Happy Anniversary and Birthday

Happy 4th Birthday, San and happy Anniversary Jenne

There are no photos from the weekend, as the weather and lighting conditions (thick haze, thin cloud layer, rain, hail) while we were away didn't make for good photo ops, and I really just wanted to focus my time and attention on Jenne and not the camera. WOW! It was thirteen years ago today - it was a Saturday and it had lightly snowed in the early morning - Jenne and I were married. I'm not sure what thirteen years is suppossed to feel like, but it doesn't 'feel' like thirteen years. Somehow it feels shorter than that.

I can clearly remember the night we met at the dance at the Star Trek convention. I remember our first kiss, our first dinner at the Hunt Valley Schezuan and I remember our first date on a Wednesday night, we saw the movie Batman. I remember trips to Knoebles amusement park, a day trip to Great Falls (a photo from that trip sits on her dresser), going dancing at the now long gone Power Plant in Baltimore. There's that first trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving to meet her family. Her dad called me Ed and her mom called me Lance. I remember the fun times in the apartment, buying our home together, and the many anniversary celebrations at the South Mountain Inn. It sort of all blends together after a while and the time between events seems somehow compressed. This year we celebrated at the Bavarian Inn, a favorite spot. We went for a nice hike in the footsteps of the Irish Brigade at Antietam (Jenne wanted to do this), but the hike turned out to be much longer than we thought it would and we did too much after a sedentary winter. After the hike we checked into the inn and immediately made use of the jacuzzi bath in our luxury suite. I think we could have fallen asleep right then. We had a lovely dinner in the main dinning room and a nice early evening back in the suite. Sunday we came home early because of the rain and spent the day at home with the cats.

Speaking of the cats, today is Missy San's fourth birthday. Again there's that odd sense of time. It feels like we just picked up Poe and San a few days ago and they turned from kittens to cats in the blink of an eye. Every morning when I wake up San is laying between my calves in a little ball. She sleeps there most of the night, but I barely notice. I call to her and she bounces up to my head, meows a kitty good morning to me and I lift the covers. She crawls under, makes a little turn, rolls onto her side and kneeds my chest with front paws (not declawed). She purrs and I stroke her fur and rub her belly. This is our morning routine. Sometimes it's a two or three times a night routine. She's a very demanding little girl, but I wouldn't give her up for anything.