Five years

Our anniversary was yesterday so hopefully after today I can stop talking about it. I feel like I've been talking about it all week. We've been married for five years now—that's 20% of my lifetime. Yesterday was also day five on Emily's wedding countdown as well as Sarah's five-month-versary. It was a cosmic day, though most of it was really quite ordinary.

I worked and watched children. Andrew worked on (and finally finished) his final—it only took him nine hours to write! After he sent it into the teacher we got ready to head out for the evening. Rachel went to my parents' house to play and Miriam stayed with Andrew's parents.

We had a whole list of things to do but didn't end up getting to everything on our list because we got hopelessly lost doing item #1—picking up Andrew's "present," a bunch of games I found listed on Freecycle.org. My great-uncle Clyde would have loved Freecycle. He was a penny-pincher to the very end—I even recall a story of him finding a box of cookware for Aunt Beulah at the dump that had never been used and giving it to her for Christmas. Of course, there's a chance that I am making all of this up since I haven't heard this story for a very long time. Still, if it was Uncle Clyde happened to have an affinity for junk then I'm sure he would have loved Freecycle (also, the internet).

Unfortunately Andrew switched the coordinates of the address we were supposed to pick the games up at and we got hopelessly lost...after we realized we were lost in the first place. We pulled up to the house and everything was how it should have been—there was even a little sunporch in the front, though it was really little and more like a mudroom than a sunporch. Still, it looked like it should have been the right house.

I went up and knocked on the door. No one answered.

Inside I could hear people singing. Someone was playing the piano. All the lights were on.

I knocked again. No one answered.

The lady had told me in her email that I would have to go into the sunporch to knock on the door. So I turned the handle of the door and pushed. The door didn't budge.

I walked down the stairs and searched the front of the building for a house number.

"It's not the right number!" I yelled to Andrew, who was waiting in the car, "Good thing no one answered the door!"

I walked down the sidewalk to the next house. It wasn't the right number either. We deliberated for a minute before driving to BYU campus to use their wifi connection. I double checked my email and found that we had the address completely wrong, so with the correct address in hand we were on our way again, depending on the logical, grid-like nature of Utah roads to guide us to the house without error, albeit with a lot of back-tracking.

When we backtrack we like to pretend that we are seeing things for the first time and act really excited about it. It makes the whole ordeal seem less frustrating. We especially enjoy pointing out things that we don't like with great enthusiasm.

"Ooh! A sushi place!" I squealed, "We should go there!"

"No, no, no. That tattoo parlor! Let's go there!" said Andrew.

Neither of us like sushi, nor do we have any desire to tattoo ourselves.

"Payday advance?" I asked.

"Fastfood?" Andrew offered.

No thank you.

Our enthusiasm had fully dissolved by the time we reached 100 South and our conversation grew much more sincere.

"Aw, there's the tabernacle," I mentioned, "It's so pretty! I haven't been inside for years."

What was a completely trivial comment last night took a turn for the ironic this morning when we woke up to the news that we'd never again go inside that beautiful building because late last night when we were all in bed...the Provo Tabernacle burned to the ground. The fire actually started at around 2:30 AM and it was such an inferno that the firemen couldn't do much for it. It burned all day long today—my cousin Eric caught some cool footage—and is pretty much a skeleton by now, though the fire is smoldering instead of raging.

The intricate stained-glass windows. The beautiful pipe organ. The Minerva Teichert original. Gone.

I will never say anything is pretty ever again lest it, too, burn to the ground.

We found the house we were looking for several blocks past the tabernacle and I got my games. I gave Andrew a wooden sudoku game and a game called Bandu. I saved the coolest game for his Christmas present; I'm really excited about it. Even though it smells like old people.

After we picked up our loot we tried to get on the freeway but we missed the entrance and ended up underneath the overpass instead of on the overpass. It was like driving into sudden oblivion; there's nothing under that overpass. I don't even know why the road goes there. We turned around as soon as we could and made our way to Jasmine Thai Lao (formerly Thai Chili Gardens), which is no Bua Khao but it was the best we could do since we're about as far away from Bua Khao as we can possibly be.

Much to my horror they didn't have spicy cashew chicken—our friend Ben told us they wouldn't (he served his mission in Thailand and knows much more about Thai food than we do; though I know that dish is a genuine Thai dish since Bua Khao is about as authentic as you get)—so instead I got a sweet and sour dish that sounded good. Andrew actually recommended it to me.

"Hey, this sounds good!" he said.

I looked at the description.

"Oh, yeah, it does!"

"I think I'll get it!"

"Even with the tomatoes?"

"Maybe I'll ask for no tomatoes."

"Cucumbers?"

"Yeah. So no tomatoes or cucumbers."

"Celery?"

"Ew, no."

"Onions?"

"No."

"Green peppers?"

"No."

"So basically you'd ask for this dish but to have the cook leave off everything but the pineapple."

"Yeah. Maybe I should order something else."

I ended up getting the pad priaw wan (sweet and sour) and he got the spicy pad ped, which came with onions, green peppers, and bamboo. Much to my surprise he kept the bamboo for himself and only gave me the green peppers and onions—it was his first time eating bamboo, which he said was the least vile of the vegetables on his plate since they're more like eating a noodle than a vegetable (this is a good thing because it means that when I make stir-fry at home I can include bamboo now). Both dishes were delicious.

We had the restaurant pretty much to ourselves but when we were about halfway through our meal another couple came in. They asked for a recommendation. Our waitress said,

"Oh, the pad priaw wan is simply delicious! It's just a simple sweet and sour dish with pineapple, an assortment of vegetables, and your choice of meat. But if you're looking for something a little spicier I'd recommend the spicy pad ped."

Andrew and I both stared at our plates with big eyes.

"We ordered the best things on the menu!" Andrew whispered excitedly.

"Or maybe they just made pad priaw wan and spicy pad ped, have leftovers, and want to use it up instead of having to make an entirely new dish," I said.

That set us into a fit of giggles. I don't know how waiters and waitresses are supposed to make their recommendations but that was the first idea that thought had ever crossed my mind—they certainly don't have our best interest at heart and, likely, if it is on the menu the chef is bound to think it is a recommendable dish. Still, overhearing her announce the very dishes to the next set of patrons to walk in the door was hilarious.

But then again, maybe we just really do have good taste.

After dinner we headed back to Provo for desert. We had two places in mind: Sub Zero Ice Cream, where we first discussed "the future" of "us" back in October 2005, and The Cocoa Bean Cafe, which was introduced to us just last Wednesday by someone on Andrew's team in his MPA program—they have really yummy cupcakes. Both places are in the same little strip mall so we debated where we should go on our drive down there. In the end cupcakes won out over ice cream because it was so stinking cold outside.

Unfortunately we found out they have a cupcake schedule so the fabulous lemon-raspberry cupcake I had last Wednesday (and have been dreaming about since) wasn't available. Instead I got key lime, which was good but not as good. Andrew got chocolate-raspberry cheesecake and he was more pleased with that than with the cupcake he had on Wednesday.

When we were finished with that we drove back to Orem to play a round of mini-golf at Trafalga. I had originally intended for us to drive past the Riverwoods mall and walk through their Christmas light display before driving to the Lehi Trafalga but we were running low on time due to getting lost for so long in Provo. It's just as well since we had to get home to get back to work and finals.

I almost beat him. I got 61. He got 60.

I was ahead of him until the last few holes.

Next time I will beat him, I'm sure, since I now know how to hold the club right. The last time (before this time) we played mini-golf I was using the club like a croquet mallet until he reminded me that we were actually playing golf. Right. I'm really great at sports. As you can tell.

And that was the end of our evening out. It was nice to spend time together with out due dates looming over our heads, although once we were in the door it was back to business. The server at my job was down for two whole days which meant that I've been struggling to catch up all week. I should have my hours in by tomorrow, though. Andrew, on the other hand, finished his last paper of the semester this afternoon so now he's free, too. Except for work and everything.

I'm really looking forward to having a "break" for the next two weeks!