I told Donna I’d cook tonight. What I have in mind is chicken satay, which I like to serve with a sweet & sour cucumber salad and frites. Since we had neither cucumber nor potatoes I stopped at Safeway.
Oh, I picked up some flowers for Donna, too, seeing as how it’s our anniversary (come to think of it, that’s why I volunteered to cook). People are always surprised to learn we’ve been married as long as we have. The fact that we were married when we were both 19 never struck us as strange: a lot of young couples marry at that age. But we got hitched on the 2nd of December, 1965, and when I do the math and see that it’s been 47 years, it hits me that we have indeed been together a long time.
I remember asking my folks, when I was 10, what year Halley’s Comet would come round again. The answer was 1986, 30 years in the future. At 10, 30 years is a number beyond infinity. Why, I’d be 40! I couldn’t imagine living that long or being that old! My mother and father were barely out of their 20s! The only people I knew who were older than 40 were my grandparents, and they were practically fossils!
But I lived another 30 years. I made it to 40 and saw Halley’s Comet (a great disappointment, by the way, not nearly as spectacular as Comet Kohoutek, back in 1973). I’ve now lived long enough to seem like a fossil to my own grandchildren. And I’ve been married to Donna Rae Giustina for 47 years. Strangely, apart from my knees, I don’t feel old. I don’t think Donna does either. Surprisingly, we can still stand each other. And so it goes.
I spent part of the morning surrounded by Ducks. Ducatis, that is, and their riders. Polly learned that the local Ducati club meets at the corner coffee shop Sunday mornings, so I rode down with her to provide spiritual backup while she introduced herself to this pack of total strangers. After the first ten minutes she seemed comfortable with her new friends, maybe a little more so when another woman Monster rider showed up. There were 25 to 30 Ducati riders this morning and they were planning to ride up to Windy Point for a group Christmas photo shoot. That’s on the way up Mount Lemon and Polly hasn’t ridden mountain roads yet, but I told her to ride at the back and stay within her comfort zone, then cut her loose. But not before taking a few photos of the group:
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Update (later, same morning): Polly’s back from her Mount Lemon ride with the Ducati club, safe and sound and fired up about the experience. She’s in the middle of this group photo, and her bike (the oldest one there!) is on the left.
Just want to say one thing about streaming TV. I love it. I’m halfway through Season Two of Breaking Bad on Netflix streaming. If you’re looking for a way to treat yourself for Christmas, streaming is the cat’s ass. Just sayin’.