My partner and I recently celebrated our thirteenth year together. Did we honor the occasion with a wild display of lesbian hedonism, an example of our depraved homosexual lifestyle? ‘Fraid not. We spent it at IKEA, picking up some bookshelves for my parents. That evening, we assembled it and stayed at their house with our son while they went out with some friends.

On the one hand, I would have liked to do something a little less mundane. On the other, spending our anniversary at IKEA was really rather appropriate. The number of IKEA items we own has grown over the years as we’ve moved from student apartment to “real” apartment to house, then added a child to our family. It was also symbolic that we managed to assemble the furniture this time without any arguments. Two strong-willed women wielding hammers has not always been a recipe for harmony—but we’ve managed to learn a few things about working together in our thirteen years. And the fact that we did all this at my parents’? Yes, it might have been nicer to have been in our own home and had a celebration that was, well, maybe just a wee bit hedonistic. The support we’ve had from both our families, though, has helped us survive the ups and downs and sideways jags of our life together. I think it’s good karma that we celebrated (if only this one time) by helping them in return.

Happy anniversary, honey. I owe you a bottle of champagne, just for you and me.