First anniversary
Aug. 7th, 2007 02:56 pmIn an addition to the important dates in my life, Whitney and I have now been married for one year (and a day), and it really doesn't seem that long at all. It seems like only a few weeks ago that we unlocked the unfamiliar door to our apartment, stepped into a completely blank set of rooms with some cables strewn about the floor, and went off to buy some furniture from IKEA. It also means that it's not long until I've had my first real-life job for a year (almost exactly three months, actually).
After plans for going to stay in a bed and breakfast in the Cape to the south didn't work out because no one was offering them for less than a week at a time, we didn't really do much on the day except give each other presents (an hour in the afternoon was spent pushing a large potted plant through the pouring rain on a shopping trolley, as part of my presents to Whitney). My other present to give her was a watch - one that I had spent ages to find, that had the right size of face, thin strap, and in the end I even found one that had a window with the sun and moon in it depending on what part of the day it was. She opened it up yesterday morning and it turned out to be exactly the same as her old one.
Whitney got me a collection of books by Dave Barry, an American columnist who I don't know anything about (does anyone reading this recognize his name?) and, to make me feel more at home, The Settlers of Catan (or "Die Siedler", as I'll always know it). If you haven't heard of it, it's a bit like a reduced Civilization in board game form. I imagine that part of the reason why it's not so popular here is that the American box art makes it look like the most boring game to have ever been made (although "Diplomacy" is always going to be hard to beat in that respect). But underneath that it's the same game, although the newly drawn texture-like tiles render me totally unable to tell the difference between most of the spaces. We sat down to have a game of it in the afternoon after drying off from the rain, and as chance would have it, Whitney beat me at it first time.
We went out to dinner at Anthony's Pier 4 seafood restaurant after that. I should say that I've never been able to understand overly expensive food, the kind where everything comes in tiny portions piled up like a game of Jenga on massive geometrically improbable plates. Thankfully this wasn't like that at all, and even though the menu included mega-lobsters weighing about four stone, steaks going well into the $50 range and a variety of port from 1970-something that cost $950 a bottle, I was able to enjoy their sashimi appetizer down at the more reasonable end of the price scale a lot. I'm beginning to get used to the way that all American restaurant portions are immense, and I overate chronically at the Cheesecake Factory at the beginning of the weekend, so a starter was more than enough for my small and weak stomach.
And afterwards, we retired back home to play some more of Final Fantasy XII. I know that's not an activity that many couples would do on their anniversary, but I love the fact that it's perfectly normal for us.
After plans for going to stay in a bed and breakfast in the Cape to the south didn't work out because no one was offering them for less than a week at a time, we didn't really do much on the day except give each other presents (an hour in the afternoon was spent pushing a large potted plant through the pouring rain on a shopping trolley, as part of my presents to Whitney). My other present to give her was a watch - one that I had spent ages to find, that had the right size of face, thin strap, and in the end I even found one that had a window with the sun and moon in it depending on what part of the day it was. She opened it up yesterday morning and it turned out to be exactly the same as her old one.
Whitney got me a collection of books by Dave Barry, an American columnist who I don't know anything about (does anyone reading this recognize his name?) and, to make me feel more at home, The Settlers of Catan (or "Die Siedler", as I'll always know it). If you haven't heard of it, it's a bit like a reduced Civilization in board game form. I imagine that part of the reason why it's not so popular here is that the American box art makes it look like the most boring game to have ever been made (although "Diplomacy" is always going to be hard to beat in that respect). But underneath that it's the same game, although the newly drawn texture-like tiles render me totally unable to tell the difference between most of the spaces. We sat down to have a game of it in the afternoon after drying off from the rain, and as chance would have it, Whitney beat me at it first time.
We went out to dinner at Anthony's Pier 4 seafood restaurant after that. I should say that I've never been able to understand overly expensive food, the kind where everything comes in tiny portions piled up like a game of Jenga on massive geometrically improbable plates. Thankfully this wasn't like that at all, and even though the menu included mega-lobsters weighing about four stone, steaks going well into the $50 range and a variety of port from 1970-something that cost $950 a bottle, I was able to enjoy their sashimi appetizer down at the more reasonable end of the price scale a lot. I'm beginning to get used to the way that all American restaurant portions are immense, and I overate chronically at the Cheesecake Factory at the beginning of the weekend, so a starter was more than enough for my small and weak stomach.
And afterwards, we retired back home to play some more of Final Fantasy XII. I know that's not an activity that many couples would do on their anniversary, but I love the fact that it's perfectly normal for us.