If someone had asked me yesterday how long Pete and I have been together, I would have said 20 years, because this is what it feels like. I would then have paused, remembering that we got married in Fairbanks 19 years after meeting.

Pete, who always does the math, again did the math and remarked that we’d been together 36 years. I then took the liberty of doing the math (on my fingers) and realized that he was right. 36 years. Amazing. I used to look at photos in the newspaper when I was a kid – the one’s of old people who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. I couldn’t imagine being with someone that long, much less living that long. It was unfathomable.

A&P at Alys's study shortly after moving here

In 14 years, Pete and I will celebrate our 50th anniversary – we celebrate the day we met. It seems like a long time away, but I now realize that it’s not. It will go by fast.

I paused here, wondering what else to say.

We didn’t go out of our way today to celebrate this event. Perhaps we should have. Problem was, and remains, that we had too much today. So we who are also creatures of habit just went about our day as if it was nothing special.

We were together in the morning – we ate breakfast together as we always do. We then went our separate directions and did our morning chores. I took Tinni for a woods walk, returned home, and then left for town. I met Bea who is the secretary of the Bright Lights Book Project board, and Milena who is the president of the board, and we talked at length about the project.

I distributed books, then came home. Pete spent a better portion of his day working on getting the inverter to work. The inverter is somehow integral to our alternative energy set up. I looked at the manual that came with the inverter. It was incomprehensible to Pete the technical writer who deals with such things. And so, it was twice as incomprehensible to me.

He also called the City of Palmer—he wanted to know if it was possible to put a building on the land behind the Meeting House. Apparently, it is. This, we are all thinking, might be better than leasing Senior Center Land. Or we could consider the latter and call the Meeting House the gateway place.

Pete and I got back together for dinner. We of course talked about the building situation – he is going to get the information for the city of palmer so we can then continue. Way fun and imminently more sensible, than say, taking on a big project, which would require more time and money than any of us have on hand.

So I’m not getting my hopes up. I had this thought this afternoon that doing the nuts and bolts aspects of this project is what I do best and will continue to do best.

Next: 185. 7/8/22: Swallows