This year I told Bill I wanted him to blow me away for our anniversary. Usually he asks me what I want to do, and I tell him what I'd like and he makes faces and excuses and it doesn't happen. So most years I get a card, maybe he'll bring me some Sweetest Day Special flowers, and we go out somewhere more expensive than we usually choose.
This year he had to go to work at 2 am, so I didn't expect to find a card waiting for me when I got up. This was a good thing, because there wasn't one. I had a morning appointment with my kidney specialist in Mt Pleasant, came home to eat lunch and leave an anniversary card for Bill on the kitchen table before I dashed out to the bank and to grocery shop. I knew he'd be home before I returned; in fact I hoped he'd have some nap time before he had to help me unload the groceries.
When I returned home and pulled into the driveway, I saw a flash of bright orange color near the house and thought: that looks like pumpkin orange! As I passed between the trees and came out in the clearing I saw there wasn't a pumpkin, it was FOUR pumpkins! Two were on the front railing, one on the ground in front of the wheelchair ramp, and one on the ground in front of the lilac bush at the front corner of the house. I believe I squealed like a three-year-old when I saw them! Bill told me they were my anniversary present, and actually I would have been satisfied because they were BIG,and so much more exciting than flowers would have been!
Then Bill told me to think about where I wanted to go to dinner. I was tired and assumed he was tired, so I suggested we just go have Friday night fish and seafood at the S & R Diner. He countered with Coyle's in Houghton Lake, and since we'd never been there, I agreed.
I'll digress here to comment on how much easier it is to dine buffet style with a rolling walker than it is with a cane. For one thing, the hostess will be more careful where she seats you when you have a walker; with just a cane you may find yourself having to navigate steps from one area of the restaurant to another, no one thinks twice about running you down from behind if you are slower than them, and forget being able to go to the salad bar. You have one hand on your cane, one hand holding your plate, and how the hell are you supposed to scoop food onto your plate? The big shiny blue rolling walker is impossible to ignore, and I find myself seated with plenty of room and close to the salad bar or the entrance, depending on the style of restaurant. I should have gotten one years ago!
Back to our anniversary dinner: at some point during our salad course, our waitress came to the table and presented me with two small wrapped packages and said they were from a very good-looking gentleman. I was flabbergasted! What could this be? I opened the first package and found a box, and inside the box was a small leather box. Inside was a pair of cultured pearl earrings! They are beautiful, and they are actually big enough to see! Then Bill tapped the other box and said "this goes with it." So I opened the second box, and it held a pearl ring! Now Bill once gave me a pearl ring for Sweetest Day way back before we were married. I remember him telling me then that it was NOT an engagement ring, it was a "just a ring." I still have that ring and sometimes wear it, but to tell the truth it looked much better on the tiny, dainty little bit of a thing I was back then. It's lost on the big beautiful woman I am today. But this ring...THIS is what I call a RING! It looks "substantial" without looking ostentatious. I love, love, love that Bill not only picked out such perfect jewelry for me, but went through the trouble of enlisting the aid of the wait staff in presenting it to me!
When we finished our meal, Coyle's presented us with a dessert for two, on the house, in honor of our anniversary. It was two layers of fudge chocolate cake with a layer of vanilla ice cream in between, covered with hot fudge and decorated with whipped cream flowers and a lit candle. It's the most decadent thing I've tasted in a long, long time! Between the two of us, maybe we at a third of it. Too rich for our blood! But it was a lovely finish to our celebratory meal, and now I'm going to take my exhausted self to bed.
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