Our Best Date of the Year

I’ve really had several things to write about recently, but for whatever reason, haven’t taken the time to do so.  But since I’m up at 200am, taking drugs to ease my way through the removal of my all but one of my wisdom teeth (and that one’s days are numbered), what better time to slip a few words down on paper, uh… keyboard.

Melodia and I don’t get the chance to go out together often.  We’d love to, but with the kids all under 4 (Wil turns 4 a week from today on the 26th), it makes it difficult.  It’s a multifacted problem, or to steal a line I use often from the movie, The Rookie, “it’s never just one thing.”  It’s needing a trustworthy babysitter; it’s having a babysitter who can handle a 3-year-old, 2-year-old, and an infant; it’s not having one of our mom’s near (whom, to us, would be our first choice of childcare); it’s wanting to be fiscally responsible – or at leasting, being reluctant to spend $45 to go out for an evening; and it’s missing the chance to tuck our kids in whenever we’d do so.

But since Melodia and the kids have been in Florida for 5 weeks (6 as I write this), and since Melodia lived there for 20+ years prior to our marriage, we have a few more options for childcare in Florida.  One of those options is/are the parents of Melodia’s close friend Shani – Nana Cathy and Mr. Calvin, as the kids know them.  They offered Melodia and I a night out whenever we wanted it, so Melodia set it up with them for Wednesday, May 13th – the night before I flew home to Buffalo.

Melodia and I weren’t sure what we were going to do, but we had a couple of options, dinner, movie, some boardgames.  I had bought some new boardgames online for us before I made the trip back down there, and had them sent to her parents house, so that we could play them while I was there.  We’d put them in the car for the date night, figuring that perhaps we’d go to a coffee shop and just boardgame together.

There’s a movie theatre just a couple of miles from Nana Cathy and Mr. Calvin’s house, the Cinebistr0.  It is a combination movie theatre and bar/restauarant.  As Melodia explained it to me, I wasn’t sure if it interested me.  The downstairs is all movie theatre, but the upstairs is a bar and restaurant – and the kicker, movie theatre balcony seats in which they will also serve you dinner prior to the start of the movie.  It sounded interesting, but Melodia hadn’t tried it and we were both skeptical.

At the same time, the new Star Trek movie was out, and Nana Cathy had just finished telling us that she saw it twice in the theatre – which says a lot about the movie to us, because she’s not normally one to watch a movie more than once in the theatre. Now, neither of us are big Trekkie’s, but we are big movie-goer types.  We enjoy going to see movies in the theatre.  We weren’t sure if this hyped up Star Trek rendition would be bold or bust, but we thought we’d check it out first-hand.

When we arrived at the theatre, we still weren’t sure about the bar/restaurant ticket experience, and bought normal tickets to the show. We had about 1.5 hours before our 7pm show, and thought we’d take the boardgames we brought up to the bar/restaurant to sit and play, and have a drink in lieu of the coffee shop.

So we carried the three games we’d brought (O Zoo Le Mio, 10 Days in the USA, and TransAmerica) into the theatre with us. I commented to Melodia on the way in how strange it must have looked to people that we were carrying in 3 boardgames, but hey, we like to play.

Upstairs, this movie theatre style really took shape for us.  Arriving at the 2nd floor bar/restaurant, we were impressed, to say the least.  We sat down at a high table in the bar area, and I ordered something to drink for us while Melodia set up our first boardgame.

It was about 530pm, long before whatever evening rush a Wednesday night might see at a movie theatre, and we were the only ones in the entire place.   The mood was quiet and relaxed, and just what we were looking for.  I mean, how often do you have a bar/restaurant to yourself?

So we played our first game, and really started chatting about the design of this place.  By the time we were finished with that game, we were discussing the fact that, maybe we should try their dinner service in the theatre and enjoy the whole experience.  Melodia gave me the, “what do you think?” And I said, “You know, how often do we go out and splurge on ourselves; tonight, we’re living it up.”

While she set up game two, I went and exchanged our regular tickets for their dinner theatre tickets.  This allowed me to pick our seats in the balcony dinner area, and I relied on the recommendations of the hostess. “C9 and 10 are the best seats,” so we took them.  Now, dinner seats 30 minutes before the show starts, so we would be seated about 640pm, still lots of time for the games we’d brought.

I returned to Melodia in the bar area, and we refilled our drinks and kept playing games.  We played all three games we had brought, and one of them twice.  Our time in the bar/restaurant area alone would have made this an incredible date night had we just stopped there.  Anytime I get to spend with just her, relaxing and gaming, is always fun.  As a married couple, one can get so bogged down in routine and what is the “responsible” (particularly fiscally responsible) thing to do that we often forget our “first love.”  Oh, we know why we married each other, but we forget the feelings, the experience of those early days when we hadn’t made that lifelong commitment, those days when we were dating, trying to figure each other out, enjoy each other’s company, listen to and understand the person on the other side of the table.

Any night that allows us an opportunity to return to that experience, to remind us again of those early joys, taps into the core of the reasons for beginning this journey in the first place, and is much welcomed.

Right now in our lives, M and I are discussing, learning, re-evaluating what we do.   Oh, the normal pattern of society might call for us to save money, to take on another mortgage, and so forth.  But we sold our house a year ago and have apartmented (nice verb, huh?) this last year.  Oh, to be sure, there are reasons we’d both like to get back into a house, and there are reasons to save money, but we’ve been talking a lot about this recently.  Is it really worth it to pinch every penny right now?  To put it all away?  By the time we actually touch it, will we have missed the very things we should have spent it on?

Now, I’m not talking about complete abandon here.  I have a retirement account setup that automatically deposits the matching maximum of my employer.  We set up 529 accounts for the kids when they were born.  So each has an automatic, monthly, direct deposit that sees us putting away now, the money for each child’s college education.  The 20 to 30-year life insurance plan should be finalized by mid-June (we waited a while on that one).  And we have been saving some money. In the next two or three months, we’ll have put away 6-months worth of living expenses in the savings for that “rainy day.” Ok, so then what?  The house? More saving?

When I met with Melodia’s mom and dad to ask for her hand in marriage, one of the questions her mom asked me was, “Do you like to travel?”  She noted her daughter’s love for travel and hoped that our life would be filled with some of that. Now those who know me close, know that I worked for an Airline for 2 years and during that time, had some crazy travel adventures, flying 200, 000 miles in those two years, all for personal travel fun.  So yes, I was able to answer that question in the positive.

But since we’ve started our family – and since one and then two of our kids reached that dreaded travel age of 2 (i.e., pay for an extra seat) – we have been slowed in any travel planning.  And the desire to fiscally be at a place of savings, retirement planning, and college planning first, have haulted travel planning.

Our  March mini-vacation and our trip to Florida via the Amtrak auto train have been our first foray back into the world of travel, with more to follow.  We long to build travel memories into our kids’ lives, to give them even more reasons to smile.

Sitting in the theatre, playing games, Melodia and I discussed life, our plans, and made plans to plan.  We talked about whether we want to continue the savings road, or whether, like that night’s date, we should just live it up.  Why put our travel dreams off at this point?  Jesus could be back anytime, or we could be ushered to meet Him before we expect.  We are not given a set number of years to live, not even the next day or next breath.  So we should be about maximizing our day.  We should be about arriving to our pillow’s at night, and whispering to each other while the kids sleep, about how fun and wonderful the day has been.

My job all0ws us a unique opportunity in the world.  Being a college professor, I have close to the perfect occupation for one who likes to travel.  The reason, I’m not limited to two weeks of vacation per year.  In fact, school typically lets out from December 10th-January 20th each winter (a month of opportunity for adventure).  In the spring, I enjoy spring break for about 9 days, then we typically have a 5-day Easter break.  Our summer begins about May 5th (except for a May 15th-ish graduation) and lasts until August 15th.  If ever there was an occupation that allowed for an opportunity to travel, it is certainly teaching.

We are now, starting to compile our wishlist of travel, and we hope to have it developed over several date nights this summer. Three dream plans include:

• I have always wanted to ride the Empire Builder (Chicago to Seattle) in the winter, and would really like to do it with a couple of stops in Montana, Idaho, and Seattle.  In addition, the big dream would be to circle the US on the train via the Coast Starlight (Seattle to LA), the Sunset Limited (LA to New Orleans), the Crescent (New Orleans to New York City), and the Lakeshore Limited (NYC to Chicago). In 2005, I rode the Southwest Chief and that really opened me to the wonder of crossing the US via train.
• Melodia and I have an interest in several cruises.  The long-term cruise dream is a world cruise.  This is one of those on the 15 to 20 year plan, chunking a little away every year.  But imagine a 107-day cruise such as this one, what’s not to love?
• On the shorter, more immediately doable end, a 14 to 28-day cruise over winter break.  Of interest to us in this, the Panama Canal, South America, or Australia.  When it’s cold in Buffalo, it’d be nice not to be in Buffalo.  Sounds like a good motto.
• A kayak adventure through the Everglades National Park – but this one might have to wait until the kids are older.
• More immediately, Melodia and the kids are coming home next week.  We’re roadtripping it from Florida to Buffalo in our Jeep over 5 days and nights.  I’ve already planned the itinerary, booked the hotels, etc. We’re stopping in St. Augustine, FL at the restaurant that we had our wedding reception at for lunch, hitting Tybee Beach in Ga, about 3 different zoos for the kids to enjoy (SC, NC, and Roanoke, VA), a hotel in Morgantown, WV with a spa where Melodia will get 4 hours of girly treatment (messages, pedicure, manicure) on Wil’s 4th birthday (as a thanks for my life, Mami, present), Chipotle for a lunch (because I love Chipotle), then home just in time for me to teach my summer classes. It’ll be a family travel adventure and we’re looking forward to it. I hope to blog every day of this journey, but we’ll see.

So back to our date night.  I think, one of the things that made it more wonderful, besides what I’ve already described above, is the ability to stop for a moment and dream together.  I mean, isn’t that what we originally got into this for?  Didn’t we dream of love, and then in finding that love, dream of a life with that love?  Hasn’t it been (somewhat) about dreaming?  Dreaming together is a wonderful thing.  And so we dreamed.

And when the time came, we headed into the theatre, to seats C9 and C10 for dinner and a movie.  We ate light, as we weren’t really that hungry, but wanted to experience it.  And then the show started.  When the movie ended, I just sat there for a moment.  It was a good movie, and gave us something more to talk about.  But even if the show had stunk, I don’t think it could have ruined our night together.  Of course, we’re glad it didn’t. The night was all-the-better because of the enjoyability of the movie.

We walked out of the theatre into the warm (75-degree) Tampa evening holding hands, and we’re thankful for a night such as this.  On the way to the car, we both agreed that this had been the date of the year.  And we both agreed that we had needed that!  It was wonderful to be able to answer Nana Cathy’s, “How was your night?” question by saying, “You just allowed us to have the best evening of the year together.” Yes, it wasn’t just another night out, of which we’d have been thankful anyway, but rather, you’re taking the kids for us allowed us a memory that will not soon be forgotten.

And I have no doubt that we will, at some point, repeat the Cinebistro experience.  Of course, we’ll try to do so without expectations of a second best night of the year; but it was a worthwhile time.  We all need that.  We need not just time with our spouses, but to touch for a moment the memories of the start of our journey, and to ponder for a moment the dreams of our journey’s future.  This night allowed Melodia and I to do both, and that is what made it our best date of the year.