It was Friday evening.  Thos had closed down the shop for the week, and it was time for Mama and Daddy to have some fun together.  But our favorite local restaurant had closed; smoke, noise, and allergies made choosing another a challenge; there wasn't much money in the budget that week, and it was getting pretty late to start hunting for a babysitter.  Our commitment to a weekly date night was crumbling. 

"Remember when we were courting how we used to just sit in front of the fire?"  
I looked at our two little boys, terrors all day, but calmer now, and just old enough to sit entranced through a full length movie.

"Do you think they'd be okay if we were just out in the garage?" we asked each other.

"I'll go put some more wood on the fire in the shop," said Thos.

I made up two plates of aged cheese and fancy crackers (a treat usually reserved for special company)--one for us, and one for the boys.  I put leftover soup on a back burner, low, to warm up for a late supper.  Thos. came back from the garage and put a movie in the VCR, and selected a bottle of wine.  Off we went, on our private romantic adventure, with stern instructions to the boys to come and get us if there was any trouble.

He had set up a couple of folding chairs, a nail keg for a table.  A muted glow from the small clamp-light over the drill press left shadows covering the clutter of scrap iron and wood dust, anvils, vises and sanding machines.  He had soft jazz playing on the shop radio, and a brightly flickering fire in the stove.  For an hour we were back in our courtship days, toasting our love with good red wine, and our toes at the open stove door.

Then we went back to the house, ladled out bowls of soup, and watched the end of the movie with our children.

After twenty five years or so, the children are gone, babysitters are no longer an issue, but most of our weekly dates are still cheese and crackers in front of a fire in the stove, or in the garden watching the sun go down.