Four Years of Flame

Flame-Haired Angel told me, for some time, not to plan anything for our anniversary weekend. As last Friday approached, she told me I'd be leaving work early. So it was that I found myself in her arms in Venice on Friday night, and in a gondola not much later. We simply wandered and, in these days before Easter, but after spring had brought jacket weather and late dusk, found a city that still wanted our feet. In a mere month, perhaps, there will be too many, and the sun will squeeze pong from the canals. But not this weekend. So, we wandered, held hands, kissed in front of all the monuments and generally proved me wrong about never having been that interested in visiting Venice. Happy Anniversary, indeed. * * * A nuance to the luck: Because I was so firmly committed to being out of town and out of touch over the weekend, my boss was moved not to drag me into the tail-end fury of preparation to announce my company's big news, which was released on Sunday. But because I wasn't around, a colleague of mine spent the weekend at his desk polishing French translations of merger-speak. I owe him a very nice bottle of wine.