Wednesday

Since it's Wednesday, it seems like an appropriate day for a post about my longstanding Wednesday tradition with my husband. Every Wednesday, we go out for dinner together.

Every Wednesday. Ever since the second week we were dating, two and a half years ago now. Our first "Wednesday" was our sixth date.

Let me stress that this is not "date night." Although it may serve a similar function, we don't think of it that way. We don't call it "date night." We call it "Wednesday." And it happens on Wednesday, period. We would never try to reschedule it for another night.

The historical reason why our special dinner is on Wednesday is that when we started dating, we didn't live in the same city, so we could only really see each other one night during the week, plus on the weekends. I was still in law school at the time, and Wednesday just happened to be the one night when I didn't have class. But since then, it's just become tradition. Whatever one may choose to call it, this is one time in the week when we know we can connect with one another. It's usually not the only time, but sometimes it's sorely needed during a particularly busy week. It's also a nice thing to look forward to in the middle of the week, when both last weekend and this weekend seem so far away.

We alternate who chooses the place, and whoever chooses pays. Since we live in New York City, there are a plethora of options. Although of course we've got our favorite dinner places, on Wednesdays we usually try something new. We rarely go back to the same place on a Wednesday.

Usually, midday, the person whose turn it is to choose will send the other person an email at work with an address (or sometimes a link to the restaurant's web site) and a time. The email rarely says anything more than that. It's fun for the other party to write the address down after work and go find the restaurant, which is almost always somewhere neither of us has been before.

We have a quiet dinner together, usually with a fair amount of wine and cocktails, and usually at a pretty nice place. After dinner, sometimes we go out for drinks and sometimes we come home and just open a bottle of wine, but part of the unwritten agreement is generally that we do spend the entire evening together.

We actually have a list of every restaurant we've been to on a Wednesday in the two and a half years since we started this tradition, and the dates. It has a few holes, since we just pieced it together a few months ago, but 95% of them are there. Some of them have little notes, like "K was sick -- we ate local," or "Lemon Bar after dinner."

I never want this tradition to end, and neither does my husband. It's a big reason why I don't want kids. Oh sure, we could move out to suburbia and have Saturday "date night" at the movies (if we could find a sitter) like all the other married couples with children. But it wouldn't be the same. Wednesday is different. Wednesday is special. Wednesday is us. And Wednesday is never going to change.