One Year and Counting...

First off, apologies. I've been remiss (again) in my blog postings. I've had another busy week at work. And, as those who read my husband's blog regularly know, we've been pretty busy outside of work too.
On Friday, Victor and I rustled some friends together for a belated Midsummer Night's Celebration at a favorite neighborhood bar, Spuyten Duyvil. We were also celebrating a few specific accomplishments: the onset of our friend Marty's 36th birthday (at midnight); the publication of our friend Nicole's book ("The Running of the Bulls: Inside the Cutthroat Race from Wharton to Wall Street"--Buy it now!); and our one-year anniversary (which took place officially yesterday--more on that in a moment). We finally left the bar around 1 a.m., our stomachs full of Belgian beer, bread, Bresaula and bloomy rind cheeses. My husband and I got home and stayed up talking another hour or so, but made up for it the next morning--sleeping in till nearly noon. It took us another hour to get out of the apartment. Victor went to pick up our new Vonage VoIP phone adapter (the switch will, hopefully, mean a $100/month cut in our phone bill!) and some bagels and egg salad, and to deposit his paycheck. I picked up my dry cleaning and came home to a phone message from our PR department asking if I would appear on MSNBC Sunday morning to talk about a story I'd helped report (I said yes). I spent the next hour tracking down my notes and the final version of the story to prep for the interview. Then we were off to the gym (me) and karate fight class (him), back home for a quick shower and change of clothes, and off again to meet Marty and his girlfriend and some other friends at a sushi restaurant called Sakura Hana in the West Village. Two friends of theirs, who live across the street, are regulars there so the chef sent out three boatloads (literally) of sushi and sashimi along with at least eight bottles of cold sake (the waitress informed us that the owner had ordered a case of sake for the occasion!). Needless to say, everyone--except Marty's girlfriend, Carolyn, who ironically, since she organized the sushi dinner, doesn't drink sake--was pretty sloshed by the time dinner was over. I tried to limit myself to three small shot-glass sized cups of sake and to drink lots of water, so I wouldn't risk oversleeping or struggling with a splitting hangover headache on Sunday morning (the station was sending a car to get me at 8:45 a.m.). After dinner, we bought a couple bottles of white wine for Carolyn, who'd kindly picked up the sushi/sake tab, and headed to their friends' place. I lasted till 11 before calling it a night.
The next morning, I was up before the alarm. The round trip to the studio took a lot longer than my actual TV appearance, which lasted about 6 minutes. But it went well (according to my husband--I haven't seen the tape). And I was back home by 10:15--just in time to kiss my husband goodbye as he left for two karate classes.
I took advantage of the time alone to pick up a couple shirts for his anniversary gift (a white Cuban-style embroidered shirt and a funky, diagonal weave navy/silver shirt). We didn't want to wait till midnight to start celebrating, so we walked over to Planet Thailand, a popular restaurant off Bedford Avenue that predates both of our moves to Williamsburg and has since grown to encompass two neighboring spaces (and is still filled nearly to capacity every night!). We split a small sake and an excellent "Crispy Long Island Duck" salad special and two Thai entrees.
I'd initially hoped to take Monday off to spend the day together. But we decided to go to work then to an early dinner. The work day dragged by slowly, as I counted down the hours to our anniversary dinner at Molyvos, which we'd chosen as a nod to the honeymoon we'd spent in Greece (Athens, Mykonos, and Santorini). And walking through the rustic, rose-colored dining room, past shelves of Greek ceramic pottery and framed photographs of the Cyclades islands, I forgot for a moment that we were still in the middle of Manhattan on a steamy, rain-soaked afternoon. We were seated in a cozy corner booth in the back, beside a photograph of Mykonos large enough that we were actually able to identify some of the seaside restauarants and tavernas we'd visited, and we spent a few minutes reminescing about our time there. The table of twang-y tourists across from us and the severe shortage of Greeks--even among the staff--brought us back to New York. But we decided to adapt Hellenic dining habits, nonetheless, stretching our three-course meal over as many hours. Victor started with a Greek lager called Alfa and I had an Aphrodite cocktail, which was made with Vodka and pomegranate juice (delicious). We split a grilled baby octopus salad appetizer, which appeared so quickly after we'd ordered it--even before the wine--that Victor was suspicious. But it tasted like it was fresh off the grill. The wine--a Hatzimihalis Cabernet from Athens--arrived shortly afterwards. We'd had the same wine in Greece and it complemented the entrees nicely. Victor had the lamb moussaka, an incredibly rich dish, but delicious. I opted for the halibut, which arrived in two flaky fillets over a saffron corn broth with baby shrimp and freshly peeled peas. I finished the fish and then dipped slices of Pita bread into the broth (it was that good). We still had a year-old slice of thawing wedding cake waiting for us at home. But we had to sample some of the Greek sweets at the restaurant. We ended up splitting a three-dessert sampler of baklava, ravani (a spongy almond cake), and bougatsa (a phyllo pastry filled with semolina custard). The baklava was as good as we remembered, and I quickly finished off the bougatsa too. The almond cake was less flavorful, especially after I ate all the whipped cream off the top. But we finished it nonetheless. Victor had a brandy too, then kindly took care fo the check (part of my anniversary gift). Then we stumbled to the subway and were back home within 45 minutes. We exchanged cards and Victor opened his gifts (the two shirts and a new wallet) and we shared the last remaining slice of wedding cake. I tumbled into bed soon after, too full and too woozy to keep my eyes open through The Daily Show, and dreamt of white-walled tavernas overgrown with bougainvillea, sun-dappled streets and langorous afternoons lying on deck chairs on the sandy beaches of the Greek Islands beside my new husband. It's hard to believe we've already been married a year. I look forward to many, many more.