The third year is a charm

DD and I think it’s our third anniversary this week.

We’re not sure because we’ve both been so distracted. I’ve had Charlie’s medical dramas, DD’s at the World Lung Cancer Conference.

Seriously.

Very seriously.

I feel terrible that I involuntarily giggled when he told me. There is NOTHING funny about lung cancer, but it’s the last place you expect someone to be going.

I dropped him to the airport on Sunday for what I thought was a business trip to Japan. But then he sent me a shot of the program for the conference. I had NO idea there was a World Lung Cancer Conference. Apparently he could spend his whole working life criss-crossing the globe attending cancer conferences.

Gawd, that would be cheery.

Speaking of (not) cheery, there were tears at the vet yesterday when the youngest and I visited sick Charlie, who has a badly damaged bowel, either from a virus or ingesting something toxic.

The vet still doesn’t know what caused it and keeps trying different treatments with no luck. Poor, poor Charlie. He looks AWFUL. But hopefully he can come home soon.

Anyways, it’s been a bit of an anticlimactic anniversary celebration. Though DD did give me a card before he left. When the youngest saw it she said he should be “put in the naughty corner” because there’s a rude word on it. It was accompanied by a bottle of sparkling that we will enjoy together at some later stage when the dramas subside.

Oh, I didn’t explain exactly what it’s the third anniversary OF. There are lots of milestones for our relationship in October, but the first one was meeting at the Terry Hills Tavern around this time. Damn, it’s bugging me, I need to check …

Aha! According to an old blog post DD first contacted me on RSVP on October 10, because he felt sorry for desperate “Chessiah” constantly trawling the site  (I didn’t realise having the RSVP window open when I was working from home made it appear that I was always searching.)

We first met in real life on October 12, when I regaled him with the tale of the blog going viral with the triceratops position. It was a brief one-hour cider sipping session that I walked away from thinking “arrogant, puts his bare feet on chairs, lays a few too many cards on the table for a first meeting … but nice face”.

Things went a bit loopy after that as we started texting each other 500 times a day and the dopamine raced through our bodies. And three years later, here we are.

Except I’m five days late marking the date.

We’ll get around to clinking glasses eventually. Fortunately we have that bottle of fizz because I’ll never be able to afford to buy one again after I get the vet bill.

It’s been quite the three-year journey for DD and I, with human and canine health dramas, single-parenting challenges, the tyranny of distance, our weekend adventures, all the travelling he does for work, all the travelling we’ve managed to do for pleasure, retrenchment and gawd knows what else I’ve blanked out.

He’s been my rock, I never tire of checking him out and he fills my heart with joy more often than sadness.

Who knows what my future holds, but hopefully it’s him. Despite the crazy rollercoaster we so often seem to ride, I think we’re lucky to have found each other and have so much fun along the way.

Here are some snaps from the past few days (click on one to open the gallery for captions):

Anniversary card

The World Lung Cancer Conference official program.

View from DD’s Tokyo hotel.

Bilbo is so sad without Charlie, he dragged Charlie’s girlfriend onto the sofa to sleep with.

DD’s phallic dinner last night.

My favourite photo of DD and I …

I thought this was DD’s favourite photo of us … but I think it’s just his favourite photo of him. He made it his Facebook profile pic, which I initially thought was us going “official” but have since realised it was just because he couldn’t crop me out …

Song of the day: Dandy Warhols “Bohemian Like You”