I really haven’t had the energy to post lots about personal stuff
lately, but I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, and I
put off too long an important one from a week ago, when and I celebrated our first anniversary!

We’d given each other presents earlier in the week because we are
dorks who cannot wait until The Day (which was June 18, incidentally).
Candice gave me a bottle of Aberlour a’Bunadh single
malt Scotch, a cask-strength special bottling of Aberlour which I’ve
been wanting to try since Halfjack started taunting me
with it months ago. I gave her a bike, because, well, she didn’t have
a bike and wanted one (a Trek 7100 for the bike geeks in the audience). We also
bought a new bedroom suite (the bed, end tables and dresser visible
here) and
mattress, but that had been in the works for a while now.

We went out to the Urban Pear, one of our favorite local restaurants.
No-one writes decent restaurant reviews here, or else I’d point to one.
The Pear has a new menu daily based on what fresh local ingredients the
chef decided to work with that day—five appetizers, five entrees,
five desserts. I had a chilled pear soup with wine jelly, beef
tenderloin in red wine broth with a baby potato, radish and pork salad,
and a lemon-ricotta bread pudding with sour cream ice cream; started with an antipasto of roasted garlic, pear, chilied
kalamata olives and Canadian “Brie”, snapper on a bed of beets
and black sticky rice, and a dark chocolate tart. The
restaurant was having air-conditioning problems but it was still an
excellent time.

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year. I am a very happy mendel
and still head over heels about my sweetie. :-)