The traditional gift for the 14th year is ivory (wow.) and the modern gift is gold jewelry. I was hoping it was steel, because for our anniversary this year, we went to Pittsburgh, PA (but steel is 11 years). I offered to buy Bob a bunch of flashy gold jewelry, but he wasn’t super into it, alas. The reason we went to Pittsburgh for the day is that we were going to see a Nathaniel Rateliff concert that evening, so we decided to take the day off of work and make a day of it.

We had planned to go to the Andy Warhol museum, but it was closed (it was a Tuesday), which… makes sense. We could have checked before arriving, but we like to keep things casual. So we did a quick Google search and found this place called Randyland, which sounded interesting. And it was very interesting! I really loved it.

While we were looking at the front of the building, Randy himself came out! He said he loved my hair, and we talked for a minute. I asked if we could get a picture, and he said, “but I’m fat!” and I said, “so am I!” and we laughed and laughed, and took some photos. It was really nice! His lifelong partner lives next door, and they’ve sort of overtaken an entire corner of this neighborhood. When they first moved there, the neighborhood was pretty bad, and one of their goals was to bring more love to where they live. I’d say they succeeded. There were a ton of pride flags, lots of trans kids matter signs, nicely tended stoops, and kids playing in the street. It was a really friendly place. There was a little park nearby called an Alphabet Park, that featured alphabets of many languages and was a lovely little oasis.

We were also around the corner from the Mattress Factory, which we didn’t end up visiting, because we ran out of time.

Then it was time for the show! It was in a small venue – AE Stage, which is an outdoor theatre. It was really fun! For our anniversary I bought the tickets, so I splurged and we had seats in the “platinum” space, which was a nice experience.

The best way to describe a Nate Rate show is “rollicking.” It’s bold and brassy, with lots of feeling. While they executed the entire set perfectly, the rendition of “Hey Mama” is really sticking with me. I thought about it the entire ride home, in fact. It’s less bouncy and more melancholy.

Also, the moon, man.

All in all, it was a really nice mid-week getaway with Bob. We have been really busy with moving, getting the house in order, settling into new routines, and work travel, that we haven’t been seeing as much of each other as we’d like (considering we live together and see each other every day) – so getting a full day to just drive and explore a city together, and then see a show we were both really excited about was lovely.

One of my friends just celebrated her twenty-fifth (!) wedding anniversary, and I’m really happy for her and her husband, but of course I have to make it about myself. I think that probably the next 10 years will absolutely fly by for us, and we’ll be celebrating our 25th before we know it, even though it seems really far away right now. Grant will be 18 when we celebrate our 25th! Unimaginable. The day after our anniversary, I was getting Grant ready for Y Camp, and he asked me, “mom, how was your wedding birthday?” Can we call it a wedding birthday from now on?