The "Remembering Nannan" Story

It was an ordinary day.  This past Sunday was Father's Day and if that's not important, how about adding our anniversary.  Yep, Carol and I celebrated 45 years of wedded bliss.  Wedded bliss!  Exactly what is wedded bliss?  Naturally had to "Google" it and found page after page of answers.  Found out that there is a Wedded Bliss Foundation based in Washington, DC and you can register and take courses there.  For what I'm not sure.  Then I found this: Wedded means "married." Bliss means "great joy or happiness." Put together, it should mean being married has brought great joy to the happy couple.  Sounds good to me. The night before our anniversary I laid in bed thinking about 45 years.  Holy Cow, 45 years!  That's 16,436 days, taking into consideration leap years.  And I don't think we have been apart for more than a dozen days during that time.  Any problems during all those days.  Nah!  Well, maybe a few, but probably could count them on the fingers of one hand.  Then I started to think about how many times I mowed the grass during those 45 years and how many movies we went to during that time.  How many vacations did we take and how many pets did we have.  Then, I fell asleep!!  Every year we agree to not buy each other presents, but then the day arrives and if I wouldn't have a present I would look bad because she always has one for me.  This year I got Carol two beads for her Troll bracelet.  Found them at The Silver Moon Gallery in Park City Shopping Mall, Lancaster, PA.  Looked and looked for the one I found she had "pinned" on my Pinerest account, but they didn't have it, so I searched the store for something similar.  Found an entire display made by Kelly Gallagher who is an art teacher in high school and is married to Jim whose art classroom was two doors from my classroom when I taught school. Jim and I were co-advisers for the high school yearbook for over 25 years.  I knew Kelly did papier-mache molding, but didn't know she did glass work.  Great beads, and they have some local flair to them.  Carol bought me a Apple iPod Nano.  Know what that is?  Something that I can load my favorite songs on and listen to when I go to the beach, fly on a plane or run the printing press at the high school.  I'm actually callinig it my Nannan, since that is what I used to call my one grandmother.  Always loved her and this is how I can honor her.  Least I can do, huh?  Took me an hour or so to figure it out, but I finally have loaded about 100 or so songs on it.  Mostly "oldies", but a few reggae and country songs.  Can't listen to any music unless there are a few Jimmy Buffett songs included.  Downloaded all the songs onto iTunes on my iMac computer, plugged the Nannan into the computer and presto! ....... the songs instantly went into the Nannan.  Actually, I'm listening to "Blueberry Hill" as I type this.  Pretty neat gift and I must admit it is neater than a couple of glass beads.  I'll have to do better next year or I might not make it to 50.  Got any ideas for #50 for me?  Got to be something GREAT, you know.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.