Ten

Ten years ago this morning, I went to my mom’s friend Claire’s house, because she really thought I needed to meet a particular guy. This particular guy had been her daughter’s boyfriend for more than four years, but they had parted ways because she’s a big city person and he is not, among other differences. They remained friends, so he remained in touch with her family.

Claire and I had talked at the St. Thomas Lobsterfest that year about what I wanted in a guy, and I described her ex-future-son-in-law, so she chose a Saturday morning garage sale outing as the venue for our introduction.

I remember wearing a natural-colored cotton fisherman’s sweater from Eddie Bauer, my favorite jeans, and my Bandolino boots that morning. I had gone to the Debutante Ball the night before with Chad-the-Ice-Rinser, so I had gotten about 2 hours of sleep, tops. I remember that Jerry was wearing a blue jacket, jeans, and I think a striped shirt. Not really sure.

We fell into conversation easily, and traded phone numbers and email addresses at the end of the outing. He left the day with a lamp, and I don’t think I bought anything that day.

Our first dates were October 29 that year, carving pumpkins together and then going to see the Tibetan Monks at UAH (ask us to do an imitation sometime. It was a strange evening). We maintained an email friendship for about a year while I finished being treated like crap by Chad-the-Ice-Rinser, and started dating for real in August 1996.

Happy Anniversary, Jerry. I love you! 🙂 It’s hard to believe we met a decade ago. Wow. 🙂