So, I promised that I would tell you the story of how The Hubby and I met during this, the month in which I am more-or-less certain the anniversary of that event takes place. I have since realized that I have actually failed to fulfill two similar promises regarding other stories since starting this blog. This is becoming an ugly habit. So I figured I’d better actually follow through this time.

The short story is that I won him. Seriously. Would I joke about true love? I won him fair and square…in a flirting contest.

I mean, he didn’t know it was a contest. And truthfully, it didn’t start out as a contest. But it ended up that way. And he was the prize.

It was my senior year of high school, and I was working retail. I had been dating a guy from work for several months. We’ll call him…Steve. No, that’s no good because I actually dated a Steve once. Let’s call him…Sam. I never dated a Sam, at least not that I remember.

So Sam and I went out and hit it off and started dating. To me, it was that last relationship before graduating from high school and moving away to college. Sam, however, put in for a transfer to a store in the town where I was going to attend college and started talking about apartment shopping together over the summer. Luckily, my manager pulled me aside and asked me how I felt about this, and assured me that he wouldn’t let the transfer happen. Whew, close call.

Sam also asked my best friend—-we’ll call her Darby, because I’ve always liked that name and The Hubby never would agree to name one of the girl-children Darby—- to find out my ring size and help him pick out an engagement ring to give me for Christmas. Now, call me shallow, but at 17 years old I had no problem being engaged until summer and then breaking up. Darby, however, wasn’t tuned to the same station. She informed Sam that I wasn’t going to marry him, because I was going to be a doctor (she was always convinced that I was going to be a doctor), and I was going to have to devote all my time to my studies and that he would only hold me back. In essence, she broke up with him for me. Which I would have thanked her for about six months down the road, but back in December it was a little premature. Not to mention the fact that she never actually ran the whole thing by me ahead of time.

So instead of an engagement ring, Sam bought me a necklace. All I could think of when I opened the box was, “Dang, this was supposed to be a ring.” I know, shallow. I was only 17—are you telling me you wouldn’t have thought the same thing when you were seventeen?  I bought Sam one of those mitzpah charms—you know, the coins cut in half that read “The Lord watch between me and thee while we are absent one from another.” I worked in the jewelry department, and during the busy Christmas season, I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to shop.

Evidently Darby’s little lecture bothered Sam, because a few weeks after Christmas he had the nerve to break up with me because—–get this—- he said I was getting too serious about the relationship. Are you freaking kidding me?  Did he honestly think that Darby didn’t tell me about the ring? Which I threw in his face—I mean, the story about the ring, not the actual ring, since he didn’t actually end up buying a ring….

Anyway, that’s where I was at the time—about a month past the breakup with Sam. So one evening, my friend…Gigi and her friend…Lola and I decided to go out dancing. Gigi had the major hots for another guy we worked with…Manfred. Lola had a thing for …Bert. And I was still in my “men are whacked” phase after the whole Sam incident. So Gigi and Lola convinced me to swing by Manfred & Gary’s apartment (should we have some cheesy soap opera music in the background? I’m an anti-fan of blog music, but at this moment I’m really tempted…maybe I’ll just hum), only Manfred and Gary weren’t there. BUT their roommate P….Pete was there with his friend G…Gulliver.

No, that’s just wrong. I can’t write a story where I end up with a guy named Gulliver. I know—we’ll call him Mo.

Okay. So…Pete’s friend Mo…okay. I’m caught up. So Gigi, Lola, and I convinced Pete and Mo to come dancing with us. Now, here’s the thing you need to know about Gigi. Gigi was one of those girls who views every man she gets within 12 feet of as a potential husband. I had already seen her scare off a handful of potential husbands during the hey-we’re-not-even-dating stage. But she and Mo ended up sitting in the back seat, and I thought—Hmm, maybe they’ll end up liking each other. That was a good deal for me, because then I wouldn’t have to always be listening to Gigi complaining about not having a boyfriend, or watching her send yet another perfectly nice guy running for safety.

Now, when we picked the guys up, it was dark, so I didn’t get a good look at Mo. But when we stepped inside the club—well, lets just say I revised my whole try-and-fix-Gigi-up plan. Gigi and I took the traditional team walk to the ladies’ room, where she promptly exclaimed, “Oh my gosh—did you see Mo? Isn’t he GORGEOUS?” To which I replied, “Mmm-hmmm.”  Gigi took the opportunity to remind me that I had JUST gotten out of a relationship, and that it was her turn.

Turn? I wasn’t aware we were taking turns….

“Don’t you DARE flirt with him, Ashley. I mean it. He’s mine.”

Now, there’s just something about the word “dare,” isn’t there? It’s loaded. And I had no idea my flirting skills were so legendary.

“Look, we don’t even know if he’s” interested in either of us. I’ll make you a deal—NEITHER of us flirts, and we let him decide.”

So we struck a deal and walked back to our seats on either side of Mo. I thought he looked like he was about to turn his head my way, maybe strike up a conversation. And then Gigi grabbed his arm, and I saw the gauntlet fall to the floor at my feet.

“So, Mo, you’re from the Valley? I’m from Puerto Rico. We have palm trees in Puerto Rico. Are there palm trees in the Valley? I miss palm trees. I miss Puerto Rico. Have you ever been to Puerto Rico? You should go sometime. You could come visit my family—”

Now, somewhere around the word “so,” I realized that Gigi might just be the one person on the planet who could outtalk me. Outtalk, maybe. Outflirt? Never. So I did what any self-respecting victim of a breach in the no-flirting pact would have done….

I kicked off my shoe and started playing footsies with him under the table.

Hey, she had to come up for air sometime, and when she did, he turned to me and asked me to dance. The rest, as they say, is history.

I saw Gigi a few years back. We hadn’t seen eachother since I left to go to college. She noticed my ring–”Oh, you’re married?” I held it up high. You don’t think I’m so petty I would rub it in all those years later, do you?

Of course I would. All’s fair in love and flirting wars.

So I suppose this makes him my Trophy Husband….

Tags: flirting, relationships, The Hubby

It is March. I realize that may not be a newsflash for most of you, seeing as how it’s been March for a while now. But I have to stop and think about things like what month it is. I was just wondering this morning why they don’t put a little digital calendar on vehicle dashboards. I mean, my rearview mirror tells me the temperature, which is not only useless—I mean, once I’m in my car, it’s a little late to say “oh, 34 degrees, guess I’ll be needing long sleeves and warm shoes.”—but a little mean-spirited, don’t you think? I’m already stuck in traffic and the only radio station that’s not on commercials is playing Gordon Lightfoot and I can’t reach my Santana CD because it slid down on the passenger floorboard and the baby is screaming because he wants me to hand him Curious George which wouldn’t be a problem if I was all stretchy like Mrs. Incredible and if he wanted Curious George then why the heck did he throw him in the way-back, AND you have to remind me that when I get wherever it is I’m going I’m going to be walking across the parking lot with 4 kids in 34 degrees?

But the date, now that would be helpful. Having “March 8″ displayed on my dashboard all day might allow it to sink into my subconscious—or maybe even into my conscious, although I highly doubt that—so that later on when I need to know what day it is I might just possibly be able to at least get the month right.

But I digress….

The reason that March is so significant is that The Hubby and I first met and began dating in March. At least, I think it was March. I’m fairly certain it was. It could have been February, but it would have had to be late February, because we weren’t together on Valentine’s Day. I’m almost positive it was March.

And this March marks the 24th anniversary of the date we met. Twenty-four years. Wow. That’s considerably more than half my life. Well, not considerably more. Somewhat more. A little bit more.  A smidge, really.

There’s a kind of interesting story behind how we met. And I fully intend to share it with you. Eventually. I’ve been trying to share it for days. A couple of weeks, if we’re going for accuracy here. But every time I try to sit down to the keyboard, someone throws up, or walks in with an eye full of goop that needs to be cleaned, or I go to get Mason up from his nap and realize that he’s nowhere near over his stomach virus. My absolute first priority has been working on the adoption fundraising, but I really haven’t gotten much accomplished, because I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time wheedling and cajoling a certain 10 year-old moppy-headed boy to take his medicine. And once everyone settles down, there’s the growing pile of  laundry that inevitably follows any plague outbreak.

So I still hope to share the story of how The Hubby and I met before our anniversary month is over. Seriously. Eventually….

I had planned to do it yesterday. Actually, that’s not true. I had planned on spending the day with my manuscript, seeing as how last night was my writers’ guild meeting and I hadn’t picked out a scene to bring for critique. In fact, according to my word-processing program, I haven’t touched the electronic version since January 10. Whew—good thing I’d have an entire day to work on it. Then I realized that we were going to the zoo, and “going to the zoo” and “sitting at my kitchen table reviewing my manuscript” are pretty much mutually exclusive.

So, the zoo it was. Now, it is worth mentioning that not only is it Spring Break—and we home schoolers know to avoid public places during spring break—-but yesterday was 1/2 price day at the Zoo. Unfortunately, sometimes having two in public school and two in home school means that you have the worst of both worlds—especially when it comes to taking weekday field trips during the school year. And with the adoption costs looming over our heads, I am loathe to let go of any money on non-essentials, so there is no way I can justify spending $52 to go to the zoo on a full-price day. The only way I let myself talk me into going on 1/2 price day was by reminding myself that we have asked the kids to sacrifice our yearly vacation to visit grandparents and cousins and hang out on the beach—the highlight of any non-Disney year—-so that we can put that money towards saving this little child.

So I decided that if we left early enough, the crowds wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, I figured “early enough” meant “in time to arrive about the time the zoo opens.” In reality, “early enough” was probably about an hour before opening. But I didn’t know that at the time, so we’ll discuss it later, when it fits into the whole storyline.

I already had our food prepared, clothes picked out—hey, for me, that’s some monumental preparedness. Like, Boy Scout caliber preparedness. I got the kids up—–now, in retrospect, this is where things started to go wrong. The child who takes twice as long to do anything—no, three times as long—-didn’t get out of bed when we told him to. This is coincidentally the child that invariably causes some sort of chaos and discord just as everyone else is walking out the door. There is always a grimace, or a moan, or some sort of melodramatic outburst intended to elicit “Oh, gee—whatever is the matter” from the other residents of MoTopia. Either his only pair of clean jeans isn’t comfortable (since-forever-I-have-always-hated-these-jeans-I’ve-told-you-a-thousand-times-I-hate-them), or he can’t find his shoes and yes he put them back on the shoe shelf someone else must have moved them and it doesn’t matter that nobody else has a motive for moving them—–I mean which one of us would want to move his shoes KNOWING what trauma it would inflict on the entire family?—- or oops he forgot to go to the bathroom when he woke up so now we’re all going to end up sitting down and waiting for 15 minutes because for some reason this kid can’t take care of business in less than 15 minutes….you get the picture. And for the record, all of those things happened yesterday morning, plus a few more.

So, finally we got in the car—only 10 minutes behind schedule—and headed to the zoo. Now, I knew the zoo would be crowded. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Spring Break + 1/2 price admission = catastrophe.  But hey—we’d be there around the time the zoo opened. It would be all those losers that showed up an hour AFTER opening who would suffer.

Five miles from our exit, the electronic TxDOT sign over the highway declared, “Expect delays at University exit.”

Guess what exit goes to the zoo….

No, not AT the exit, by the way, but three miles BEFORE the exit, traffic slowed to a crawl, and the two right lanes froze.  And the traffic remained sloth-slow all…the…way…to…the…zoo.

I think we parked in a neighboring city. We hiked 20 minutes to the zoo entrance behind an elderly couple who were all lovey-dovey and wanted to walk side-by-side. I hope The Hubby and I are still all lovey-dovey at that age. I also hope we are cognizent enough of our surroundings to walk single file on narrow pathways. The first chance we had to veer off, we did, beating the crowd to the entrance plaza where we joined about 25,000 other people waiting to get tickets. Funny thing about 1/2 price day during spring break—-families with one or two kids, they figure the savings isn’t worth the headache and go another day. No, only families with four, five, six children—-or extended families who take bring all their aunts and uncles and cousins and grandma and grandpa—those are the families that say hey, we’re all about 1/2 price day. I know this because they were all in front of me in line.

At some point during our visit, the zoo reached capacity. Evidently, “capacity” is Latin for “good luck getting through here with a stroller, Loser.”  

But we really did have a fabulous day. The weather was perfect, and I had girded myself with major prayer on the way there. Chicken Little had a few anxiety moments when the other chickens failed to recognize the difference between situations requiring side-by-side-handholding and single-file-hand-on-the-shoulder-of-the-person-in-front-of-you. But in the end, she rose to the occasion, and I couldn’t have done it without her help. I reminded them all that today was about making family memories—-the good kind, not the kind that come from unplanned trips to the ER (are there planned trips to the ER?).  And we did a great job. We kept our cool, enjoyed each other’s company, and braved the crowds.

By 4oclock, we had seen everything we wanted to see. We’d even splurged an extra $8 to ride the train to save our tired feet from the 10 minute walk across the zoo. Of course, we had to stand in line on those tired feet for 45 minutes waiting to board the train. But Mason loves trains, and was completely blissfully happy for the entire 3 minute ride.

The 20 minute walk back to the car was infinitely more tortuous now that our feet hurt and our bodies were done with walking.  When you have four children, it is inevitable that you are going to hear the words, ”I can’t walk any further! I’m going to sit down RIGHT HERE. I MEAN it!  I (sniff) can’t (snuff) go on (sob).”

And for the record, Riley reminded me that since I’m the only one with a driver’s license, that really wasn’t an option….

Tags: anniversary, Chicken Little, Ft. Worth Zoo, March, Spring Break, The Hubby