anniversaire

If you want good food in this town, get Chinese takeout, go to la taqueria en la carniceria, or stop by the drive-through gyro place with "expresso." They are all great. The gyros are in fact so impressive that we had the guy cater our wedding. And if you tell him you're Orthodox you might get a side of Greek history. But if you want to go out for your anniversary, here are your non-chain choices:

1. Great thin crust pizza with huge unhealthy delicious chef salads in a terrible atmosphere
2. Decent pizza in a dumpy, exposed atmosphere that makes me feel agoraphobic
3. Exactly the same decent pizza, made by schismatics from #2, in an equally dumpy, more private atmosphere, with better bathrooms
4. Upper-mediocre Chinese buffet out by Wal*Mart
5. Sit-down Chinese dining with intimate atmosphere and good location but rumors of too many health code violations
6. Crappy Chinese buffet with way too much American food, but with EXCELLENT crab rangoons
7. A "picturesque," riverside Applebee's-level overpriced crappy restaurant with a nice bar
8. Over-priced, underwhelming, burger place with a good selection of craft brews (a miracle in this town,) but a most unfortunate, cheap, obnoxious Margaritaville theme
9. Big, sassy, well-established Mexican place with a pretty standard Americanized menu. Everybody likes it.
10. Less sassy, newer, Mexican place with fairly diverse, more authentic menu. Some people love it.
11. A fledgling Peruvian/Mexican restaurant which we've really liked so far, but with a depressing atmosphere and no liquor license yet


And I think that's pretty much it. Hometown friends, let me know if I forgot anything. Coming soon: A New York Bagel place and a Japanese steak house???

Anyway we chose #6. I hadn't been there since I was a kid and Matt had of course never been there. The place was a little sad, but we still had fun, and as noted above, the crab rangoons were excellent! I think it's a good omen when on your anniversary, you both get almost exactly the same fortune:

You will make many changes before setting satisfactory. (Hers)
You will make changes before setting satisfactorily. (His)

I don't think "setting" can function intransitively. If you read "setting" as "settling" then his makes grammatical sense and mine still doesn't. But I get the point. Funny that I'm going to make "many" changes and he will just make changes.

He gave me a neatly wrapped copy of St. John Chrysostom's homilies On Marriage and Family Life (which he had plucked from our bookshelf,) with a note tucked inside promising the bearer six nights of reading and discussing the book in bed with her husband. I could not have been happier, and promptly redeemed the first night (On 1st Corinthians 7.) I told you he was a Good Husband!

I am getting rounder. I waddle, creak and groan a bit, although I feel good overall. It feels strange to grow so much in only one part of your body. One's balance becomes a bit compromised. I'm looking forward to warmer weather when I can spend more time moving and getting used to this body outside, rather than slugging about inside. I'm just starting to realize that when the belly starts to swell, the belly button begins to turn inside out, and it's really the only thing that has disturbed me so far. I do not like it. I do not mind being fat (and in fact wish I were fatter) but I do not like a part of my body turning inside out. Not at all. Ew, I don't even want to think about it.