celebration

Eric and I got all gussied up and went to dinner last night. As the waiter was seating us, he asked, "Big first date?" I laughed and told him the big first date was over 21 years ago!

We realized last night that a lot of our friends who married around the time we did aren't married anymore. A lot of my high school classmates are on second or third marriages. Shoot, I have family members younger than me on second or third marriages!

To all the people who said we'd never make it: We might not have the last laugh, but we have this one.

The Big 2-0

No, it's not my birthday. Thank goodness--no way would I want to be 20 again! It's our 20th wedding anniversary. I was a mere infant, of course, on our wedding day. ;-) Seriously, I wasn't old enough to drink! By Eric's next birthday (in July) I'll officially be married longer than I was single.

In a bit of an odd twist, Scott called yesterday to announce his engagement. Congrats, buddy! I hope your marriage is as good as mine. Not that it's been easy by any means. We've had our share of downs, but the downs weren't as low as they could have been had my best friend not been beside me. And we've had more than our share of ups, too.

One last bit of irony. Twenty years ago I wore ivory lace. Tonight, I'll be having dinner with my husband in black lace!

Unsettled

The weather has been very changeable lately. After a very nice cool snap, it turned hot again last week. It's supposed to rain later today and cool off for a little while. Every time the weather changes, Eric gets a migraine. When I'm asked if he will be available for something, my answer is becoming, "Lord willing and the creek don't rise." Perhaps better to say, "Lord willing and the barometer don't rise." The Farmers Almanac isn't offering anything promising, either.

Eric isn't the only one affected by the weather. I don't get migraines with impending weather fronts, but I do notice that during periods of unsettled weather I'm more tired and less focussed. Not that I'm very focussed on a day-to-day basis--it comes in fits and spurts. I've found some herbs that help and have been remembering to take them, but I still find myself standing in the middle of a room wondering what I should be doing. To-do lists are useless when I'm like this; if I remember to write them, I lose them, or I forget to read them.

While weather front brain fog is inconvenient, it does give a bit of perspective from a writerly point of view. I'm building a new world in preparation for NaNoWriMo and this might be a way to give depth to characters. If an entire society was affected the same way by seasonal changes, they would probably adapt the culture somehow. If, for instance, everyone had a headache during the month of September, August would be spent in preparation--big projects finished, pantries and freezers stocked, prescriptions refilled, work places reduced to essential personnel only. If it went on for enough decades, and then someone found a cure for the September headache, the tradition might remain in place, and children a few generations on would ask their grandparents why nobody works in September. Something to think about while I clean the bathroom...