Anniversary

 

Yesterday the Mrs. and I celebrated 25 years of marriage. A quarter of a century. Damn, that’s a long time. We went out to one of our favorite restaurants last night and had a good time. I treated myself to lobster fettucine; the wife had sea bass over risotto.

 

We’re kind of tapped out financially. There are college and high school graduation parties and gifts on the horizon, as well as air fare and car rental fees to move my youngest in to her college in the northeast, dental and eye surgery for the dog, heavy duty maintenance on my Corolla and my daughter’s Accord, necessary home repair and bills, bills, bills. So we decided that next year, our 26th, will be our REAL 25th Anniversary. We’re going to take four or five days off and drive out west a couple of hours. Find a nice B&B where there’s history to explore, good food, and relax and get away from it all. Something to look forward to.

 

A lot’s happened in that quarter century. Two children, both now young adults, both on their way to their vocations and living and thriving with varying degrees of independence. Most importantly, both healthy. We’ve lived in three states in two apartments and two houses. Ten or twelve cars. The Mrs. has held four or five  jobs, always onward and upward when she moved on. Me, with my health issues 15 years ago, haven’t been so lucky. I’ve been treading water with 9 jobs and left each one due to layoffs or geographical relocation.

 

There have been times of plenty and times of scarcity. New friends and old friends, friends that came and friends that, sadly, have left. I wrote two manuscripts and 15 or 20 short stories that reside on a flash drive. I’ve written three or four album’s worth of songs. I’ve done a couple hundred workouts and walked a couple hundred miles. More importantly, I’ve read just shy of a thousand books, more than a handful being exceptionally moving and beautiful and changed me profoundly.

 

We’ve seen several close loved ones pass on, and have weathered many, many storms, personal, private, and public. We’ve had arguments big and small, but never went to bed angry with each other. We’re on the same page with most things, and though I find that the Mrs. and I seem to be drifting apart in various ways as we get older – for example, our tastes in entertainment have been changing, with mine becoming more and more conservative and hers become more and more liberal. But despite this, our love has become stronger, cemented in the years and accomplishments we’ve achieved.

 

When I started the Hopper in March of 2009, I was married just under eight years, with a four-year-old and a six-month-old toddling about the house. Now, I’m looking at an empty nest in a few months. Time goes by so so fast. Yes, I’ve distracted myself turning many hundreds of pages over the years but I’ve also reflected a lot on what was happening and recorded many such slices of life here at the Hopper. Every now and then I peruse the archives and reminisce. It’s not a bad way to pass the time.

 

Now, to figure out what to do for the next 25 years …

10 Movies to Get to Know Me

Saw this going around on the Internet recently, and thought I might use it as a jump-start to overcome my negligent lack of posting this year.

 

10 Movies to Get to Know Me

 

(in order that they came to me…)

 

The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Signs (2002)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Watership Down (1978)

Ben Hur (1959)

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

Rear Window (1954)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

 

Not necessarily my favorites, but movies that I see myself in, movies that exemplify me in whole or just significant parts of me, in various ways, shapes, and/or forms. Find out their commonalities, and you have a nice Platonic ideal of your host here at the Hopper.

A nice exercise to try at home in your down time.

The Ark IV

 

Okay, last one.

 

Yesterday I went with some friends to their Baptist church to visit its “Good Friday Experience.”

 

Inside the church lobby there was a huge line which meandered over the course of an hour, until we reached the “Experience” entrance. Over the next hour we moved through darkened corridors from one room to another, each room holding museum-quality exhibitions describing some key events of the Passion: the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Cross and the instruments of torture, the cloth and perfumes to anoint His body. And this, the Ark of the Covenant:

 

Now, as we know, the Ark was lost to history in the year 586 BC. The Ark was included in the exhibition to show us how the curtain inside the Temple – the one that separated the Holy of Holies, the Ark, from the outer Temple – was torn in two, from top to bottom. I took this stealth pic, and in hindsight I should have also taken one closer up from a side angle so you could sense its height and depth. If I stood on the stage, my hips and lowered hands would be equal to the poles extending from the sides. The ark in this picture, to the best of my reasoning, had the same dimensions and same design as the historical Ark.

 

The exhibitions really triggered your tactile senses deep down. I held a replica of the whip which scourged Christ – felt its weight and heft, touched the barbs of bone and stone tied to leather straps that tore into His flesh. I tried lifting the surprisingly heavy Cross. In the Garden a cool night breeze touched our skin – and the soft hooting of owls and other wildlife echoed past. It was an intriguing and worthwhile experience, and something that really furthered my understanding of the Passion.

 

Would definitely recommend.