Marriage Meme

In the spirit of marriage posts, I thought I'd steal this meme...

Where did you meet your husband?
In the lobby of Santa Cruz residence hall on the University of California, Santa Barbara campus in September, 1976. He was a studly (and shy) senior RA (resident assistant) and I was a lowly sophomore who showed up at school a week early for training for my lowly dining commons job. He was on "desk duty" that day, and was putting the finishing touches on the name signs which were to be put on his residents' dorm room doors. The signs were cut-outs of feet with six toes.

I thought he was absolutely adorable, so I flirtatiously mentioned that I coincidentally had six fingers on one hand -- or at least I was born that way (my extra thumb was removed when I was a baby).

It's funny -- some people I've known all my life have never known that about me. But it was the very first thing Tom knew about me.

What was the first thing you said to your husband?

See above. And then I swooned to my friend Melissa (who also obviously had also developed a crush on him), "He's mine!"

Where was the first kiss?

So we met in September. The first kiss was the following April, in the hall in front of my dorm room. We had just taken a walk on the beach, one of many we'd taken up till then. Tom was painfully shy (oh, and had a girlfriend, except that he always seemed to downplay that relationship to me during the months when we became better and better friends) and I didn't want to make the first move, so I waited... and waited... and waited. Until finally, on that particular night after that particular beach walk, he took his sweater which had been draping from his shoulders, threw it around my head to my own shoulders, drew me close with it and kissed me.

First date?
I have NO idea, really. It took us so long to start dating exclusively and during that time I'm sure we went many places together.

Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement?
Long courtship (broken up for almost two years by this) , relatively short engagement. We met in September, 1976, got engaged in September, 1982, and married in May, 1983.

Where did you get engaged?
We had been living together for about 6 months and although it hadn't been "officially discussed," we both knew that the plan was to marry. We lived on 7th Street in Santa Monica at the time. We had even been exploring venues -- though the question still hadn't been popped. And again, I wanted it to come from him. One of the venues we'd looked at was the Wayfarer's Chapel in Palos Verdes, which we both loved, but which was booked almost a year out. A few weeks after we visited the chapel (remember, there was still no official proposal), I got a call saying that there had been a cancellation for the following May.

"We'll take it," I offered.

That evening I invited Tom for a walk on the beach and told him about my phone call. He pondered.

"Well, will you?" he asked.

Intending to milk this for all it was worth, I asked, "Will I what?" "Um, maaaaarry me?" he replied. And then I joked that I'd only consider it if he got on one knee.

He obliged.

I said yes.

Next May we'll celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and our 32nd year of knowing each other.

Where did you get married?
See above.

How did the reception go? How was the honeymoon?
The reception was at a restaurant called The Admiral Risty in Palos Verdes. GREAT fun! We had a chance to see people we hadn't seen in years, and having all our friends and family together for such a happy event was amazing!

For our honeymoon, we drove up the California coast. We spent our wedding night in room #1, the "most haunted" room at the Paso Robles Inn. When planning our honeymoon I thought that would be kinda fun. But it turns out we hardly slept that night for reasons totally UN-wedding-night-like: there was an incessant tapping on the headboard all frikkin' night long!

We met my parents, who were driving north to Oregon, for dinner in Monterey the next evening. We were staying at the House of Seven Gables Inn, a wonderful (non-haunted) bed and breakfast right on the water. From Monterey, we headed inland to Yosemite (which was flooded!), where we stayed for the rest of the week.



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