Paper or Clocks

Although the traditional first anniversary gift is paper, I see that the "modern" gift is clocks. What do you suppose the symbol is of each gift? With paper, you can either write love notes to your betrothed...or perhaps to-do lists? And are clocks to remind you to treasure your time together? Or of how little time you have to accomplish all those tasks on your list?
Anyway, Tomkin and I just celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and I feel more blessed than ever to have such an amazing, wonderful husband. Last Thursday, April 9th, we drove down to Northfield, where we met back in 1989 (!!!) at Carleton and fatefully reconnected in June 2007 (and honeymooned last year). We headed straight to the Ole Store (now known as the Ole Cafe--hmph) for lunch and walked around the neighborhood while our food was being prepared. It was such a gorgeous spring day! We checked into the Archer House, unpacked, and took a nap. Then we headed down to Division Street and did some shopping. We were sad that the waffle place had closed--thankfully, though, most of the other places seem to be hanging on, at least for now. I found some great used books and some new sandals, and Tomkin got a couple cool shirts. For dinner we walked down to Basil's and got a delicious gyros pizza. (Why more places don't serve that is beyond me!) We stopped by the Goodbye Blue Monday coffee shop--they have a public computer, which allowed me to check in on Facebook (phew!). We headed back to our room and were going to lounge in the whirlpool, but it didn't seem to be working. First the receptionist came up. Yes, she agreed that it wasn't working. So she sent up the maintenance guy. He tried to fix it but couldn't. Meanwhile, Tomkin and I played a couple games of Bananagrams. They never could get the whirlpool fixed--ah, well.
Friday morning we slept until 10:15 (no dog to wake us up...), then had a breakfast picnic in our room. We headed to the Carleton campus and then to the Arb. We just wandered around, looking at trees and birds, enjoying the gorgeous day. Back on campus, I went to the bookstore, and Tomkin hung out with a group of students who were soliticiting donations for Rotblatt. I talked with them for a while, too. It was accepted students weekend on campus, so I kept wondering if anyone thought we were parents of an incoming frosh.... Tomkin and I walked over to Dacie Moses House and discovered a bench in the backyard. We hung out there and had a picnic lunch. Then we went inside and discovered a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies, so I had one for dessert. We headed back downtown and got coffee at Bittersweet, then did a little jewelry shopping at A Bag Lady. We picked up some groceries at Econo Foods, then went back to the room to read and nap for a while. That evening we got dinner at Chapati, and we reflected on our first year of married life. (It just keeps getting better!) Then we got some coffee at Blue Monday and called it a night.
Saturday we got breakfast at the Tavern, courtesy of the Archer House (they also knocked some money off the cost of our room because of the whirlpool). We did a little more shopping--had to go to Present Perfect, a cute little gifty shop. The woman who owns it is now the mayor of Northfield! (We had talked with her during our last visit, when she was running.) We had a nice chat with her and bought a whole bunch of stuff. After that, we headed home--it was so nice to see Chloe again! Our friend Ben had stayed at our house while we were away, which was great. Tomkin ran a couple errands, and I unpacked, then we both took a nap. We got a new rug that we had ordered, so we got that set up in the living room. I got caught up on my e-mails, and then we took Chloe to a nearby park and let her run around. She needed to burn off some steam! That evening, our friends Liz & Fletch (in town from California), Mark (in town from NYC), and Pete joined us for dinner at Pizza Luce. Then we came back to our place, where we hung out and talked until 12:30. I've only met Liz & Fletch a couple times, but it looks like they're going to be moving here, which would be awesome. It would be cool to hang out with them a lot more.
Sunday the 12th was our first anniversary. We exchanged gifts and cards (I put Tomkin's in an Easter basket since it was Easter). He gave me jewelry. I gave him a few things, including a scrapbook of us from the last year or so and a book about Minnesota birds, which he's been wanting forever. I set up a chair on the front porch so that Chloe could look out at the birds and squirrels. Wow, did she like that! We took her for a walk, and Tomkin brought along our camera with a serious zoom lens so he could take pictures of birds. Then he went through his bird book and checked off the ones we had seen. Almost a dozen--certainly more than I would have expected, especially for this time of year! Tomkin did some work, and I curled up on the couch with Chloe and finished reading "Julie & Julia," then took a nap. (I am definitely napping more now than I used to.) To cap off our anniversary celebration, Tomkin and I had dinner at W.A. Frost and both got the six-course tasting menu. I ended up getting the vegetarian option, just because the foods sounded better to me. Of course everything was gorgeous and too delicious for words. (Seeing as how this is already a long post and I want to watch "DWTS" and "American Idol" tonight, I won't go through all twelve of our foods. I'll just post a few shots, and you'll get the idea.) The servers (we seemed to have a whole gaggle of them) sensed what we needed before we did and were lovely and friendly and wonderful. We were there for about 2-1/2 hours--oh, we ended up being seated at the very table at which Tomkin proposed on January 11, 2008! It was a delightful, amazing, romantic evening--and lots of fun, too! When we got home, we were both pretty stuffed, so we curled up on the couch with Chloe and watched "The Office," "30 Rock," and "Amazing Race." Tomkin's getting me to nap, and I'm getting him to watch TV....
Monday, we were back to work. I caught up on e-mails, did laundry, went to Target, raked some leaves, and started preparing for my friend Heidi's arrival on Wednesday. Tomkin went to the library and the office. I had a premarital counseling session in the evening, then talked to Mom and watched "Dancing with the Stars." I had been too full on Sunday to have any wedding cake, but I dove into it last night. We had frozen a pretty big hunk, and thank goodness! It's still surprisingly delicious.
Today (Tuesday), Tomkin headed into the office, and I did some editing work on the front porch. It truly felt like a summer day--absolutely gorgeous! We walked Chloe down to the vet for a weigh-in (after gaining eight pounds last year, the doc said she needed to lose a few). She'd lost more than a pound in the last month! So we're on the right track. Tonight I had a premarital counseling session, and now I'm essentially on vacation again. Heidi arrives tomorrow (hooray!) and will be here through Saturday. Next week is going to be insanely busy with both counseling and editing. But I won't think about that just yet.... I've got a full itinerary of fun stuff planned for the weekend, including our monthly cocktail party on Thursday. Cheers!