In our home, Claude and I celebrate our anniversary. We were married on Friday the 13th, 1970. This year was our 41st anniversary. I find this simply amazing. I've spent two times more of my life as a married lady that as a single lady. Soooo, after all those years, what does one do to celebrate this anniversary.
The intent was to be in Egypt cruising the Nile River, then spending a few days in Cairo and one day in Alexandria. Alas, that did not happen. It is a good thing our tour was cancelled given the current politic upheaval going on in Egypt.
I did receive an eMail from the Lexington Opera House about an upcoming musical that struck my fancy, "Fiddler On The Roof". I've seen the movie several times but never seen a stage production. I queried my hubby as to his interest and received a positive result. So off to my sewing room I went to place an order for tickets.
I tried first for Saturday evening tickets and could only get obstructed view seat. I mean really...who in the world deliberately purchases obstructed view seats. Why would a theater place a chair in front of a pole or other object. Well, as you can tell, I was not going to purchase obstructed view tickets. I called the Opera House and got tickets over the phone instead of over Ticketmaster. We got Sunday evening tickets on the 3rd row aisle seats. These turned out to be GREAT seats.
Claude and I exchanged gifts on Saturday. I gave him the last two seasons of Monk and thought he might want to view them on Saturday evening.
He gave me a beautiful necklace. It is a silver key. The top of the key has two hearts with rubies on them. One is larger than the other and it looks like my little heart is nestled under the arm of Claude's bigger heart. At least, that is the image I see when I look at this. The lovely pendant came on a short silver chain. I was greatly impressed that Claude, knowing my preference for chains at least 30 inches in length, purchased a new chain for this pendant. Thank you dear for knowing me so well.
Sunday, our actual anniversary date, we went our separate way in the morning. Claude was off to visit Owingsville Ward and I headed to Georgetown to our Ward. We met at the Mexican restaurant for an anniversary lunch. Then Claude headed home and I went to sit with my mom for an hour.
When I got back to Sadieville we had a couple of hours to rest so I read some more in my novel. Then we loaded ourselves into the Jeep and headed to Lexington.
The production was excellent. All the wonderful songs you know from this musical were performed during the play, "Tradition", "Matchmaker, Matchmaker", "If I Were a Rich Man", "Sabbath Prayer", "Sunrise, Sunset", and "Far From the Home I Love". During the intermission, I could hear people coming in and out of the theater humming or quietly singing, "If I Were a Rich Man". I have to say as I watch Tevye performing that number I could see Claude on the hill working this summer and singing that like Tevye when he thought no one was looking. His arms in the arm and his feet stamping out the rhythm in a little dance. I told him about this during the intermission and he had a grin. I assured him I would be checking frequently to see if he was out there singing while he worked.
I truly believe my favorite song in the play though is "Do You Love Me?" All these changes are happening to Tevye and Golda as their oldest three daughters get married. They are not sticking with that 'tradition' everyone has always known. It causes Tevye to reflect on his life with Golda. Theirs was an arranged marriage. They met on their wedding day. They both express their nervousness at this. In the song, Teyve asks Golda, "Do you love me?" Her musical response is a listing of all the things she has done for him during the 27 (I think that number is accurate) years together. The point being, it must be love is I did all of this and stayed with you during poverty and everything else. But Teyve wants to hear the words and he continues with musically asking Golda, "Do you love me?" Eventually they end with they do love each other, not that saying this out loud makes them love each other, but saying it is "just good to hear". It is just a sweet and tender piece of music and expresses a wonderful view of marriage and how love is expressed. I found it totally appropriate for our anniversary and for a Valentine's Day song.
We both totally enjoyed this stage production of "Fiddler on the Roof". I promptly stood for the standing ovation at the end. It was a great date for our anniverary.
This morning was Valentine's Day. We usually don't do much for Valentine's Day. Claude always bought each of our kids a box of Valentine's candy when they were little. He now gets something sweet for each of the grandmonsters. But our celebrating is our anniversary the day before. But, this morning I fixed me a glass of orange juice for breakfast and then set out to wash dishes from the day before. (That's right, I do not do my dishes everyday. And I have NO issue with that.) I turned around from my dishwashing to get something off the island. Claude had quietly set a bag of 'Chocolate Turtles' on the island to surprise me. One of my favorite animals in candy form, and chocolate candy at that. What a guy!! He was scoring BIG points the last few days. I have saved the bag and when we sit to watch a movie tonight, or Monk, or whatever, we'll share this delightful little treat for our Valentine's Day celebration.
Now...the funny from this morning. I know this will lose something in the telling over the actual experience but I want to remember what a cute moment it was.
Claude and I both woke up about the same time this morning. I rolled over and asked him if he was going to City Hall before his meeting. He told me he was. I said, "Then, when you return, you'll find me right here (meaning, still in bed). He chuckled at that and assured me, knowing my lack of ability to sit still for long, I would be up well before that time. I told Claude I had stayed in bed all day before, of course, I had just had major surgery both times, but I did stay in bed all day. Another chuckle from Claude. Then we agreed that he is better at 'resting' than I am. Our kids will get a chuckle out of that!! Next we somehow managed to get to sleeping like a stone or something. The end comment was Claude saying, "I'm like my favorite stone. I'm a sedentary stone." This caused major laughter on my part. My hubby had a major in college of geology. Think about his comment and then my laughter. Finally I composed myself enough to say, "I believe the rock is called 'sedimentary' rock...not sedentary stone." Then Claude had to laugh as well. I'm tellin' ya...old age can be quite funny!!
Next funny of this morning...
I called Andie to check on Hayden. He has not been well again this weekend. There was question of his being able to go to school today. This was to be his class Valentine's party and Andie didn't want him to miss it. So, I called to see if he made it to school and how he was doing. Bailey was within ear shot of the phone conversation. I heard her come up to Andie and ask, "Who are you talking to?" Andie did just what she used to be able to do to Hayden and said, "I'm talking to Darlene." Darlene is my middle name. I can only guess the expression on Bailey's face as she tried to process who in the world 'Darlene' was. Andie asked her if she would like to talk to Darlene. Bailey said yes and Andie handed the phone to Bailey. I said, "Hello, is this Bailey Marx?" Short pause as her little brain processed. Then she said, "This is not Darlene...this is Ma!!" I tried to explain to her that my name is Sandra Darlene Lawrence Christensen. But dear little Bailey was adamant, "No, your name is MA!!" It is fun to mess with their little heads a bit every now and then.
I have had a great anniversary and Valentine's Day is turning out great as well.
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