nine years
We had already been best friends for six years, in love for five, but nine years ago today, we promised each other in front of our friends and our family that this was for real, and forever. Nine years later, we’re still here, together, loving each other, a family. There have been challenges and triumphs, both big and small, and having lived through them together, we know we’re ready for the next ones, and the ones after that, and the ones after that. Marriage isn’t always easy, but today, as every day, I renew my promise to love you, to be here, to do the work to become a better partner and a better person, for me, for you, for us, for our daughter. I cannot imagine a life not by your side, not watching you mother our beautiful, amazing little girl, not seeing your love and spirit reflected in her eyes and her smile more each day. Thank you for these anniversary gifts, querida.
Speaking of gifts, this year, we gave ourselves, and each other, something we sorely needed: a real date. Thanks to my parents taking care of The Pumpkin, we were able to enjoy a great meal (and drink some wine!) in a romantic setting and go to a concert. Sure, it was a few days early, but that’s okay. We didn’t even get back to the house until 11! [I know, I know, living dangerously in our old age...] Dinner was at Lucques, where we sat on the patio, as we had on an earlier anniversary, and enjoyed one of chef Suzanne Goin’s Sunday Suppers. The three-year-old hapa girl at the next table made us miss The Pumpkin a little—until we watched the all-too-familiar ritual of the mom letting the toddler onto her lap, unable to continue eating herself. We even had to consciously tell ourselves to slow down, so trained by eating with our Pumpkin that we were scarfing down our gourmet dinner like, well, like we needed to finish eating real fast before a short-attention-spanned toddler demanded to be entertained. [In an homage to our favorite foodblogs, Oishii Eats and Eat, Drink & Be Merry, who we got to meet at the concert that night, some foodporn shots from dinner are at the bottom of this post.]
After dinner, we made it through crazy traffic [the one thing we don’t miss about LA] to the Hollywood Bowl in time for a KCRW-sponsored world music show loosely themed around the African diaspora, past, present and future—West African reggae, Afro-Brazilian samba-funk, and turntablism taken from hip-hop to beyond. [Check my fellow Rice Daddy Poppa Large’s much-more-knowledgeable review of the concert—we finally got to meet him in person too.] The Bowl is an awesome venue, nestled in the hills, a great place to enjoy a little music with one’s best friend as the sun goes down. We got home a little after 11 to find The Pumpkin asleep (though she woke up soon after and we ended up bringing her into our bed).
A pretty great anniversary celebration... I love you, mi querida. Here’s to the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that, and....
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
