And They Said It Wouldn't Last!
What did I do today?
Nothing.
Okay, not quite nothing but as close as I could get. I made waffles this morning. I made salad this afternoon. I worked on Goldisox's Bulky Fixation socks.
Mostly I just worked on the socks. I can't tell you how wonderful it felt to sit there for hours (during the Jets game) and just knit. Round and round I went, decreasing two stitches at the gusset every other round. Pure inexpressible bliss. I watched the tip of my Addi dip into the stitch, vanish, and then reappear. Round and round. The gusset grew narrower. The sock grew longer. Me? I grew even happier by the second.
We had us what you might call an exhausting weekend. Thursday we zipped down to Cape May to celebrate our 38th anniversary a day early. Why did we go a day early? Well, mostly because we don't live completely within the framework of the world's calendar and Thursday felt like our anniversary in a way Friday might not. Besides we both had a raging case of wanderlust and Cape May, three hours south of here, seemed a good destination. (Three hours of car knitting time. Did I mention that??)
So off we went and a good time was had by all.
Friday we chopped down a dead tree, gathered up storm damage from the previous weekend, loaded and reloaded and reloaded the truck again so Goldisox could take the debris to the dump which had kindly opened its golden doors for a few hours so we overburdened taxpayers could rid ourselves of said storm damage. It was hot. It was humid. It was disgusting out. (Did I mention that I am not a nature girl? Did I ever mention that my idea of roughing it is Holiday Inn?) I made the huge mistake of not wearing socks and a red fire ant bit my left ankle and said ankle turned into a circus sideshow attraction by nightfall. And I tripped over a log and went splat. Then again so did Goldisox. Oh, we were a fine pair!
Saturday we did it all over again except we started at eight a.m.--I guess because it was so much fun the day before we wanted to cram even more frivolity into the day.
But you know something? It was really a great two days. Sure I could've done without the heat and the humidity and the fire ant and the splat but we worked well together, we watched each other's back, and we got the job done. It might not have been moonlight and roses this time (we've had out share of wonderful moonlight and roses anniversaries and a few leaky roof/nasty reporter ones) but we both felt very married (in a good way) and reminded that the choice we made at 18 all those years ago is still the right choice. I'd choose him again in a heartbeat. Sometimes I'm amazed that I was smart enough at 15 to know I'd found the real thing. (And there I was, the one girl at Mater Christi who had never once fantasized about a wedding or a husband . . . ) (I was going to be the first female editor of TIME Magazine and live in a sleek Manhattan penthouse with a half dozen sleek Manhattan dogs while I wrote the Great American Novel in my spare time.)
Today we are bent over and creaking and sore and swollen and laughing at the absurdity of being 50-something. (How did it happen? Where did the time go?) He watched the Jets win. I watched his black black black boring black socks move closer to the finish line. The phone didn't ring. The doorbell stayed quiet. It was as near to perfect as you can get. I had everything I wanted in life right there within reach.
Not a bad anniversary weekend at all.
Barbara
posted by Barbara Bretton at 9:27 PM
7 Comments:
Many congratulations on your 38th anniversary, Barbara! No wonder you write romance--you live it. Hope you have many more happy anniversaries together!
P.S. Love the photo--esp. your little white gloves!
Thanks, Nancy. Now I get to tell you the rest of the story: I didn't see my husband once during our entire engagement. Roy was in basic training in TX and then crypto school w/no leave. I was, of course, in NYC. He came home seven days before we married and lived with my family in our 4 room apartment. I have a photo of him at my parents' kitchen table on our wedding day in my dad's robe! We didn't know if we'd be able to marry in NY since he was 19 and needed parental permission. (LONG story.) Up until four days before our wedding day we thought we might have to drive down to a southern state.
Anyway, I bought that dress off the rack at Macy's Queens two days before I married. The gloves were our landlady's. The veil belonged to my friend Carol. My maid of honor wore her h.s. prom gown. The night before the wedding we dyed some tulle hot pink with Rit dye so she could pin something in her hair. (This was after we all went bowling [Roy, me, best man, his girlfriend, my maid of honor] and sang GET ME TO THE CHURCH ON TIME.)
We married in a Judge's home in Westchester. I wore a short white cotton dress. He wore his uniform. There were 6 people there with us. We celebrated with a diner breakfast!
Later that afternoon we had a small reception at The Hofbrau a few blocks from where I grew up w/music on a portable stereo. My dad drove us to the Plaza where we spent our wedding night (a suite for $35 courtesy of MODERN BRIDE) and then the next day we book a Greyhound bus to the Poconos for our honeymoon.
Wait! You just asked mentioned the gloves, didn't you???
Great story, Barbara. You should be a writer. LOL! We celebrated our 39th on September 2, and I was just astonished to realize how much the world had changed in that time. How much we had changed, for the better and for the worse, too. But that's what this marathon called marriage is all about, isn't it?
That sounds like the best sort of weekend. I know when my husband and I dig into a project, something neither of us wants to do (ie trimming the hedges) we do end up realizing why we married each other. Odd, huh?
Sounds like a wonderful weekend. Even the unpleasant parts played a role in affirming the best aspects of your marriage. Can't beat that!
He's outside right now playing with his chain saw while I'm at the laptop pretending I'm under deadline . . . (Well, I =am= under deadline [I'm always under deadline it seems] but it's way out there in the distance, three months away.)
Happy Anniversary. I love the picture. There's a lot to be said for marrying the right man young -- you grow up together. I hope you have many more happy years together.
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