfully ignorant about the most random things. She's obviously brilliant or I wouldn't find her interesting, but one of the things that makes me adore her is those brief yet endearing lapses in understanding or knowledge, or the very infrequent wrong assumptions she makes about things that are understandably unimportant.
It really makes me accept the idea that it is our flaws that keep us together, and because of that they are no longer flaws, but qualities, and I wouldn't take her without them.
Hell, if she can laugh at my jokes, I guess she feels the same about my flaws. I mean, who in their right mind would laugh at one of my jokes? Besides me, I mean.