The writer with his primary collaborator, his #1 fan, and his most vocal fact-checker.
Usually we’re out of town on one of our road trips when our anniversary passes, but today was the first time in years that we were in-state for the occasion. We appreciate the inventors of the calendar finally working out the timing in our favor. It was nice to mark the occasion with a nice meal and greeting cards exchanged on our own turf for a change.
Our feature for the entree round: Kashmiri Spiced Braised Lamb Shank.
Our eleventh wedding anniversary fell on Day Seven, but scheduling needs and fannish impatience dictated that we celebrate on Day Six. Longtime MCC readers know Anne and I are big fans of the Food Network’s fun, addictive cooking competition series Chopped. Most of its judges are restaurateurs and chefs who call NYC their home, but we were surprised during our vacation research to discover one judge owns a restaurant within 500 miles of our house and right along our path. We agreed it was a mandatory dinner stop.
While my lovely dinner companion and I await our charcuterie, a tiny Eiffel Tower twinkles merrily at passersby.
Our very special MCC extended interlude concludes!
Once again we return to Massachusetts Avenue, the part of downtown Indianapolis where trendy eateries cheerfully serve those of us who don’t live in any of the upscale north-side neighborhoods. For my birthday last May, my wife and I tried a relatively new place that specializes in unpronounceable French cuisine. Anne and I met in high school German class, but we did our best to fake our way through dinner from one of Germany’s notable European colleagues.
Mary Tyler Moore takes a nothing day and suddenly makes it all seem worthwhile in front of the still-open Macy’s at 7th and Nicollet.
After spending the first several hours of Day Four walking around downtown St. Paul, we crashed at the hotel for a while. As someone who hates naps, that’s hard for me to admit, but it had to be done. We needed to recharge for the sake of our evening plans, for which we’d be driving into downtown Minneapolis to create a fun bookend effect for our day in the Twin Cities.
That evening we tried something we’ve never done before on vacation: a formal anniversary dinner.
The Princess Diaries 2 turns 10 this August! But you already knew that, right? The stars, left to right: Callum Blue, a.k.a. Zod from Smallville; Academy Award Winner Anne Hathaway; and Starfleet Captain Chris Pine.
Forty-five years since the moon landing! Twenty-five years since Ghostbusters II! Fifty years since this battle! Ten years since that album! Eighty years since this one comic! Thirty-five years since that one thing happened that we wouldn’t mention if this weren’t a slow news day!
Now more than ever, you can count on your favorite sites to devote bandwidth every week to someone’s memories of events that occurred exactly on This Day in History multiples-of-five years ago. If it happened nine, thirteen, or twenty-two years ago, don’t waste our time. But fifteen years ago? Those precious moments need to be documented. Interviews need to be conducted. Reviews and opinions from that year need to be revisited and recontextualized. The important thing is that we need to be writing about stuff everyone loved way back when, instead of wasting a lot of time searching for new stuff in the world of today. Nostalgia rules! Discovery drools!
For once, I’m getting a few steps ahead of their game. Instead of waiting for them to tell me what to celebrate, like some kind of chump who doesn’t own a calendar or know how to Google, I’m planning my own social schedule in advance so I can be first in line to define “the Good Ol’ Days” for everyone else with a big, boiling bowl of Remember When bouillabaisse. And you can join me!
This is how everyone spends their tenth wedding anniversary, right? Because my wife and I sure wouldn’t want to look out of place or anything.
Taken out of context, this photo of a happily armed woman and some dork with a bowling ball could be misconstrued as a future submission to awkwardfamilyphotos.com with a caption questioning the decision to don summer wear in December.
At left in the 2012 Metropolis Superman Celebration T-shirt, my wife is holding a Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. At right in the hard-to-see shirt sporting the periodic-table block for adamantium, that’s me toting the bowling ball given to Ralphie’s old man for Christmas. The backdrop is the living room from the original A Christmas Story House in Cleveland, open year-round for visitors like us.
Some vacationers might spend their time off getting drunk and sunburned on an exotic beach. That’s not who we are.
We’ve known each other for nearly twenty-six years, but Wednesday marks our ninth wedding anniversary. When the one you love is willing to pose with you without a whit of hesitation, surrounded by this much pop-culture ephemera, confident in the knowledge that we agree on the most important things in life while sharing a variety of commonalities in the Department of Ultimately Unimportant Things, you realize you’re ridiculously blessed beyond what you deserve. You also thank the Lord that He’s in charge and not Joss Whedon, or else something tragic would’ve happened five minutes after the photo was taken.
Happy Anniversary, m’lady. Can’t wait to see our vacation photos at age 70. 🙂
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 