45 years

My parents celebrated 45 years of marriage as of yesterday. I phoned to congratulate them and they were on their way to a restaurant in town called "Green Acres" (where you can get the Friday Fish Fry or pretty much anything else fried you would like) to use up some gift certificates given to them for this momentous event. We did have a party earlier on this year in June to ring in mom's 65th birthday as well as the anniversary. It's rare to find two people that can stick together for a period of time which reaches these numbers. There was a discussion on NPR the other day about the trends of divorce and the make or break points in marriages. Apparently, the pinch points these days are the three year mark and then again at year twenty or thereabouts. According to the commentator, the three year mark split has to do with marriages which are entered into with the feeling of "I can get out of this at any time" and often the couple feels that they didn't really know one another in the first place, shouldn't haven entered the marriage, all that kind of stuff. Perhaps because of my history and examples set in front of me by may parents, I feel these are rather weak reasons. After three years, how can you know much of anything? Couples and life are continually evolving as will a relationship. One can't expect someone to be just as they were on the day they were married. I also do not enter into anything very seriously unless I have that gut feeling that it's going more than likely work rather than a "wait and see" type of attitude. And this has more than likely prevented me from having, on more than one occasion, a random roll in the hay or two, which looking back, is more than ok. It seems to me that marriage has become rather disposable and people don't try hard enough to stay together. On the other hand, if it truly isn't working out, there are abuse issues, so on and so forth, it is better to call it in early rather than wait for a certain number of years to roll around before you can acceptably call it quits. Then comes in the couples who split around year twenty. These are folks whom usually have kids, eventually send them off to school, then look at the person left in the household sitting across from them at the kitchen table and think "Oh no, I'm not spending another day with them.". These couples grow apart rather than together and they want to get along with the rest of their lives venturing out into new territory now that the kids are out of the house. Often times the mid life crisis kicks in as well and it's time for something new. I have seen this happen many times in the little town where I grew up. People met in high school, got married immediately after or within the next few years, stayed together for the kids and broke it off once they were gone. Often times much more happy apart than together. Which is why I can understand this as well.

I guess I was just fortunate to have parents who actually did really love eachother and figured out ways to stick it out even though there were years when they wanted to strangle eachother. Dad can't live without mom and she sure would miss him if he wasn't around. Although I am confident she would do just fine and may even sleep better at night without his horrendous snoring keeping her awake. I asked mom yesterday what she was feeling like 45 years ago on September 2nd and she said it's hard to recall since it was so long ago. She was excited but afraid of what was ahead. With that, she said over the years she has learned to take things one day at a time and not get too worked up about what life was going to dish up next and for that matter, how many cows her husband was going to bring home for her to figure out how to pay for them. Then she brought up my Grandma's favorite quote, that being "The first hundred years are the hardest", said like a true German grandma. (She was a VERY funny lady with a hilariously dry sense of humor!) So here's to my parents and their dedication to eachother, their family, life's work, and ability to work through, together, whatever life dishes up for them. Miss B and I figured it out and for us to be together for 45 years I will have to make it to age 80. We will see. Two years under the belt so far. And it's really damn good.

We did walk into an alternate universe last night. Our neighbor, George, is a retired Marine who loves to tell a good story, talk our ears off, and help us out from time to time when the truck breaks down, faucet needs to be fixed, etc. He is a San Francisco native and loves to spin a yarn about the old days and his Greek heritage. He is very involved with the Greek festival which goes on in Belmont over the Labor Day weekend every year. Last year he gave us free passes and we didn't use them. Wow did we hear about that! So in order to avoid getting into trouble with George, we got in the car and drove to Belmont for the evening. Let's just say being in Belmont felt as though we had driven more than the half hour drive and had somehow ended up in some made for TV drama. It really was strange. (I know what you are thinking...what else would we expect, right?) Miss B and I deducted that we were more than likely the only visible gays there. And in terms of people of color, we sat next to one African American man and his Asian girlfriend. We were at the diversity table. But who cares about that really because the food was FANTASTIC! The vegan diet got put to the wayside last night and we had the Greek version of "Cheese Pie", dolmas, spanikopita, kalimari, and a gyro. Oh and don't forget the baklavah and two other yummy desserts which I can't remember the name of right now. So good! There was also a live Greek band with people performing traditional dances. Pretty cool. Got us out of our element for an evening and some really good food to boot. More than likely wouldn't go again but it sure did taste good. And it didn't even wreck my stomach today. How about that.

Looking forward to having tomorrow off. There is a party at Mistycans house tonight and we are headed to Zeitgeist this afternoon to kick it off. Parties at her place always end up with people smoking lots of weed and wigs and hats being passed around on different people's heads. Can't wait! Going to take some sort of midwestern dessert. Haven't decided which one as of late. What I do know for sure is that it will be yummy and full of fat.