Bill Roper's Journal

Thanks to everyone for all the lovely anniversary wishes!

I went to pick up K after auditions today and she wanted food from Cane's, so we drove up to the new one. Unfortunately, they had lost power shortly before and were still trying to get the deep fryers up and running again, so food wasn't happening there. I suggested that I could grab something for her from Rand Red Hots and she thought that was a good idea. And I decided it was a good idea too, so I planned to pick up something for myself.

As we pulled out of the Cane's lot, it started to rain.

And then the deluge hit.

This was as much rain as I'd seen in a long time. It wasn't a surprise -- we'd had some major wind just before I left home and the clouds had been extremely threatening. But it was a *lot* of rain.

We managed to get there and get the order placed without getting too wet. (You have to roll down the window at the drive-through, you know...) The rain eased up for a bit as we arrived home, so we hurried in.

And K looked out the back door. A post had given way to the wind and two sections of fence were completely down.

And then the *second* deluge hit. With hail. And two (mercifully brief) power outages.

It's annoying. Just when I thought I had things under control, something else broke.

I have a bunch of references to call for fence repair, but I need to fix this section of fence *now*. I went on Amazon and bought some fence post repair stakes which are supposed to arrive tomorrow. (I would have bought them at Home Depot, but they have to be shipped in there and I want them sooner rather than later.) If the stakes show up, I will recruit children and we will bodge together another fence repair.

And then I will get someone to fix the fence.

At least this section of fence died *before* I got someone to fix the other sections...

So given all of the stuff going on tomorrow, we have celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary today, a day earlier than is quite calendrically accurate. And that's ok.

I made two trips to the grocery store, picking up various things that were urgently needed for today. Sadly, it was later in the day when we discovered that we have now brought in the last of the cat food from the garage, so I will need to journey back to Sam's Club soon lest Sunshine let us know that she is *starving* to death when the bottom of her bowl appears.

But it was a lovely day. The kids baked cupcakes for dessert. Tons of cupcakes. And I grilled steaks, while Gretchen prepared baked potatoes and sweet corn, along with the loaf of ancient grains bread that I grabbed at Mariano's. While grilling the steaks, it being a beautiful day, I sat outside and threw various toys for Ruby the Dog, who was taking National Dog Day seriously it seems.

Fun was had by all.

And that's what it's about, right? :)

As of today, Gretchen and I will have been married for 28 years. We've known each other for 42 years at this point. Both of these numbers seem very large, although I have friends for whom these numbers are larger. But these are *our* numbers and I get to boggle at them a little bit.

28 is, sadly, not a very interesting number, although 42 is, of course, The Answer. But I can still factor 28 out to 2*2*7, which is 2 for us, 2 for the kids, and 7 for a bit of luck.

I've always relied on a bit of luck. And it turns out that the luckiest day in my life was the day that I met Gretchen, no matter how lost I got on the way there.

I love you, Gretchen.

Let's write about something pleasant today, as opposed to numerous unpleasant matters that could otherwise be addressed.

I have always had a fascination with numbers, fed at a relatively early age by Martin Gardner's columns in Scientific American. It is, thus, that I am delighted to announce that today is Gretchen's and my third cubic anniversary -- or, if you don't feel like doing the math, 27th. And *falling* on the 27th as well, although that's a mere coincidence of dates.

1, 8, 27. The next number in that sequence is so very far away and I doubt that we will see it. Few couples do, even if they didn't marry as late in life as we did. But there are other anniversaries, linear and square, that lie before us, that are more easily attained, and I hope that we are lucky enough to do so.

I love you dearly, Gretchen, and after all these years, I remain fascinated with numbers -- and with you.

Happy anniversary!

Thanks for all the lovely anniversary wishes. It was a good day.

The weather forecast today being good, I've tried moving Buddy's litter pan outside in the hope that it might help him find his way home. We'll see how this works. Fingers crossed.

Gretchen noted to me, "Do you know how to remember when our anniversary is?"

"No," I replied. "How should I do it?"

"Find the day in the end of August when there is something that you want to do that I don't want to do. That will be our anniversary."

This is slightly unfair, but not entirely. A couple of years ago, I went to see Billy Joel in concert at Wrigley Field. On our anniversary, as I discovered after I bought the tickets.

This year, I made plans to go see the Cubs play the Mets at Wrigley Field on Monday night.

On our anniversary.

This is an annoying pattern that I am going to attempt not to repeat next year, as that will be our 25th anniversary and it would be nice to actually spend it together.

In the meantime, we decided to celebrate our anniversary today. After we got back from the pool (which closed for the season today), I grilled some lovely steaks from Mariano's; then after dinner, we had cheesecake for dessert. (Because, as we remind Katie, any restaurant with cheesecake is a sufficiently fancy restaurant, at least according to Katie.)

It was a fine day.

And tomorrow, Gretchen and I will have been married for 24 years.

Happy anniversary, love.

It took a bit of doing, but I am back in the office upstairs with everything wired in -- except for the home phone, which I forgot in the basement and can be easily retrieved later. All of the rooms upstairs have been more or less put back together. I still need to move and wire the bedroom computers, but that is going to wait until tomorrow, as I have tickets for the Billy Joel concert tonight down at Wrigley Field.

(Yes, I cleverly managed to buy one ticket for tonight's concert on our anniversary. Gretchen has approved of this, as she would rather be at home than have me drag her to the concert. :) Also, we went out for a nice lunch today...)

The floors are looking much better. Sanding is now underway in the dining room, library, and connecting hallway. When that's done, all that's left is the family room through kitchen section in the back of the house and our long national nightmare will be over. :)