Behind the curtain

The beautiful and vivacious Peanut Queen more or less dared me to tell the story of how I met Mrs A. She had posted how she met the Peanut king, and I told her it was nice to get a glimpse behind the curtain, so she wanted to know when she could look up my kilt......er behind my curtain. Kinda like "I showed you mine, now you show me yours...."
Bad Al, BAD BAD.

SOOOOOOO

I had been dating a Min Lao woman, and things had gotten pretty serious, but she wasn't up to the cultural challenges, so we weren't seeing each other. For probably six months, my son's fiance' had been trying to get me to date one of the women she knew at work, but I wasn't interested because I was "Otherwise occupied". She supplied a phone number.

After about a month of sulking and licking my wounds, I decided I was not going to sit around feeling sorry for myself. I saw that Karrin Alyson was at Jazz Alley, and I wanted to go see her, but I had no one to take, so I scrounged around and found the phone number. I figured that I had nothing to lose. If it didn't turn out we were compatible, I could still enjoy a good dinner and a good evening of music.

So I called her and set up a meeting at a neutral place (Zoopa's). We described what we would be wearing and figured out a time. We met. She was very easy to look at, and all the bits were in a pleasant configuration. I liked the way she walked, and the way she looked. We had pleasant conversation on the way to the club, had a nice dinner and drinks, and listened to some very nice jazz.

Her prior husband had dropped dead of a heart attack six years before. She had pretty much reconciled herself to living by herself. We were both really looking for someone to go places and do stuff with, because it is sure a lot more fun when you have someone to turn to and say "Look at that incredible sunset!"

The turning point was one Saturday, a month or so later. We both love hiking. She wanted to go hiking on the beach, so on the spur of the moment I decided to drive to the Ocean to Twin Harbors State Park.

I have always figured that if you want to find out what someone is REALLY like, take a multi-hour trip in a car with them. We had a ball. I missed the turnoff and we ended up going all the way to the Columbia River before I turned, anf then we went out to the coast and back up to Westport. We ended up being on the road for 6 hours. We stopped and got dinner, and went down to the beach, and went for a long walk on the beach just as the sun set. She found a sand dollar, and I asked if the knew it had angels inside. She gave me a "you're pullin' my leg" kinda look, do I found a rock and broke it open and showed her the "Angels". I think she still has them.

The sunset was incredible. I was exhausted by the time we got back to the parking lot where we had left her car.

I kissed her for the first time, there in the dark in the parking lot, and I floated home in the clouds.

Six months later we were married, and although it has not always been smooth sailing, it has been a heck of a trip, and I wouldn't have missed a minute of it.