My Lucky Ball And Chain: 10 Years
9/10/1

Ho ho ho, it�s my 10-year wedding anniversary. I got Aisai about 10 small gifts and she got me three fairly large ones.

At first, the limit of what we could spend on each other was only $50. I got her two packs of Chococat stickers which you can�t get in the US, an Etruscan ring and Egyptian earrings [the ones that look like flies] from The Museum Company, and a silverish [I don�t remember if it is sterling or not] yoyo with our names, the date 9/10/1, and �Ten Years� engraved on one side.

I had joked with Aisai that I had gotten her a yoyo for our anniversary for a while. I actually had. The reason that I got it was because I wanted something that was engraved and I could get that for less than $10. The $50 limit was irritating.

So, a few weeks ago, we raised the limit by another $50. I got Aisai the Ali Akbar Kahn CD �Journey� [which still hasn�t come in], Dusty Springfield�s �Dusty In Memphis� the Rhino Records version with more extra material than original material on it, a little Spock beanie babyish type thing...Hmm, what else. Oh, the old 3M game �Foil�, which I had never heard of either but I�m a big fan of Venture. The Foil set that I got was from 1966 and the cards had not even been opened. Ha.

I can�t remember what else, lots of stuff. We were supposed to make gift baskets for each other, but since we got so busy, it was last night around 8 that Aisai said to me, �Man, tomorrow is our anniversary.�

Today we have lots and lots of stuff going on. We�re taking food to the lady who lost her baby last week, we have our visitation meeting for church at Gibson�s Barbeque, and then we have to clean the house because we have the college age kids coming over tomorrow night. I�m sure we�ll only have three, but I still need to vacuum, get those dishes done, and if it would ever stop raining, mow the lawn.

Alabama is in a zone that is considered subtropical. You can really tell as the seasons change since in the fall and spring we seem to get lots of rain. I believe that we actually get lots of rain in the summer, but since it always evaporates off instantly, it really doesn�t matter.

I don�t feel like checking the climate data right now.

So, what did Aisai get me? I got an Arctic Silver phone cover [a Nokia, not some cheap mall crap that doesn�t fit] for my 3390, a Cross Ion pen, my ring resized, and a Tamagotchi.

Tamagotchi is in the Microsoft Word spell check?

Aisai was great in that she got the color of pen, silver and black with orange, that I wanted without my actually designating which one I wanted until I emailed her my birthday list. The Ion pen is very small so now I can start getting away from wearing pocket T-shirts constantly to work.

I don�t have to dress up. I work in a lab daily.

Now, the Tamagotchi. You�re probably saying, �How do you have time for raising one of those with work, sleep, etc?� Unfortunately I don�t. I�ll keep it in it�s little box until our vacation, but even that is only a week long. I plan on being good at it, so it should live into the 20s [days that is].

I also made some cookies over the weekend. I tend to make these killer cookies to take to people for visitation, and then I never get to eat them. So I made some for Aisai and I, and picked up some ice cream while I was at it. All total, it was nearly $20 for the two DVDs I rented and the snacks. But it wasn�t that easy.

I leave work on Friday at 3:15 and head to the Food World that I know has a Redstone [my brand] ATM. It was out of order, so I drive over to the Redstone and use their ATM. Then, since Food World is still the closest grocery store, I go there and they don�t have the Betty Crocker Double Chocolate Chip mix. Grr. I leave and, since I was going to go by the Movie Gallery near the Kroger in Madison [oh, 15 miles away] I go to that Kroger. Kroger�s selection is crap and the prices are so high. I wasn�t able to get my Double Chocolate and I couldn�t get a bag of unsalted cashews to add to the cookies. I got Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip and a tin of unsalted mixed nuts.

When the oven was preheating, I sorted nuts. No peanuts and few almonds was my goal. I put about a cup of cashews, almonds, macadamia nuts, and brazil nuts into the mix. I made six oversized cookies.

Man, I�m in a writey mood today. I may be able to pop off a �When I worked at the Vet� entry later. But there is still so much about the weekend...I�ll probably do a weekend one since this was more an anniversary one.

Ten years ago, when Aisai and I got married: I drove a 1990 Mazda 323 and worked at Hardee�s while I worked my way through journalism school with a rhetorical theory degree. Aisai worked at United Mailing, a hellhole, and was taking some time off school, which she has never really liked. She was driving a 1984 Chevy Celebrity station wagon at the time. I didn�t change to chemical engineering until the summer of 1992. We were poor as dirt, had a cat named Dakota [which we actually spelled Dakoda, being trendy, but no one would spell it that way on her records], moved into a hellish apartment complex, but it was good times. I think.