Chaotic anniversary

Well, we made it to #5.

2 weddings, a trip to Greece, Green card hassle, travel just to visit relatives totally sucking up vacation time & disposable funds, moving to Minnesota, having 2 children, switching jobs once, balancing graduate school & children, and moving again. Yup. Nice quiet transition to the new phase of my life. I think this was the first time I completely failed to notice my other anniversary when it passed (a pleasant realization that it isn't much of a factor in my life any more).

Graduate school & moving into Minneapolis rather much prevented the celebration our April anniversary. So, since we conveniently have two of them, we just figured we'd celebrate in September. Saturday was the actual date. We decided to go out to a nice restaurant & movies. Since the movie we wanted only had a 9:05 showing, we called our older babysitter (hereafter referred to as #1), figuring a 16 year old is better off waiting till 11:30 p.m. than a 13 year old (hereafter referred to as #2). We scheduled her two weeks ago.

I hadn't heard from #1 by Thursday. I couldn't get her on Friday afternoon. Or Saturday morning. Or Saturday afternoon. Dinner time was rapidly approaching for the boys, which should have coincided with feeding the two demons previously acknowledged as our sons. Thankfully pasta is a reliable pacifier at the dinner table.

I tried reaching our #2, despite the late night we had planned. She wasn't answering her cell phone. Well, it's not as if she expected me to call. I called her home, to find out that she's busy. Her mom, however, said if we got desperate, she'd be willing to take the boys if we brought them to her house.

I called another girl recommended by our landlady, despite never having used her before. No answer.

I was willing to offer higher-than-normal rates due to the zero-scheduling time. "Hi, I'm willing to pay you extra if you can be here in 20 minutes," should have been a great inducement.

6:00 departure time passed. #1 is extremely punctual. At this point, I'm actually worried about her.

I call Sitter #2's mom. "Hi, Carolyn, this is Elizabeth Tobias. I'm desperate."

The boys went over to her house, where they apparently had a nice time. Despite, as Michael informed me this afternoon, being stepped on by the family dogs while he was asleep on the living room floor.

We went to an Indian restaurant with delicious food. I ate way too much. With a smile on my face the whole time. Apparently we and half of Minneapolis all showed up at the same time. Despite the very long wait (worth it), we had enough time to enjoy a leisurely meal.

This is point at which our celebration ceased to be chaotic.

Mongol was a good movie.

Hopefully anniversary #6 will be a bit less hectic. I'm not betting on it, though. It will probably be in September again, since I'll likely be getting ready for my thesis presentation in April.