The Story

Ok. Several people have asked for some clarification of the last sentence from the Jan 2nd post. (My many thanks to the well-wishes from several of JoT’s prodigal children, including the Johanni, Mia Culpa, and the ever-wonderful JJ. Thanks, guys! Sorry for not updating more often.)

Here goes.

Babs and I met at a Height’s YP Girls & Guys Mixer on Friday, September 1. (Ok, ok, technically we met a couple of weeks before at a Height’s Women’s Event Seminar – What? I was there running a camera, one of only a handful of people sporting the Y-Chromosome. And, if you can get past the glorified man bashing, you’ve got to admit that the odds were fantastic!)

Anyway, We really didn’t have a chance to really talk until that night at Fox & Hound. Needless to say, we shut the place down, with AQ, Darcy, Lord of War, and the Elfin Princess looking on from the sidelines.

We weren’t able to talk again until that Sunday because I wasn’t suave enough to get the fetching lass’s digits. No worries though, we went out to lunch after church with the gang, and was soon talking as though it had only been 30 minutes apart instead of 30 hours.

This time I was able to get her number and we made plans to get together again real soon. Which turned out to be sooner than I thought. Late that evening, I discovered a missed call from the blue-eyed maiden (my phone had been set to silent that morning during the service and not turned back on). She had called to suggest meeting earlier that afternoon, but it was now after 9pm. Though, as most anyone that knows me is aware of, I do have a tendency to talk.

Forever.

That “quick” call to plan the following day’s activities lasted 4 and a half hours. Uh…yeah.

The next day was Memorial Day, and, quite surprisingly, I was able to get the day off. Texas decided to celebrate that fact by drenching us with scattered thunderstorms. We met for lunch at Rock Fish, and picked up our conversation for the previous evening. Lunch gave way to an impromptu visit to the local antique mall and a short stop at Starbucks, mainly to get in out of the rain.

After getting our caffeine fix, we still hadn’t had enough of each other’s company, so we decided to see if there was anything worth watching at the dollar movies. Turns out that the only movie showing we had any interest in at all was the DiVinci Code. Yeah, I practically had to keep her from rushing the screen with both guns blazing. (The book was better, but only by a little) All in all, that lunch date lasted 9 hours.

The next several weeks were filled with long trips away from each other (she to Phoenix for a week-long conference, me back home to Minden for a wedding shower), extended hospital visits (me again, testing to give my kidney to Nathan), a balloon festival, a power shortage, and building 6 screen-accurate, award winning costumes. All in about 2 months time. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

November brought my first trip to the Windy City. Babs had family and friends out there, seeing as she’d lived there previously for 12 years. It was fun, and not nearly as rushed as the Louisiana drive-by we made during Christmas.

So that brings us to New Year’s Eve, my B-Day. There was talk of a costume party that evening, but Babs and I just weren’t in the mood to dress up (and look the fool in case no one else did either). We had planned to use one of the restaurant gift cards we collected over the holidays for lunch, so we headed over to Babs’ apartment to retrieve one, and to let her change out of her church clothes.

Before we went back out, I reminded her of a conversation we’d had several weeks before, about we didn’t want to make the usual new year’s resolutions, about how we wanted to live our day-to-day lives as best we could. And I told her that I wanted to be a part of her day-to-day life. And while we had nixed the costumes for that evening, I had a little something that she may want to wear anyway. As I’m saying this, I’m going down on one knee and pulling the box out of my pocket.

She said “yes.”

So, mark your calendars for Saturday, June 2, 2007. 1pm at the Height’s Chapel.

For more info, please look here.

Thanks everyone for your words of encouragement and congratulations. I’m quite happy to begin this new chapter of my life.

Jos-

"True love stories never have endings." ~Richard Bach