It was a very good year

When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We’d ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five
- Frank Sinatra

I'm not blue-blooded and we're not riding around in limousines, but my husband is 35, as of last Thursday. And it has been a very good year--years, really, together. Next March, we'll celebrate six years since our first date. This is a milestone in itself, but particularly so in my case, since six months (with a few exceptions) was the average length of my relationships before Victor came along.
Victor was a bit nostalgic on his actual birthday, which makes sense, since 35 is not 30 or 21. And there's no denying that we're not kids anymore. In fact, most of our friends are having kids. And we plan to try soon ourselves.
When you're 21, and eager to enter adulthood, it's exciting to make predictions about where you'll be in 10 or 14 years--to look ahead and say, "When I'm 35, I'll be riding in limousines."
But when you're 35, you tend to look backward and say, "It seems like yesterday that I was turning 21." And where did the time go?
On Thursday, we tried to make the best use of our time and slid out of work precisely at 6pm (which is about the earliest either of us can leave the office without raising any eyebrows or suspicions). I'd given him one present early--a ticket to Avenue Q--and wrapped two of his other presents earlier in the week. When we got home from work on Thursday, I cleared a table upstairs and set his gifts out with a card. Then we shared a bottle of Ommegang, one of our favorite beers, and got ready to go out for dinner. I took him to a restaurant that was about a 10-minute walk from our apartment--his requirement for dinner had been that it be somewhere in Williamsburg, and preferably some place he hadn't visited yet. So we went to Bozu (pronounced Bose, like the sound systems), a Japanese tapas place owned by Makoto Suzuki, who practices karate with Victor. I was hoping that Makoto might be there to wish Victor a happy birthday, but he was off that night. Still, our waiter was really cool, bringing us a bowl of edamame `on the house'and playing a funky version of the birthday song in a subtle nod to Victor (the staff didn't sing along, but our waiter winked at us when we looked over quizzically after the song came on). For dinner, we ordered a selection of sushi "bombs," a house specialty: slices of fresh fish piled atop balls of rice with garnish or a dollup of homemade sauce. Our favorite was the buttery white tuna with ginger sauce, but the special pan-fried eel topped with minty shiso was really tasty too. We also ordered Japanese pickles, despite our Japanese waiter's warning that though he liked it, he'd found that most Americans did not. They're actually not pickles at all but various pickled vegetables: Asian cabbage, beets, and garlic. And they're surprisingly good, crisp and slightly sweet (even the garlic). But I'm glad that we both sampled the garlic slices. We also split a 500 ml bottle of sake, then Victor had a Sapporo beer and I tried another small "box" (basically a square plastic or wooden cup) of cold sake. When we got home, Victor opened his gifts: a black buttoned shirt from Kenneth Cole that, to my frustration, still had the security tag affixed to the collar; and an HP 5.1 megapixel Photosmart R707 digital camera, which I'd bought afetr reading several glowing editorial and customer reviews. (I was looking for a small camera he could use to take pics for his blog, that worked well in low light, had red eye protection, and took pictures that were sharp enough to maintain their detail even after they were blown up onscreen). I think I picked the right model because Victor kept repeating how surprised and happy and lucky he was. And, after showering me with kisses, he pulled the camera out of the plastic pouch along with all the accessories and immediately started reading the instructions.
Having figured out how to take, view and upload photos on the camera, Victor took it on a test drive last night. We were celebrating his birthday again, along with that of another friend of ours, Webster, at a pub called The Brass Monkey in the Meatpacking District (possibly the only bar in that super-trendy 'hood that doesn't have a velvet rope, a cover, or cocktails that start at $14). When we got there around 9, there were maybe 30 or 40 people and plenty of elbow room. We even managed to snag a table and bar stools for our group of about 12 (it would swell to more than 20 later). Turns out, we got prime real estate. By 1 a.m., the place was packed. And half our table had been taken over by strangers, most of them with halter tops and belly rings. It was time to go. Victor and I walked to the subway station a few blocks away and barely caught the train. The conducter actually popped open one of the doors for us, so we could squeeze on. We were lucky. After midnight, it can be 20 minutes or more between L trains. And we were anxious to get home. Victor had bought 3 slices of pizza and a chicken calzone earlier that night. We'd split the calzone and a slice of mushroom pizza before we left. But he put the other 2 slices away "for later," and I was so glad he did. That's all I could think of as we stumbled home. When we got in, Victor popped in a Globe Trekker DVD (Greek Islands) and I heated up the slices of cheese pizza in the toaster oven. It was about 2:30 when we dug into the slices. By the time he washed the dish and filled up a glass of water, I was already asleep on the couch (though I insisted I was just "listening to the DVD").
We slept in till nearly noon. It was wonderful. Then after a cup of coffee and bagels with lox spread, we spent most of the day cleaning the apartment and trimming and fertilizing the 14 house plants that are the closest thing to kids we have now. And I wondered if we would have the real thing before we celebrated his next birthday.