Love Stories

Some of you may have heard me talk about my favorite website, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman.  Ree, the wicked cool lady who created this fabulous source of endless entertainment for me and countless others, has the entire detailed story of how she met her husband.  I literally spent a good portion of an afternoon guzzling up her tasty narrative like a thirsty kitten.  (And that's saying something,...we've got a maine coon who will spend hours at the faucet slurping up the H2O goodness...)  anyway, I decided that since I am totally inspired and a newlywed, I would share some choice stories of Tom's and my 'courtship.'  

You've already heard about the labrador peetriever.  Remember him?  Here he is again in all his glory.  Right now he has all white whiskers and one black.  Last time I was telling you about how I thought trying on an engagement ring would jinx me.  So how did that play out?  Well, the proposal was maybe a little jinxed.  Unbeknownst to me, Tom had the ring in his possession and was planning to drive out to the Outer Banks with me and his two canine accomplices.  Once there, he intended to find some secluded beach location where he would write, 'Will you marry me?' in the sand.  This was perfect, seriously, the perfect plan.  For a number of reasons, which I will now list.  First, I love the beach.  Tom is a mountain man, but I am 100% beach girl.  My body even loves the beach.  My hair curls and lightens giving me just a suggestion of being a carefree girl again.  I get freckles that I treasure.  I love swimming in the ocean.  I used to pretend that I was Ariel, the little mermaid, for hours on end in our above ground pool.  I still remember all the words to those songs.  Plus, the salty ocean makes floating easier, and there's not much that rivals a good, long float.  You can fly kites there.  Tom and I made quite a few trips out to the Outerbanks to see lighthouses early on in our relationship, so the beach reminds me of those great times together.  We have a thing for writing our names in the sand whenever we go to the beach.  Ok, so....good plan.  Little did Tom know, that I had tried the damn thing on and jinxed it all.  Oh boy, did I do a doozie on his plan.  First, he said, let's go the Outer Banks this weekend,....um, we have a housewarming party...oh, ok.  While at the housewarming, my friend's husband decided to do a little meddling and asked Tom when he was going to "finally" pop the question.  Plans-ruined Tom responded that he hadn't really thought about it.  Weeks later, the Jinx overcome, my friend confessed to me that she was totally relieved...after Tom's comment, her husband had confided that he didn't think it was happening anytime soon.  So, the next weekend, Tom ponied up and suggested that we go to the Outer Banks for the day on Saturday.  OK, see, we live really far from the Outer Banks...probably over five hours.  A day trip?  Not so much.  So I suggested a different beach.  It was a hot april day, and the beach was filled with people.  Not just filled, but people were packed on that sand like sardines.  We couldn't find any isolation at all.  Pretty hard to have an intimate moment when people are right next to you.  It didn't seem to bother the people next to us who were graphic and confusing tangle of pale white winter skin and fried chicken.  We had brought the dogs, who love to swim in the creek at Hub's parents house, and revel in chasing crabs and sticks and chomping the sucking it in like whales.  But that is a creek.  It doesn't have big, scary waves.  Yup, the pit bull and the labrador were scared of the ocean.  They got hotter, we got hotter, and I never noticed the giant, square box in the pocket of Tom's board shorts.  So we drove back inland.  I wondered the whole ride why Tom was so quiet.  He had seemed very ambivalent about leaving the beach, but when the lady and dogs are hot, and there's a strange human sculpture next to you, you do the right thing and go home.  Hours later,  I was watching iRobot in the living room, and Tom was hiding something behind Keyser Soze, our fat, siamese kitten.  He made me close my eyes and when I opened them, he was holding the jinx ring.  He didn't say anything!!  So I caught my breath and said, what for it, it's classy, "Is that for me?!!!"  That's right.  I am a classy girl.  I didn't cry, I didn't swoon, I screamed, "Is that for me?!!"