September 15, 2013

• 33 Years

  Yesterday was Bookmark61's and my 33rd anniversary.  We usually just go out for dinner and a movie for the anniversaries that don't end in a 5 or a 0. There are almost never any good movies out this time of year; this year was no exception. We opted to go out to a late showing of Star Trek: Into Darkness on Friday night. The tickets were only $4 each so we were able to afford candy and bottles of water, and we enjoyed seeing the movie on the big screen again. I love cheap dates!

  Brett had departed for his usual Saturday morning ministry by the time I got up yesterday. That's how it is most days; I am not a morning person and Brett respects that. I found a couple of roses, a card and a gift on the kitchen table when I came downstairs, but I left them untouched and ran off to the pool for an hour. After I got home and showered and dressed and started the towels and my swimsuit washing, I left to run a couple of errands. The main thing I needed to do before Brett got home was pick up the cake I'd ordered.

  Those of you who have been reading me for a while, may remember the post from my 30th anniversary. I'd decided that 30 years was long enough and it was high time we had a wedding cake. Now, before you ask, we had a lovely and delicious wedding cake 33 years ago, baked and decorated by my aunt. We each got one bite of it - the one we fed each other (with decorum) for the photographer. We were then hauled around to meet people and be congratulated, and never got a chance to actually eat a slice of cake. (This was in 1980 when it was perfectly acceptable to have a simple cake and punch reception.) So 30 years later I ordered just the top layer of a wedding cake from a local bakery and smuggled it in the van with us and into the hotel room refrigerator without Brett noticing. It was so delicious, I've gotten a wedding cake top layer every year since.

  It's so much fun to flip through the wedding cake book at the bakery and pick out a different cake every year. I always get the traditional white cake with white buttercream icing, but I pick a different design every year. This year I chose yellow roses.

  

  The lady who took my order this year got so excited about my tradition; she got married by a Justice of the Peace 40 years ago and didn't have a cake at all. She'd never thought about ordering a cake top. She spotted me as I was approaching the bakery counter and shouted, "Your cake is so pretty! I can't wait to get mine next weekend!"

  When Brett got home we were both pretty hungry so we decided to go out for a nice lunch instead of dinner. One of the local wineries has started a brewery and opened a Public House not far from where we live and we've been wanting to go there. When we got there and looked at the menu, however, we discovered that they are currently only serving beer and appetizers. Their kitchen won't be finished for another three weeks. There was another beer and food place a few blocks away so we went there. The menu was fried this and deep fried that... seriously, a deep fried hamburger?!?! I finally spotted a grilled chicken wrap on the menu and ordered that, and Brett noticed a grilled chicken sandwich and ordered it. Not exactly the nice meal we'd planned, but we were going hiking and geocaching afterward and, as I told Brett, "I don't want a gut bomb to go off in the middle of the woods."

  

  Turns out, even the grilled chicken was a gut bomb. I don't know what they put in the sauce, but Brett and I were both feeling it after only a half-mile hike. By the time we hiked the half-mile back to the van and drove the 12 miles home, I had called dibs on the downstairs bathroom.

  The good thing about the restaurant we ate at was that it had a paper cover over the tablecloth, so Brett was able to amuse me, our server and himself by drawing an anniversary picture. Here is the artist at work:

  

  And here is the finished product, a tribute to the song sung at our wedding:

  

  If a picture paints a thousand words,
  Then why can't I paint you?
  The words will never show the you I've come to know.
  If a face could launch a thousand ships,
  Then where am I to go?
  There's no one home but you,
  You're all that's left me too.
  And when my love for life is running dry,
  You come and pour yourself on me.

  If a man could be two places at one time,
  I'd be with you.
  Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way.
  If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die,
  I'd spend the end with you.
  And when the world was through,
  Then one by one the stars would all go out,
  Then you and I would simply fly away

   And then, just for kicks, he drew this before we left:

  

  After the geocaching and the hiking and the gut bombs and the rush to get home, we relaxed with slices of cake and the 8th Doctor Who Anniversary Special which we hadn't yet watched. I searched the internet for some of the stuff from our attic while watching TV. We'll get a tidy little sum for all our forgotten treasures if people will pay us what they're worth. I'm not really that naive, but it would be nice.

  That's how we celebrated 33 years of marriage. Except for the gut bombs, it was a lovely day.

  • 12:24 pm
  • 9 Comments