Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Forty Years

"Dear Diary,

August 25, 1973.   On this day---I settled."


OK--he was teasing me when he said that, and I hit him.  But there it is:  We've been married forty years.  How the heck did that happen?  (Not the marriage--that's been fine--but where the heck did forty years go?????)

I should let Bob write this post--or the next one.  He's far more poetic than I (but I write more often).  Failing poetry, I can only say that the secret to a long and happy marriage is to marry Bob.

So--a celebration is in order.  Once again, Rob and Jeff came to babysit the critters and we went to Jacksonville to spend a day at the zoo.   So to relax, we went the day before to spend the evening on the beach.   The nice thing about the beach on a Saturday night is that all of the other tourists are off hitting the bars.

Late lunch/early dinner was at Joe's Crab Shack.  Don't know what possessed us to order the Seafood Dinner for Two when we normally just split a dinner when we go out.  It had been a long time since breakfast, and we were hungry, but this was a bit much.

Fortunately we had walked there and the walk back helped.  We got in my "glam" shot at the beach, and the obligatory "selfie" (name for holding the camera up for a self portrait).  To be a true 'selfie' it's supposed to be taken with your cell phone and promptly sent to friends, but we did it the quaint old-fashioned way with a (digital) camera.







 
Rather than stay at a chain motel, Bob had found the Casa Marina, which was built around the 1920's in the Spanish Mission style and had an old-world elegant charm.  This is the dining room, set for the huge Sunday brunch (which we didn't have because we wanted to get to the zoo).


And off to the zoo!  We may be old enough to have been married for 40 years, but we're a couple of eight-year-old kids at the zoo (especially Bob).  We visited every animal, rode the little train, and scattered extra dollar bills around buying treats for everything we were allowed to feed.  Although we could have saved our dollar on the cup of nectar for the lorikeets--they seemed to be more interested in savory than sweet and were ignoring the proffered cups and licking Bob instead.
 
 
We fed the giraffes (with their weird foot-long tongues that wrap around the leaves), watched the baby jaguar on his nest-box video, and even went for the 4D Ice Age Ride (mainly because there was a cloudburst and it was inside--but it was fun).
 


Then we found the stingray petting pool.  It was a good thing that we found it later, because I think we would have missed the rest of the zoo if Bob had found it earlier.  He was getting down on his knees so he could reach way over and pat the strange smooth slippery rays as they swam by.   I was fascinated by one that would not only come up to us, but would even stick his head out of the water to explore my hand.  They have weird rubbery lips and it was only a bit later that I realized that letting a member of the shark family snuffle up your arm might not be a good idea.

 
 
Yep--that mark is where she bit me.  Fortunately, their teeth aren't sharp--more like flat molars-- so all I got was a pinch--but they're designed to be able to crush clam shells so it was a pretty good pinch!
 
They have scheduled feeding times at the pool, and as it got closer the rays were getting more excited and more interested in snuffling around our hands (we kept clear of the mouths).  Finally we were able to buy our little bits of fish and let them suction the snacks out of our hands.
 
We hit a barbecue place on the way home, and as I had mentioned to the waitress that we were celebrating our anniversary we were treated to a song and a dish of banana/nilla wafer pudding by the staff.
 
 

A trip to the zoo, and banana pudding--what more could one ask?

Maybe for another forty years.

1 comment:

  1. I love this entry. I love how you started out with your wedding photo.

    ReplyDelete