One year and counting

This past weekend was my and Joe's one year anniversary. One year ago I came home one night with just enough tequila in me to feel brave enough to finally kiss that boy. We've been inseperable ever since.
Joe decided to plan a weekend of suprises for me. A long time ago we had talked about going to The Lion King, but tickets were just too expensive and too hard to get. Joe said he'd get tickets to something else, but wouldn't tell me what.
I knew he'd spent the week preparing to cook me dinner, and Friday night he presented me with a typed menu for the evening: Autumn Vegetables with Pumpkin Ricotta, Chicken Laarb, Planked Salmon, Pumpkin Orzo, a German Chocolate Brownie and more. I gave him two of his presents immediately--an apron and oven mitts. For months he's been using a towel as a potholder and I cringe every time he sticks it in the oven. I have started more than one towel on fire that way. The other problem is that Joe's tiny, ancient stove tends to send out clouds of smoke whenever he tries to cook anything. I spent the first half of the evening upstairs fanning the smoke alarm so the sprinklers wouldn't go off. About halfway through the meal, Joe put a cedar board, the "planked" part of the salmon, into the oven to heat. The apartment filled with the most delicious smell, like we were in a cabin in the woods, about to cook over an open fire. When Joe put the salmon on it, smoke began billowing again, even leaking out the top burners. I finally put the fan in front of the alarm to stop it from going off.
That's when the doorbell rang softly.
"I don't even think that was mine," Joe said, but I disagreed. I tiptoed to the door and peered out the peekhole. A man was there. He knocked hesistantly.
Finally Joe opened the door. It was his neighbor from across the hall.
"Is everything OK?" he asked, and that's when we noticed the hallway was full of cedar-scented smoke.
"I'm just cooking!" Joe said quickly, and explained about the planked salmon. They must have thought we were having a bonfire in there.
But the meal was delicious and our anniversary bonanza was off to a great start.
Day Two: Saturday morning I made coffee and my signature egg sandwiches and then we left for a hike in Inwood Hill Park. It's in the farthest northwest corner of Manhattan and, unlike Central Park, is completely natural. There are salt marshes and giant, ancient trees. Part of the park was fenced off to preserve "an endangered species" and we could see a black squirrel running up and down a tree inside. There are indian caves and evidence of glaciers, not to mention intensely steep trails. After a light picnic lunch, we were off to prepare for our fancy-shmancy dinner.
Daniel is considered one of the fanciest places in New York. Per Se is innovative and expensive and highly respected, but Daniel is where big-shot lawyers bring big-shot clients and is an institution that has been around for years. To name just a few things I had: eggplant cavier, rabbit porchetta with foie gras, black sea bass wrapped in potato and a dessert that I simply called chocolate explosion. It was a wonderful experience.
By then we had such warm fuzzy feelings towards the world that we couldn't stand to go home, so we decided to drop by Per Se for a drink. After all, Joe was wearing a tie, so we had to take advantage. It felt so cosmopolitan, so Sex in the City. There was a view of Central Park and the Columbus Circle fountain from our couch in the bar and afterwards we sat on a bench by the fountain and kissed, with Joe's jacket around my shoulders like we were in an old movie. It was the perfect day.
Day Three: Who though things could keep getting better? We got up early enough to watch CBS Sunday Morning and then hurried off to the Medieval Festival going on at Fort Tryon Park. That's right. It was a last minute addition to our intinerary, so we only had an hour to spare, but we made it count. With the Cloisters as a backdrop, and the sun getting hot, the festival was already in full swing when we arrived. There were wandering bards and fencing demonstrations, an axe tent (duh, where else would you go to buy a medieval axe?), a food stand selling blackened turkey legs and ale, a procession of a lord and lady and their full entourage, pewter dragons, and of course hundreds of renaissance dorks in full-on period costumes (no doubt sweating ye olde royale arses off). I loved it.
Then we hurried down to the Union Square Cafe to have delicous food that we ate entirely too much of, before jetting over to Jacque Torres Chocolate Factory for dessert. Great chocolate, especially the champagne flavored ones, but I was disappointed at their lack of a chocolate river. And they call themselves a chocolate factory...
In between all this, we stopped at the Moma Store. Joe had bought me a necklace, a very cool DNA chain necklace, but it was too short. We managed to exchange it for the same thing but a bit longer, and I had my present!
This whole time I bugged Joe to tell me what show we were going to. I was guessing Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, since he knew I really wanted to see that too. I guessed Chicago, because Brooke Shields is in it this year, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Beauty and the Beast, but he would NOT TELL ME! Until at last we got off the subway at Times Square and he said, "Oh. Since The Lion King theater is right here, let's just go to that."
The Liar.
Not only did he have tickets to see The Lion King, but we had good seats. See it turns out Joe knows the uncle of the little girl who plays Nala. They got us seats in the 14th row. On top of that, if Joe could manage to get ahold of the girl's mom after the show, there was a chance we could get a backstage tour.
The show was amazing. The opening song made me cry. It's neat enough in the movie, but to hear it live is awe-inspiring. A cheetah, antelopes, giraffes (on stilts), elephants, birds and lions crowded the stage. The woman who plays Rafiki (the blue-butted monkey) takes you by suprise. Her voice is incredible and she's very funny. At one point Alex, the little girl who plays Nala, got to ride around on a ten-foot tall ostrich. The closing scene of the first act, just after Mufasa dies, made me cry again. It features an intensely sad African dance and a sad song by Nala and Simba's mother.
When the show was over, Joe headed to a corner to call Alex's mom. It was just about then that I discovered my wallet was missing. Joe dug through his bag to find it and I crawled up and down the theater aisles. No luck. I was starting to panic. I couldn't have left it at the restaurant, because I had it when we got on the subway to get here. The bathroom? I left Joe to call while I ran upstairs to find it. The man running the elevator told me no one was allowed back up.
"But I lost my wallet and it might be up there and..." my voice had that edge that meant I was going to cry in a minute.
"You have to talk to...ah, get in," he said.
It wasn't in the bathroom. I had to pee, but there was no time. I found an usher on that floor to ask, and amazingly she turned around and was holding my wallet. I shrieked my thanks, ran downstairs and found Joe. We ran outside and around to the stage door where Nala herself met us and escorted us past security.
Alex is a 10 year old Phillipino girl with a brilliant smile and a beautiful voice and she was obviously delighted to give us a backstage tour.
"Here's the Pumbaa costume, up there is the elephant...here's where the floor opens up and Pride Rock comes up." She showed us her baby elephant costume for the opening scene and how her trunk hooks onto the big elephant to make sure she makes it up the stairs. We touched Rafiki's famous stick. We saw the wildebeast machine that makes it look like hundreds of wildebeasts are running at you. "That's the mask from the old Mufasa," she says, pointing to the wall. "I think he must've died or something because it says In Memory Of." We took a picture with her next to Pumbaa. She told us about going to school and how the boy who plays Simba took her up to the top balcony on a tour and then told her a boy fell of it and died once, completely unaware of the similarities between this adventure and the scene in the Elephant Graveyard in the show.
It was so much fun. I was giddy with excitement. It was the end of our great weekend, but I was too happy to be sad. I couldn't ask for more. I have an endlessly wonderful boyfriend, and we never stop having fun.