Tag: celebrations

This isn’t normal

On By Luther M. SilerIn life3 Comments

Depending on how you count, since we were actually married on February 29, my wife and I will celebrate fifteen years of marriage … sometime this week. Or at least we should. We have no ideas, and no presents have been purchased. I tried to float the idea of going to Chicago and having dinner at Alinea and she was having none of it. That’s as good as I got. Right now I have Friday off, but I’m planning on playing Wo Long: Hidden Dynasty all freakin’ day. And the way I know I picked the right lady is she doesn’t mind.

That said, if y’all have any great ideas about what we could do with ourselves on either Tuesday or Wednesday night, feel free to air ’em out. Neither of us have any better ideas, after all.

On important dates and important dates

On By Luther M. SilerIn life2 Comments

First, the pointless griping: Film director Bong Joon-ho apparently won a pile of Oscars last night. I have not seen Parasite, which as far as I know features no American superheroes, although my wife has expressed an interest in streaming it once such a thing is available, but I have no reason to disagree with the award given that I saw virtually none of the nominated films, and in fact I’m saying “virtually none” here because I have no idea what was actually nominated for anything and it’s therefore possible that I’ve seen some of them.

Man, I remember when the Oscars were a big deal, personally, and I was seeing 40-50 movies a year. I really miss that, believe it or not; I just don’t have that kind of time any longer, and living in South Bend instead of Chicago means I’m much more limited in what I can see.

Anyway, point is the Goddamned Snowpiercer post is surging again; it’s gotten about as many hits today all by itself as the entire site typically gets in two days, and as it’s only 6 PM I suspect that ratio will be increasing fairly radically by the time I go to bed tonight, and the bump will probably last at least another few days. That post will never, ever die.

So:

  • My wife’s birthday is Thursday;
  • Friday is Valentine’s Day;
  • The 29th is our 12th/3rd anniversary; we were married in 2008 so it has been twelve years, and we were married on Leap Day so this will be the third actual real anniversary we should have.

We typically make a fairly big deal out of Real Anniversaries, although the last big celebration was for our 10th anniversary when we went to see Hamilton in Chicago. We are … somewhat bereft of ideas for any of these things this year; I asked my wife if she wanted to do anything either for her birthday or for Valentine’s Day an hour or so ago and I could see part of her soul die when I asked the question. Before you jump on my case, be aware that neither of us are either especially romantic people or big celebrators of arbitrary dates; we don’t make a big deal out of my birthday either, and Valentine’s Day has always been treated as more of an annoyance instead of an actual thing. So chances are this weekend is not going to be all that big of a deal.

But I wanna do something for our anniversary, dammit, and my first choice– going to Chicago and having dinner at Alinea— got shot down on account of being insanely, grotesquely expensive.

This is where you come in, Internet. What shall we do for our 12th/3rd anniversary? Give us good ideas; we’re broken and don’t have any.

In which I’m still teasing

On By Luther M. SilerIn life4 Comments

IMG_7692I’ve just put up probably the most important post in the history of my Patreon, which, granted, isn’t saying a lot, but if you’ve ever considered jumping on board for a buck or two a month there has literally never been a better time to do that than right now.  Big things going on over there right now.  Big.

But anyway.  I’ve gone a couple of days without a post over here; Thursday I came home and basically died, and yesterday we sold our house!  Well, one of our houses.  Well, my wife’s house.  My wife sold her house, which used to be our house, which I never owned but used to live in.  With her.  Simultaneously.

(Okay: when we got married, I moved into my wife’s house and we never bothered putting my name on it.  Later, when we moved here, we bought this house together, and my in-laws moved into our old place and took over the mortgage.  Since then my mother-in-law has passed away and my father-in-law just moved into a smaller apartment, so we sold the old house.  Which closed on Friday.)

Anyway, point is, we went out and had date night last night, which is why there’s a picture of food up there at the top of the post.   I’m not actually sure that the photo really conveys how amazing the meal looked– and it doesn’t come close to making it clear how awesome everything tasted— but that’s bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin medallions on top of elote risotto, with a molé sauce, broccolini, and chicharrones with chili powder.  Holy shit.  My wife had a filet mignon; I was going to get a steak but felt like I couldn’t pass up what I got once they described it.  Fuckin’ heavenly, y’all.

And we got home late and I never got around to posting.  I still love y’all, I promise.  Just got busy for a couple of days there.   But seriously, click on that Patreon link up there; it’ll make up for it, I promise.

In which I make a Brief Observation, one perhaps Better Suited for Twitter than WordPress

On By Luther M. SilerIn Writing1 Comment

…writing a wedding ceremony is hard.  Like, not in fiction. An actual wedding ceremony that I will officiate.

Anniverstravaganza!

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized23 Comments

darren-millars-6th-birthday-29th-february-2008Extravviversary?  The words don’t combine together very well.

Anyway: today marks, roughly, six years(*) since my wife made the biggest mistake she could ever possibly have made and legally entangled herself in my nonsense forever.

Why “roughly six years,” Siler?  You don’t know your own anniversary?  You scumbag!

Well, no.  I am perfectly aware of the day my wife and I got married.(**)  You’re about to hear about, literally, just about our only argument.  We generally get along very well.  I tend to shake my head sadly at people who complain about marriage; getting married was, hands down, absolutely no room for debate whatsoever the greatest decision I ever made in my life and the best thing that ever happened to me, so I have little patience for popular whining about marriage.  You didn’t have to do it!  You don’t even have to stay if you don’t want to!  It’s okay!

But that’s beside the point and for once I don’t want to get sidetracked.  We got married on Leap Day in 2008– February 29th.  There is, obviously, no February 29th three years out of every four.  The fun part of our marriage (well, one of ’em) is the yearly argument about when to “officially” celebrate our anniversary.

I’m right.  She’s wrong.  I’m about to enunciate my own strong and undeniable reasons for celebrating on the 28th (yesterday) and her own silly and wrong reasons for celebrating on the 1st (today) and then will let the Internet decide once and for all, assuming that the Internet agrees with me, which you should, because I’m right.

(Why am I putting this post up on the 1st, you ask?  Because this year the first is on a Saturday, obviously, and so we’re going out tonight(***).  That doesn’t make today our anniversary.  Yesterday was our anniversary.)

Anyway.

REASONS I AM RIGHT:

  • We were married on the last day in February on 2008.  This year, the last day of February is the 28th, therefore our anniversary is on the 28th.
  • We were married in February.  March is not February. (I feel that this is my strongest argument, incidentally.)
  • We were married on the day before March 1st.  February 28th is the day before March 1st three years out of four.

HER REASONS TO JUSTIFY HER WRONGNESS:

  • We were married the day after February 28th, which this year happens to be March 1st.

Now, if you look, you will notice that I have three reasons for my correct decision, a full 300% greater than her paltry one reason.  Also, my reasons are correct and hers are silly.  So obviously I am right.

Internet!  Settle our dispute!

(*) Apparently the traditional gifts for a sixth anniversary are… iron and candy?(****)  I feel like someone creative should be able to come up with some sort of joke for that incredibly odd combination; I am apparently not a creative person today.  But… yeah.  Iron and candy.

(**) Speaking of important dates: I don’t tend to forget the boy’s birthday.  Weirdly, though, I have trouble getting the year he was born stuck in my head properly.  I don’t get it wrong, but I have to think about it.  Can’t explain why; it’s not like it was a long time ago.

(***) Mmm, sushi.  Also, for obvious reasons today is probably gonna be kinda quiet around here.  Although, who the hell am I kidding, I’ll probably get another post up while the boy is napping.  I took the day off from OtherJob, though, so this Saturday won’t be the usual constant-posting day that Saturdays usually are around here.

(****) WWE:  I want to see the Iron Anniversary in the squared circle today, not tomorrow.  Get on that.  The costuming alone should be hilarious.

In which I know nothing at all

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized18 Comments

amnesia2

Today’s Daily Prompt:

You’re 12 years old. It’s your birthday. Write for ten minutes on that memory. GO.

I can only do this if I type very slowly, because I  r e m e m b e r   n o t h i n g.  Nothing at all.  Zip.  Zilch.  I found out in one of my grad school classes that some non-trivial percentage of adults can remember little more from, say, 10 to 14 than they can from birth to 5.  I have more clear memories from elementary school than I do from seventh and eighth grade, although I guess if I was turning 12 I’d have been in between sixth and seventh, since I was young for my grade.  At any rate, I’ve got nothing at all and even filibustering for a few sentences I’ve only been writing for a minute or so.

(Man.  I’ve been sitting here for several more minutes and I can’t come up with a birthday party story in general worth telling.  Let’s turn this one on you guys: what do you think my twelfth birthday party must have been like?  ENTERTAIN ME WITH YOUR LIES.)

(Real post later; I’ve got a meeting this afternoon so I’m killing an hour at home for lunch.)

More answers to this question after the jump:

Continue reading “In which I know nothing at all” →