Tag: anniversary

The Message of Love

I thought a great deal about getting the husband something thoughtful to mark the dozen years we have spent in each other’s company. I remembered a friend of ours mentioning that ‘Things Remembered ‘ is the store to go to make your special one feel more special. I had the foresight to check out something useful and settled on something that sounded useful enough( A 2GB USB keychain) Other things on the site like a heart shaped pendant on a gold chain etc don’t exactly look like the sort of things the husband would touch with a barge pole.

The important thing about the USB keychain is that it has the engravings of love, the mark of true labor on it.  I spent a good hour checking out cheesy quotes on love that he can carry forever on his engraved USB. I wracked the brains of Jane Austen, Henry James Thoreaux,, P. G. Wodehouse. Nobody was spared as I made studious notes of quotations on love with an element of humor. I even went to see what Mahatma Gandhi had to say on that unquantifiable yet, so satiating a force. Not satisfied with him, I went to plumb the depths of Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein. I spent a further hour pondering over all the beautiful things about love.

I loved Dr Seuss’s quote: You know you are in love, when you cannot fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams.

That would not work in our case, because as much in love as I am with him, I fall asleep. In fact, the more I love him, the more I sleep. As for the husband, that would have meant that his love for me has kept him awake long before he knew me. He has been a night owl for as far as I can remember.

Maybe, this will be more apt, since we both like our laughs:

From there to here

From here to there

Funny things are everywhere

I then thought of what makes him so curious and thought this would suit him better:

Think and Wonder

Wonder and Think

However, I could not help thinking that he would wonder why on Earth I went in for a 2 GB USB card to pour my heart into and shelved the quote.

Maybe a scientist at heart will be better suited for him: To love, be loved and be lovable.

Or maybe, Love is like PI: Natural, Irrational and very important. 

But neither of these would do. Einstein was not my notion of a romantic thinker.

By now, the lady in the shop was skipping over me. She was positively amazed at all the pages I was writing and nodded her approval and told me to take my time. After a further 1/2 hour of agonizing over the right words, I settled for one of these, depending on what would fit the available area:

Where there is love, there is life – Mahatma Gandhi Or

There is no remedy for love but to love more. – Henry James Thoreaux Or

Love is the greatest refreshment in life – Pablo Picasso 

night owl

I finally went over to the shop assistant and told her I was ready. She pranced over to see what my notes and research had yielded. I saw her eyes light up at the number of pages I had filled out.

She asked me to write my final choices on the order paper and started counting words.

I felt like I was back at the Village Post Office giving a telegram: “Father coming Stop Mother also coming stop “

When I saw the Postmaster counting the words out, the editor in me reared up and said, “Wait a minute! You charge by word? Father and Mother coming stop. No Wait. Father comma mother coming stop.”

I felt a bit weak. I asked her what she was counting words for and she told me that every word to be engraved was charged separately. I hadn’t counted on brevity being the theme of love. In fact, I wished myself back at the Post Office and I could say, “Please send a telegram with message #29: Wedding Anniversary Greetings”.

I saw the amount she came up with and hollered at her to stop while I racked my brains for something short and sweet.

I could only think of that wonderful message we flash to anyone who stops by our home: Live, Laugh, Love. It is what is there on our doormat and sighed myself out.

While waiting for the thing, I checked what the non-engraved thing cost on Amazon. I could find a set of four for $10, while I had just paid $50 for one that has the same message as our doormat on it.

Well…such is life and one must not put a price on the gift of love. Happy Anniversary to Us!

The Waiter’s Opinion of Me

We’d gone out to dinner. Alone. Together I mean. What I mean is we went together but sans the remaining brood. So, we spent time actually looking at the menu and wondering aloud where the past decade had flown by. It was the occasion of our tenth wedding anniversary. With the latest addition to the nest, our dinner conversations at restaurants resemble rhinos hobnobbing with flying monkeys. Some heavy lifting; snorts and sighs evenly distributed and atleast one flying object caught deftly by the super bowler of the Roadside Cricket League of Chennai followed by a heavy tip.

Consequently, the dinner alone felt like a movie in slow motion. There we were sitting with both buttocks firmly on chairs. I mean this quite seriously, but it has been months since I sat firmly at a restaurant chair. The waiter came in and handed us a bowl of bread and we started nibbling. Pretty soon, we had chatted our way through almost the whole bowl.

The waiter came on again, adjusted his bulging tummy and performed the daily specials with ado. He let the chicken roll on his tongue and he caught the slippery oysters and bathed them in tomato sauce. But of course, we being vegetarians, we enjoyed the performance and then told the old blighter that while we admire his recitation, what we want is the baked oyster creole de-lol sans the oyster.
I could feel him frost inside. I mean maitre d’s don’t spend their afternoons rehearsing the virtues of the creme boulignon de salmon and the oyster creme de la creme or whatever it was to be patted on their backs for learning the tough menu.

“Is cheese alright?” asked he, in a Frosty-the-snowman-ish voice.
“Yes” said the husband
“No” said the wife.

Did I mention it was our tenth anniversary dinner?

We do not spar in front of menu reciting waiters and we rounded on each other the moment his back was turned. “Why the cheese?” “Why not the cheese?”

“Poor fellow – did you hear his spirited recitation of the specials? The least we can do is say yes to the cheese!” says the man of my heart. The logic frazzled me and ate the last piece of bread in the bowl, which the fat waiter caught me doing. I could feel him thinking – They sure don’t look it, but do they eat a lot?

A soup went in just as glibly and going by the size of the soup bowl applied some old fashioned extrapolation and ordered exciting items from the menus harping on the theme of the evening viz. flora is fine, but fauna is not.

The entrees made their dramatic entrance – cheese was grated on one and not on the other, and we tucked in. By around the third morsel, we realised that we may have ordered way more than necessary for a dinner for two. The soup was the googly. We decided to box the husband’s entree (it being a more boxable kind of dish – mine being the squishy, mushy gravy filled kind of dish and ate off my dish.)

I have had the opportunity to remark on this tendency of people coming at you when the mouth is full before and I will say it again. Why this thumper of a waiter had to wait till we both had our mouths brimming I don’t know, but he did. Then he comes by and asks if everything is okay. Table manners demand that we finish our morsel, but to keep the already specials-deprived waiter waiting for an answer seems cruel. So, you take your napkin and nod vigorously (which in different countries mean different things) and smile and hope that the smile will signal the benevolence and then realise you have been smiling into your napkin. You then swallow a hot lot and eyes watering tell him everything is just perfect thank you. He looks at the dish in front of me – almost half gone, and the husband’s nibbled at. The glance was merely perfunctory I assure you, but it was there nevertheless.

I don’t mean to boast, but give us a task like this and we rock. We had polished off the dish in front of me beautifully. Not a scrap left. The waiter arrived again and we asked him for a to-go box for the other dish. “Sure Madam” he said and came along with the box.

I have a confession to make: Achilles may have had a heel to trip him up. I have Tiramusu. Offer me that and you have a benevolent, mellow cat. The Tiramusu came and the husband being the chivalrous what-not asks the waiter to put it front of me.

I wonder whether you notice a trend here – place everything in front of me, while he contributes equally to stuffing in the load. The proper waiter now really can’t help wondering “How on earth? I mean! How does she eat so much?” As per usual we lick the Tiramusu clean and the waiter arrives. But now, I feel guilty.

On our way out, I ask him how many calories the Tiramusu was. He says :”720 Madam. Is that okay?”
“Fine! Just fine!” I assure him. I can feel the unasked question again and say, “Since we both ate it. So, I mean the whole dinner…” The husband tugs me away…”Why are you explaining to him?” I grin sheepishly and wave him good night.

I don’t mind eating like a glutton err…gourmand, but I don’t want random waiter guy judging me for it. He waves back and looks forlorn at his own bulging tummy.

We decided to walk a couple of miles before turning in. And that is the story of our dinner alone. Glad to have it off my chest.

PS: The waiter was a jolly old soul who reminded me of Old King Cole