Pizza, Champagne, and Julia Roberts

Twenty-nine years ago today, a couple of college sweethearts said "I do", drove away from the church in her little white Ford Escort, and started a life together. For our honeymoon, we drove slowly up the California coast, ultimately to Napa Valley. On the second night, we stayed in a little hotel in Monterey. This was in the days before on-demand movies or even satellite TV. A selling feature of this particular hotel was that it had in-room HBO. The movie that happened to be on that night was Sleeping With the Enemy. Neither of us had seen it, so we watched it.

It's become a running joke with us that we would have watched a thriller about an obsessive psycho husband on our honeymoon, and it has become a tradition in ensuing years to watch it on or near our wedding anniversary. It's also somewhat traditional for us to enjoy a meal together of pizza and champagne (it's actually a really good combination). Tonight, we'll be enjoying Dom Perignon, pizza from our old college hangout Ambrose, and, of course, Sleeping With the Enemy.

The last twenty-nine years have flown by. It's been a hell of an adventure, and we're just getting started. There's nobody with whom I'd more want to share an evening of pizza, champagne, and Julia Roberts movies.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dreams Come True, History's End, and Other Illusions

  Francis Fukuyama famously declared in the early '90s that we had reached the end of history. The end of Soviet communism and the triumph of liberal democracy was humankind's last great struggle, and it was a done deal. Watching the horrifying events of 6 January, 2021 unfold, I reflected on the prematurity of Fukuyama's conclusion. Liberal democracy's triumph is far from assured, humankind still have plenty of struggles left, and there's still a whole lot more history to be made. It can be tempting to think of history as a great sweeping arc of change and development that existed for the sole purpose of bringing us to this one static moment when nothing much else happens, but it's an illusion. If you view a small enough section of a curved line or surface, the curvature goes away. This is why the surface of the earth appears flat to an observer near the ground. It's not just a limitation of perception; it is a practicality within defined cases. A Formula O
Read more

Standing Watch

Image
 " PAN-PAN PAN-PAN PAN-PAN. This is sailing vessel SERENE HORIZON. I am taking on water about five miles outside Two Harbors and might need assistance." I barely had time to settle into my desk chair at United States Coast Guard Station Los Angeles/Long Beach. The latte that I grabbed on the way at Common Room Roasters is still nearly full. The scratch paper that I'll be taking notes on doesn't yet have a mark on it—at least not on the side that I'll be using. I'm using a couple of repurposed log sheets that I took to Dockweiler State Beach on my most recent Parks on the Air activation for scratch paper. The flip side of each sheet contains the call signs of twenty or so amateur radio stations that I worked the previous weekend. "Vessel in distress, this is COAST GUARD SECTOR LOS ANGELES. Say again your vessel name and the nature of your distress." I'm getting it all down—more neatly than I usually do—on an otherwise pristine sheet of scratch pa
Read more

Band Allocation, and Other Emergencies

In October of 2020, my home QTH of Yorba Linda, California was under threat from the Blue Ridge Fire . Our home was never under an evacuation order and, if I'm honest with myself, was never very close to being under an evacuation order. Still, it was a harrowing few days, especially when the dark of night made the flames on distant hillsides visible from our kitchen window. I spent quite a bit of time monitoring the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), particularly during the hours when an extended power outage meant that I couldn't get any work done. I listened with the sense of duality familiar to anyone who has used a scanner or monitored utility stations on HF: at once deeply concerned for the lives and property of my neighbors while also fascinated at the spectacle of firefighting tankers flying over my house while my FT-70D's speaker crackled with plans about where the next line of fire retardant would be dropped.  By any measure, CAL FI
Read more