Anniversary Drama, in Five Parts

September is full of celebrations. Tons of family birthdays, tons of friends' birthdays, my own birthday and if that wasn't enough, I also decided to get married in the same month. Last Sunday was our first anniversary. With every bit of fun there is always some drama. Our first act had to do with the wedding cake.

Last year the wedding cake was a pretty big deal mostly because I really wanted J's family to be a part of the selection. One spring day J and I brought samples to the family and we all submitted our commentary. It was quite fun and in the end we decided on a combination of a large spice cake with cream cheese filling tier and two tiers of lemon with raspberry filling. It wasn't your traditional cake, but it was to both of our families as each of our parents had spice cake for their weddings. As traditions go, the top tier went into a deep freezer at my mother-in-law's house.

The shipping dilemma began way back in July. How were we going to get this sucker from SLC to Indy? My poor MIL started having nightmares about packaging strategies to preserve the frosting. We also considered having my mom bring it when she came to visit only to realize that one of our friends had hers confiscated by security. Somewhere right after my birthday J received a phone call from his mom. He listened for a bit and consoled her then handed the phone to me.

"Oh, my dear heart, I don't know how to tell you this. But last night..." She stops to catch her breath because she's sobbing, "We went down to the basement and the deep freeze was broken. Everything had melted. We lost meat, fish, even some breast milk that was saved when Max was staying with us. But, oh, we lost the cake! I'm so sorry! We came so close!"

"Its ok." I responded calmly. "I'm so sorry you lost all of that meat." I didn't begin to go there with the breast milk.

"You aren't going to break down? Because I knew if you would break down I would lose it and I've been crying most of the day, didn't sleep last night and thought I would break the news to J first so he could support you. I would be hysterical if I were you. We were so close!"

My response? "Eh. There are bigger fish to fry. Its no big deal. I really appreciate you hanging onto our cake for so long."

"You really aren't that upset? I can't believe you aren't that upset. Are you just pretending for me?"

"No really, its ok. These things happen. No good will come out of me getting upset. All we miss out on is some stale cake."

I began to wonder why this stupid tradition even exists. Is it for luck? I brought that up to J later who rationally reasoned that it had to be a newer tradition as deep freezers didn't exist way back when and the divorce rate was really low. Good point. I began to research it. No no no, it is actually meant to be for your first child's christening!!! Oh good Lord, they thought we would have been pregnant before our anniversary and I suppose we would have been way back when. The tradition then morphed into the christening OR your anniversary. Good times for stale cake.

The second act of our drama unfolded last week when I came home a little bit early after teaching my class. I was received at the door by an overenthusiastic husband hugging me, telling me he was glad I was home, and promptly trying to shuffle me out of the living room. I glanced at our desk which was laden with clothes. "What's this?" Apparently it was my anniversary surprise. Clothing from REI for our outdoor adventures planned in Australia. He was so smug that he planned all of this even before my birthday and was going to surprise me, but then I ruined it by coming home early. That night he proceeded to bring me out articles of clothing one by one. Capri's, a long sleeved shirt, short sleeve shirt, sleeveless shirt, and tank top all very high performing gear. I was really impressed that he had the guts to buy me clothes in the first place.

The third act of our drama came when I accidentally washed his wallet. Oops. I pointed out the bright side that at least I didn't wash his phone. However, it did give me a fabulous plan to buy him a new one for our anniversary. It also fell into line with the tradition that the first anniversary should represent paper or clocks. I thought of paper money! Yeah yeah! Go me!! My poor sentimental husband claims he never heard of such a tradition. I said, "Where did you think the term 'golden anniversary' came from?"

The fourth act involved the US Postal System. Saturday morning there was a LOUD banging on our door, followed by aggressive door bell ringing. This happened not once, but three times. Edgar went wild and J and I, like mature adults, hid. We hid in our own house. Our front door does not have a peep hole so we were stuck tiptoeing around windows trying to see out without them seeing in. Then we heard the truck pull away. Now I go outside to find the "sorry I missed you" overnight slip with the next available time to be picked up three days away. I went outside in my pj's trying to see if I could find the mail dude. The rest of the morning was spent tracking down the package, contacting the sender to confirm it was perishable, etc, etc, etc. We did finally get the package which was from my MIL: fancy cocktail paper napkins, a card, and some cookies. She also included some leaf decorations that were on the tables of our rehearsal dinner. This made J well up a bit. Talk about thoughtful. That night we had a dinner party, but we didn't use them as we wanted to hang onto them for just a little bit longer.

The fifth act involved a sleepover of drunken guests from the night before. We made pancakes and coffee to just continue the celebration. It wasn't what we envisioned for our morning of our anniversary, but it was fun! We then paid bills (yup, living on the wild side for us!) and then took Edgar to one of our State Parks for a hike. That was followed up by a swim for Edgar in our lake, a bath, and us grilling steaks with a nice chilled bottle of champagne. I also gave J his wallet which he was thrilled! While I loved the clothes and actually wore them on our hike, the best gift was the decision he came to by telling me he was 90% sure he wanted to do a fellowship. Hallelujah, we may have some direction!!!

And then of course we have the epilogue. The following day I called my parents as I was half baffled they didn't call first and then began to worry that something REALLY BAD was happening over there. Mom talked about work, the dogs, asked about my jobs, how J was doing, etc when I finally said that we had our anniversary. Whoops. Well, she felt bad, which wasn't really my intention. Apparently when she talked about it with my father later that night his response was, "Well, at least she remembered her own anniversary." This coming from a man who has been married almost 35 years.