A Frenetic Anniversary

It's appropriate that the word-of-the-day on our tear-off calendar yesterday was frenetic. A perfect word to describe what was going on around here.

We had no quiet, reflective 48th anniversary day--not until later in the evening. Instead, we had a jackhammer pounding away in our basement.

We'd had some waterproofing done there earlier in the fall, but there's one little alcove-sort-of-a-room under the side porch that had some ... issues. It needed a new floor, so we hired a different crew to come in and do that after the waterproofers were gone, and the new sump pump was humming away merrily, spilling torrents out into the ivy in the garden on the east side of our house.

Turns out that the floor in the alcove was actually two floors: The previous owners had simply poured a new one over the bad one, therefore hiding, not solving, the water issue.

So: Old floor had to come out (thus: jackhammer); new one is going in today. 

But there was yet another issue. The alcove had not been tied into the new drainage system from the previous work, so ... a new trench across the basement (jackhammer) with hard-working guys up and downstairs all day, door wide open (brisk, brisk, brisk) while Joyce and I pretended we were having just a perfect day for our anniversary.

They left a little before 4 yesterday, and that's when our quiet anniversary actually commenced. (And I mean quiet in just about every way conceivable!)

About 4:45 we walked on a cool but not all that unpleasant an evening down to 3 Palms, a local pizzeria (and a good one!), a couple of blocks away. Had to wait a few minutes for a table. Then broke all dietary restraints (well, I did). Bread, pizza (with grilled chicken for me); some pasta thingy that Joyce loved.

On our walk down I recited "How Do I Love Thee?" to her; on the way back, "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes." On our anniversary, I've done the latter for many years, the former for about a dozen or so (after I memorized it.)

Then back home, where we opened our wee gifts of words: Joyce had written me a prose-poem that made me cry; I had written her a poem that made her cry. (A weepy pair, Joyce and I.) We ate a bit of one of the fruitcakes I'd baked (my grandmother's recipe); we sipped hot drinks. Decaf coffee (me), hot chocolate (she).

Then ... upstairs to snuggle and stream and remember ...

Our first anniversary, December 20, 1970, we spent with Joyce's folks at their home in Firestone Park in Akron--1548 Evergreen Ave. They had saved in their freezer some chunks of our wedding cake, which we consumed greedily. I think we played some bridge with them and enjoyed our time with two of the most wonderful human beings I've ever known.

This morning, we headed, on the solstice, toward Anniversary 49. The workmen are back. Concrete for the alcove room floor. Another pair here, too--working on a leaky shower stall upstairs.

Frenetic, Day Two ...