Let me tell you about a young couple that I met at work recently. They were very excited about one another and I could tell they were very new in their relationship. As they stood at the bar while I made their drinks, the guy began chatting with me about the girl standing next to him. “We met standing right here,” he said, and if I could see his feet, I would guess he was rocking back and forth on them-from heel to toe and back again. The smile on his face, the positioning of his raised eyebrows and the twinkle in his eye told me that he was indeed very excited about her. She just giggled and gave him an embarrassed whack on the arm. They were probably college-age and, from what I could tell, pretty cool people. So, I told them I thought that was a special thing, the way they met one another standing at the espresso bar at Starbucks and asked them when their encounter happened. They both answered in unison April 6. Of this year. Last April 6. Normally this would just be another date on the calendar, but it’s not. You see, and I told them this too, Chris and I had our very first date on April 6. Of 16 years ago. April 6 of 1995. I told them that is a very special date. They loved to hear that April 6 meant something to me, too. And, do you know what happened next? I’ll tell you. They asked me how I met my husband. How sweet is that? So, of course, it was fun for me to dial backwards and remember the early days of me and my man.

I told them that we met working at a local grocery store in Fort Collins my senior year of high school. I was the cashier and he was the bagger (but not for long). I proceeded to explain that he was almost two years older. I knew he must’ve been cool because, while our dress code at Toddy’s Supermarket required men to wear a collared shirt, I could tell he was wearing a black concert tee shirt under his flannel on top. I made sure to tell them that flannel was cool then-it was the mid-90s after all. Come to find out it was a concert tee shirt of the band Live-even better. But, he actually had a deep seeded interest in this band, I just knew them because of their “Lightening Crashes,” song that wore out its welcome on the radio, according to me. We discovered that we liked the same kind of music and he invited me to join him for “alternative night” at Fort Ram, the hot spot for all-ages dancing. Well, I accepted his invitation and the rest is history, as they say. That’s about as much as I told these two young love birds, except for one more thing. “Turns out he was a great dancer,” I told them. “That’s what really attracted me to him!”

“Awwwwww….” they beamed, so jazzed about love and my story. I think that maybe if they could’ve seen my feet, they would’ve seen them rocking back and forth, too! I wished them well – something wise like, here’s to your next 16 years, blah blah. You get the idea. But since then, my memory vault hasn’t closed completely and it has been fun reminiscing about some of the silly shenanigans that Chris and I are guilty of committing.

1. Before I went to his house for the first time (he had his own place, even!), I was on the phone with my mom from the break room at work letting her know where I would be and Chris was standing right by me. She hadn’t met him yet, it was maybe just our second “date.” She asked me what his last name was and I believe I may have actually spoken the words, “he hasn’t got one,” because I was nervous and ill-prepared to try and pronounce it in front of him. Silly silly girl was I.

2. When I first visited his house, I found the phone book and wrote my phone number on the cover, thinking all the while, “He’s never going to call me again…”

3. Chris took me to my senior prom. We attended rival high schools, by the way. But, I was the cool girl who got to take an older guy to my prom. I went with him to try on his tux and when he walked out of the fitting room, I thought immediately, “Oh my goodness, he is so tall and…sooo skinny!” I never realized because the style back then was to wear the baggy baggy jeans with the hem cut off! I had no idea!

4. At the prom, he was the only one dancing for most of the time! I felt like I aught to be dancing too since he was my date after all, but he made all of us look bad! (He was that good…and confident!!).

5. The first time I tried to cook him a meal at his house, I went all out and tried (and failed) to prepare a steak dinner. I smothered it in celery salt and cooked it till is was like jerky. He was quite gracious, assuring me it wasn’t that bad.

6. We skipped through the toy store once. It was then I knew he was “the one.”

7. We had grocery cart races down the parking lot at Toddy’s. He always won-must’ve been those long skinny legs!

8. I can’t remember my curfew at the time, but he never brought me home until it was absolutely time, so sometimes, quite often actually, he’d watch Star Trek: The Next Generation on the couch and I’d fall asleep. Ha! Sounds pretty similar to how it is now! Except now I’ll stay awake to watch Star Trek-a pity it took me so long to appreciate it! (I heart Captain Picard!).

9. Concerts. We attended so many concerts together. Live, Collective Soul, R.E.M. Barenaked Ladies, to name a few-but we saw them many times each.

10. Every Tuesday night we danced at “Alternative Night” at Fort Ram.

Dancing and music were always a really common, binding element to our relationship, I think. Still is. We’ve come a long way since burnt steak and bowls of Lucky Charms for dinner. In fact, we’re cooking a steak on the grill tonight. It’ll be divine, I’m sure.

Well, maybe I can close my memory vault now. It sure is fun to open it up though, and look back and discover how we’ve changed. While the binding elements such as music has very much stayed the same, in fact grown stronger, there are other things, like cooking and a love of good food that I didn’t see coming. A friend of mine just last night shared with me about a friend of hers who is having a food-themed wedding and their engagement photos portrayed the couple laying on a picnic blanket, outside, reading cookbooks! Get out of town! While I think my wedding was fine and lovely, I think its time to renew our vows so we can copy that idea! Hehehe! Should we be so bold as to copy someone’s idea? I don’t like to admit to copying someone’s idea because that is unoriginal, but hey, if we were that cool 10 years ago, it would’ve been our idea to begin with and they would be stealing it from us! It’s like in the movie, When Harry Met Sally, when Marie tells Sally that somewhere out there is the man she is supposed to marry and if she doesn’t get to him first, then somebody else will, and she will then spend the rest of her life knowing that someone else is married to her husband.

Ok, maybe it’s a stretch, but my point is, had Chris and I been culinary cool way back when, then that idea would’ve been ours and we wouldn’t have to worry about stooping so low as to steal it from someone else. I’m just saying. Food-themed wedding…brilliant!

I love you, Chris!