Anniversary Celebration

Usually about a month and a half to two months before our anniversary, Jennifer and I have a conversation that goes something like this. “Have you thought about what we are going to do for our anniversary?”  “I’ve thought about it.”  “Do you have any ideas?”  “Not really, but I’m working on it.”  At that point, I get a look—the patented Jennifer look (it’s true; I’m pretty sure she’s trademarked it and everything J) that says without saying—then you better get on the stick, buddy. J  After that, I put something together and we have a nice time.

This year, I was basically told how things were going to go. J  Last year it was a collaborative effort (she came up with the trip to Forest Lawn, I came up with the jaunt to Griffith Park and, after my first choice for dinner didn’t appeal to either of us, we both picked El Torito).  This year after we had the above conversation, Jennifer came to me about a week later and told me she wanted to go to the Los Angeles Temple, significant because that was where we were sealed, Juniors (a Jewish deli not far from the temple where we had eaten several times back when we came monthly to the LA Temple) and she wanted to see a play (which turned out to be A Christmas Carol).  Actually, I thought it was a nice change of pace.  I didn’t mind at all that Jennifer planned out the whole day; there was no chance for me to screw up our 2oth anniversary celebration. J
 

The drive down to the Los Angeles Temple was uneventful traffic wise.  We had a nice talk as we drove, reminiscing at times, talking about various topics at others.  Before the Redlands Temple was built, LA was our destination each month.  We arrived in time to be able to do some initiatory work before attending an endowment session.  Afterward, we sat quietly in the Celestial Room for about 30 minutes, talking quietly.  We watched a couple who was part of our endowment session group who would be getting married several days later (I talked to the fathers later) and marveled at how young they looked and quietly laughed about how we had once looked that way.  The plan had been to come out of the temple and go to our “proposal tree” to take a picture.  However, even though the day was sunny and nice during our drive to the temple, as we prepared to walk outside, we saw it was raining!  What a bummer.  We hurried to the car and while we were putting our temple bags in the trunk, I accidently banged Jen’s head with the trunk lid (I hadn’t put it up all the way and it slipped from my hand).  Thankfully, I didn't knock her out; I felt bad enough, that would have been mortifying!  The other thing Jennifer wanted to do under our proposal tree was to tell each other how we felt after 20 years.  We decided to do so in the car.  The ambiance wasn’t the same, but the feelings we expressed were.  We had a nice moment.
 

In looking for the address for Junior’s Deli the night before, I found out it is now Lenny’s Deli.  Apparently, Junior’s lost its lease after 52 years back in 2012, but someone new came along and started up the deli again and now it’s called Lenny’s.  I’d say about four or five years have passed since we were last in the deli, but from what we could tell, the menu was pretty much the same.  We were given kosher pickle slices and sauerkraut to start (sweet sauerkraut, eaten in tandem with the pickle it was very good).  I ordered the Emmy (a corned beef and pastrami sandwich) and Jennifer had the Grammy (a corned beef sandwich with Russian dressing).  She actually decided to go with rye bread (I was shocked, she said it was okay, but probably would have liked sour dough bread more J).  We had a nice time there; the food was good, our server was nice; the company was better. J
 

Next, we were ready to go see A Christmas Carol at the Grove Theater Center in Burbank.  Having never been there before, I used Google maps at home to figure out how to get to the theater from Lenny’s before we left that morning.  Unfortunately, we've been having problems with our desktop computer for the last several months and I couldn’t convince the internet to print the map.  I suppose this would have been a good time to have smart rather than dumb phones.  Disgusted, I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the directions, but in my rush, I missed one important piece of information when I was writing them down.  We got on the 405 freeway, but when we transitioned onto the 101 I followed what I had written and stayed to the left.  However, staying to the left was something we should have done when we were transitioning from the 101 to the 134.  It wasn’t until we had driven about 20 miles and I realized we were heading toward Thousand Oaks that I knew we were not going in the right direction.  Because of the rain, it had taken us almost an hour to get to that point, the play started at 8 and it was now a little after 7.  Thankfully, traffic coming back wasn’t as bad as going forward.  Finding the theater was a bit interesting as well because it is a small theater (maybe 50 seats) tucked away in the middle of a park, but I finally figured out the way to get to the parking lot and we made it with 5 minutes before the show was to start (we were fine, the play began 15 minutes after 8).
 

Seeing this play brought back memories of our first anniversary when Jennifer and I went to the Doolittle Theater and watched Patrick Stewart perform in his one-man play of A Christmas Carol.  That had been an awesome show.  Stewart would alter his voice and posture as he changed from one character to another.  All he had on stage with him was a table, chair and a couple of other small props.  Although the only person on the stage, he was able to give the impression of many people.  It was an amazing performance.  Jennifer was pregnant with Ben at the time and when we finally left the theater and started walking back to the car, I saw a group of people on the sidewalk and heard someone say that Patrick Stewart would be coming out of the theater there.  I asked Jennifer if she wanted to wait to see if maybe we could get Stewart’s autograph; she was willing.  We waited on the sidewalk for about 45 minutes or so.  When he was ready to leave the theater, an assistant or body guard came out and lined those of us waiting into two lines and told us that “Mr. Stewart” would sign autographs for everyone and to remain calm and not crowd or he would leave.  When Stewart came out, however, it became apparent he was not going to sign autographs for each person as he went to one person in the right line and then a person in the left line.  Some people behind Jennifer tried to push forward and they jostled her.  I tried to move her away from them, but, I think, her being jostled plus the fact she was pregnant brought her to Stewart’s attention.  He walked straight to her and asked, “Would you like me to sign your program?”  She replied, “Yes, please,” and she was the last person who received an autograph from him as he got in the back seat of a car that pulled up and was driven away from the group.  The playbill with his autograph is one of our little treasures.
 

This performance of A Christmas Carol had a three-person cast—two men and one woman.  One of the men played Scrooge; the other man and the woman played all the other characters and the narrator (they took turns).  The stage, much like with Stewart’s production, had very few props.  There was a raised, sloping area in the middle of the stage with a table and a few chairs, but nothing else.  The gender of a couple of the characters was changed in order for the actress to play them (for instance: Scrooge’s nephew became his niece J).  The fascinating part of the performances was how the actor and actress helped the audience to “see” each different character.  Although they did modify their voices, as part of their costume they also had long blankets or capes (his was green, hers was red).  With each character, they would wrap their capes around their bodies in different ways; I thought it was a very clever way to do it.  I also loved the way the play ended.  Tiny Tim was not a depicted character and when it came to his final line, it was spoken, very appropriately by Scrooge, “God bless us, every one.”  Both Jennifer and I very much enjoyed the performance and found it to be a fun ending to our celebration.