Love and Food.

Our love was manifest throughout the apartment.

Tom will be working until one o'clock tonight. That's what he's scheduled for anyway, when he actually will show up is anyone's guess. I will miss him of course but since so much has been put off in the way of housework while I've been enjoying his company, I am glad to have an evening to work on things like bathtub scrubbing and cabinet painting.

You are thinking now, "Enjoying his company?" Yes, thanks, we had our 2nd wedding anniversary on Monday. Tom was able to get Saturday, Sunday and Monday off giving us a quantity of quality time. We were incredibly happy almost the whole time! We did have to fit a fight in while we had the opportunity or we'd never get around to it.

I won't bore you with the details of the time passed by two people in love, I will just say that having him home was enough of a novelty that we might as well been in the most romantic place on Earth: a very perfect anniversary.

The conventional and the less-usual signifiers of a romantic weekend: Scattered "Victory Points" and card-protected, alien-themed cards represent much of what made our weekend so wonderful.

Last year I believe I wrote a blog entry about what I'd learned in my first year of marriage. I don't have as clear an idea this year of what I learned in general, although, I do feel much more at peace with dependency. I have always been reluctant to accept help, gift and instruction... mostly instruction or what I like to call, "Being told what to do." But I have had a breakthrough with this thanks to my love of food. Maybe it even came earlier, with Art History and my realization that school is actually a worthwhile endeavor and professors have valuable knowledge to impart after-all. But I have noticed the change most vividly in this: I now use recipes.

Who knew all this time that I was better off listening to someone else when it came to something that I was never taught how to do nor had ever attempted much with? Who knew that all those tablespoons and teaspoons added up to something I couldn't have produced otherwise?

This all came about with my foray into baking undoubtedly brought about by some craving some night, or maybe by something deeper, like a desire for quaint domestication that comes from something still deeper like the instinctive yearning to comfort and nurture... I don't remember now.

Anyway, you have to follow the recipe when you bake and after a number of successes in that arena I decided to crack a few of my gifted cookbooks and see what else I could accomplish with some outside help. I took advantage, this weekend, of the fact that Tom could drive me to the store and bought every last thing I would need for a handful of real recipes.

Shopping is all too often the hauling home of a backpack full by bus and by foot, with Tom picking up the super-perishables on the way home from work. We no longer even live in the same town as a Mattson-standard grocery store so, I've gotta tell you, a ride is a huge relief and the results of the serious shopping were seriously worth it.

This weekend we had polenta with eggs and mushrooms, pumpkin and spice muffins, the best pancakes in the world, margaritas from scratch and Tom's unbeatable guacamole, candle-lite Chinese chicken salad and spaghetti and meatballs with beef, pork and lamb.

That'salottameatball.

Life is very delicious when you embrace the idea of being told what to do. And when you accept accepting gifts. Last night Dad was in town and took us out to Cafe Zenon as an anniversary present. Tom and I both got the prosciutto-wrapped salmon with every other heavenly thing... maybe that wasn't exactly what it was called. I also ordered the last slice of chocolate chiffon cake with raspberries and really made the most of Dad's generosity and my somewhat new-found ability to accept it guiltlessly.

The second year also taught me an unfortunate amount about the dangers of dependency - depending too much on a husband and not on God. Having my husband at work more than he was home for three-quarters of the year was a rough way to learn this lesson, but I'm hoping the crash course will prove itself valuable in year three, the year which I hopefully entitle: Preparing for Baby, in which it is also hoped that Tom won't be working quite so much. This year has definitely prepared me for the irregular hours and sacrifice of romance that a baby promises, and I'm actually kinda thankful for that, though I would have never intentionally chosen it.

All in all? Food: good. Love: good. Future: lookin' pretty good too.

Happy 2nd Anniversary, Tom! I love you like a crazy.