My husband has turned into quite a reader - he's got nothing on the ravenous reader, of course, but he eats up at a couple of books a month. Time was, he did well to slog through a novel a year. As a matter of fact, I used to buy him a hardcover book on his birthday in October, and that usually lasted him until our anniversary in May when I'd get him another one. No more. In fact, our anniversary's coming up next week, and I'm having a hard time thinking of an appropriate a gift. Oh, I could buy him a book - in fact, he's got his eye on the new Michael Connelly noveI. But I feel the need to do something special -it's our 35th anniversary, and that seems worthy of more than the usual gift, or even of dinner and a movie. At this point in our relationship, we tend to celebrate with experieces, rather than with objects. After all, when you've been married this long, what more "stuff" do you really need? (My husband would qualify that by saying, "only if the stuff in mind has four very large tires and an even larger engine.")
I was thinking about a concert - I could get tickets to any number of events coming up. American Idols Tickets, Dancing With The Stars Tickets, Cirque Du Soleil Tickets, Zac Brown Band Tickets, even some Britney Spears Tickets. All advertised on line and easy to get - not necessarily cheap, but easy.
But there's something I'm always wanting to do on our anniversary, and for one reason or another we never have the chance. We were married in a small chapel in the middle of Greenfield Village, a park of historic homes founded by the Ford family. In fact, the Martha Mary Chapel inside the village was built in the early 1900's by Henry Ford, and named in honor of his mother and mother in law. Anyway, I always think it would be so romantic to go back there on our anniversary date, and go inside the chapel right at noon, the time of our wedding, and then go have lunch in the Dearborn Inn down the street where we held our reception.
In 35 years, we've never once done that.
I think it's about time we did.