20 June 2012

How We Met Blog Hop

I'm participating in Melinda Dozier's How We Met Blog Hop! Head on over and sign up. It doesn't start until June 30th (their anniversary). My anniversary was June 12th so I decided to post mine just a little earlier! I also broke the 100 word maximum rule.  Oops, what did you expect from a passionate writer?

So...How DID we meet?

He was stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC. I worked for my mother at The Rice Bowl Restaurant & Lounge. He used to come in for takeout every now and again. I didn't much care for him. I thought he was a little stuck up because he would come in, order food, drink one beer, and then leave. I don't even recall if he was a great tipper.

He would always talk to my mom. He was really nice to her, but no one else. Then one day he mentioned fishing.

My mother said, "What do you do with all the fish you catch?"

"We let them go," he said.

"No, don't let them go anymore. You bring them to me and I'll make you sushi." 

My mother didn't sell sushi in her restaurant because it was too expensive to keep freshly stored and we didn't have enough customers to keep the spoilage down. It was too much hassle for what it was worth.

So then he started coming in more often, bringing my mother fresh grouper and tuna, which she happily prepared for him and served on a bed of thinly shredded cabbage with a dab of wasabi mustard on the side. I didn't understand why my mother was so thrilled that this man would bring her fish and let her prepare sushi for him. He would just sit there, eat his food and have conversations with my mother while I sat there waiting for him to ask me for another beer.

"Diane, you should get him another beer. No charge his ticket, it's on me."

WTF??

Something was unsettling about him and I didn't know what it was, until the day I discovered who he was.

"So what's your MOS, marine?" Another customer asked him.

"I'm a CID agent."

"Ah, one of them." The customer dropped the questioning shortly after, and via my great communications skills, I learned the following: MOS was an acronym for Military Occupational Specialty and CID was an acronym for Criminal Investigations Division.

Mind you, at the time, I had access to the military base commissary, which means low cost, tax free, produce/meats. Being that we were a restaurant, what better place to conduct a black marketing sting operation, right? He was spying on me and my family! He'd been watching us, following us to see if we were utilizing the military facility to make unauthorized purchases for the purpose of redistribution for profit!

I was weary for weeks and I spent countless days and nights in a cold sweat over the whole conspiracy.

"Don't be silly, Diane." My mom tried to tell me what a great guy he was and that I should be lucky to find a man like him.

It took several weeks to rid myself of the paranoia to the point I could even like the man, but when I did start to like him, I really started to like him. Then, after getting to know him, I told him what I'd originally thought, that he was investigating me for black marketing.

He laughed and said, "We don't go looking for work. We have enough work investigating crimes we know about."

He laughed at me and laughed at me. Then he laughed at me some more. As a matter of fact, he laughed at me so much that I started to hate him again.

Alright, so I've always had this grandiose notion that I was somehow important enough for any number of shenanigans going on around me, but I sure as hell didn't need to be laughed at for it!

I got over it soon enough. I think he fell in love with me because I was that entertaining. I fell in love with him because he grounded me, which is something I desperately needed (and still do). Later, after we were married for several years, my mother would tell us that she was so thrilled because she knew she'd found the perfect match for her daughter, and she did.

June 12th of this year was our 25th wedding anniversary. So in celebration, I'm sharing some older photographs as well as an updated one we had taken while on our anniversary this past June.

This is me in  May of 1988, almost a year after we got married. 

Tim and our son, Cameron. This was around October 1989. Cameron was almost 1 years old.










This is Tim and me with Chelsey, Cameron and my late Grandmother.















June 2012, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary!

If you are unable to participate, please share with us how you met your significant other. Just leave it in the comments below!


26 comments:

  1. That's a great story, Diane! Happy anniversary!

    ReplyDelete
  2. How sweet!!!! What a cool story!!! Hee Hee...black market. Hey! You never know!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Diane, you have a beautiful family! Plus, the story of how you met was hilarious. Thank you so much for sharing and I raise my glass to you and your husband for another wonderful twenty five years!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! And I raise my mug of beer to you. *gulp*

      lol

      I always enjoy sharing my tales, especially the more humorous ones. :)

      Delete
  4. What a lovely couple and a beautiful story. I had a sticker on my car and this dude asked me about it. I wanted to introduce him to a friend so I invited him to a party. My friend didn't show...and the rest is history, because we hit it off just fine!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He asked you about the sticker because he was interested in YOU, :)

      Delete
  5. What a great story! Almost like it's right out of a book! ;)

    My girlfriend and I originally met online, but we were just friends until we met in person and hit it off. We ended up taking an impromptu vacation to Savannah together. It was a crazy rollercoaster ride, and we're still together eight years later.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Omg, what a coincidence. We were in Savannah for part of our anniversary trip, congrats!

      Delete
  6. Replies
    1. Thank you, Mark! I'm also looking forward to our awesome future! :D I might have to write about it someday.

      Delete
  7. Congratulations! You have a good looking family. I met my ex-husband playing volleyball. He was a loud mouth ball hog. That should have been a red flag! Well at least we had two beautiful children together.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That last part is what counts, Deb! Greatest gift of all.

      Delete
  8. What a wonderful story. Your mama was a smart lady! Thank you so much for sharing this part of your life. You have a beautiful family and congratulations on 25 love-filled years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aw, thank you, Jayne! Glad you enjoyed. :)

      Delete
  9. Diane-- Such a lovely story, and I love the comedy you brought to it. Had me laughing out loud here at work..so much so that the entire floor was asking me what was so funny (that would be the LOL cats.) Congratulations on having such a wonderful love that has stood the test of time!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, randi! Gotta love them LOL cats! :D

      Delete
  10. Aw, really great story! You could easily turn that into a novel ;) My SO and I met the boring way, through mutual friends. But it took us three months to get together and he admitted later that his first impression of me was 'that crazy feminist girl who talks too much' ;) So much for first impressions!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Katharina! I like to say if you find you don't like someone, try and figure out why. Because once you get over why you don't like someone, there's a bunch of reasons you'll discover why you DO like them!

      Love was only one dislike away and we never even knew it!

      Delete
  11. Very interesting story. I had to chuckle about the part of your husband coming in having a beer, eating and then leaving. When I met my husband, I was hanging sometimes at a bar called Spikes, he would come in have a beer, eat some nachos and leave. Finally I was introduced to him and I never thought he would seek me out. But one Sunday I received a call from him asking me out. I was very impressed that he remembered my name, since my maiden name is not a common name like Smith or something like that. After that it all fell into place and I also was married in 87. Funny how things work out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They say you don't choose who you fall in love with. But you do get to choose who gets a chance. The25 years tells me you gave the right guy that chance! Congrats!

      Delete
  12. Such a good story!
    And what a creative blog. Very inspiring:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well thank you. I'm always happy to inspire. :)

      Delete
  13. Love the story and I'm glad you went over the word limit. Thanks for participating!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for hosting such an inspirational blog hop, Melinda. I'm glad you enjoyed.

      Delete

I welcome feedback, so please leave your thoughts.

Contact Diane

Name

Email *

Message *