Time to Celebrate

Thursday, TheDad and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary.

Whose brilliant idea was it to get married in January, anyway?

We wanted to enjoy our special day, but there were the kids to get off to school, and pick up from school, and a Cub Scout meeting, and all of that.

Plus, being January, there was plenty of snow on the ground and it was cold, too.

So we did the best we could with what we had. After everyone got on the school bus in the morning, except for Big Brother, who was enjoying his last few days to sleep late before college resumes again this week, we went to our favorite diner around the corner. Then we attended Mass together at our parish.

After church, we're such exciting people that we dropped off my van to get some much-needed repairs (like putting the "magic" back in the "magic door" that doesn't like cold weather--that automatic sliding door has to be fixed every single winter). Then we zipped over to Center City Philadelphia to have lunch at our favorite spot.

No, not The Four Seasons. Not Ruth's Chris Steakhouse either. And not the latest gourmet Asian-Fusion-French-Barbecue place. In fact, we didn't choose any place with huge prices and tiny portions.

We went to Reading Terminal Market, where I insisted on dragging TheDad up and down every last aisle of the place, inspecting all the options, before we chose what we'd have for lunch. Of course, each of us picked something from opposite ends of the market. We met at the tables in the middle and ate together.

Big Brother agreed to pick up his sister after track practice so TheDad and I could go out to eat. There's a cafe in a nearby town that we enjoy--we usually celebrate our anniversary there, and we have a date there again in the neighborhood of Valentine's Day. Because it's always best to eat at places without parking lots during the winter, where you have to fight for spots on the street and step in giant snow piles. I always get the same thing when we go there, but this year the menu has changed (new owners) and I'll admit that was a bit of a disappointment. But the food's great and the atmosphere is nice too. You can't beat dining with real silverware in a 30-seat restaurant that almost never contains someone else's children. Let's face it: I love kids and enjoy being around them. But when I've arranged for child care for my own kids so I can have an evening out with my husband, the last thing I want to hear is someone else's kids.

Twenty years is a big deal. We didn't commemorate those years with something big, but we did the best we could to take the day off (I didn't even do any laundry!) and enjoy it with each other. At least until it was time for Cub Scouts. At that point, TheDad was on his own.