Carson City Courtship – What Were the Odds?

CARSON CITY, NV — Who would have thought they would stay together? The odds of them lasting much beyond that first fast attraction were small.

He was a small-town boy, who lived most of his childhood in one tiny house in Reno, Nevada, one tiny town. She was a Big City girl. The smallest “town” she had ever lived in was Las Vegas.

His life plan was to practice law in Gardnerville, Nevada (population 3,414) and take lots of time off to cross-country ski. She had big city dreams, wanted a brownstone facing Central Park and to win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Cold War.

For her birthday, he gave her four books. The first three were cookbooks including one titled “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.”  To put it kindly, she was less than enchanted.

“Why cookbooks?” she asked with more than a hint of outrage.

“I thought it would be fun to cook together,” he said with a smile.

Happily, the fourth book was poetry. Happily, they stayed together and shared many birthday celebrations together. Happily, he never gave her another cookbook.

He favored plaid flannel shirts and well-worn cowboy boots, the working kind, not the fancy Tony Lama ones.

She wore a powder blue Belgium knit dress on their first date.

He shopped at REI. She was a regular at Bloomingdale’s and considered the yearly arrival of the Neiman Marcus’ holiday catalog a blessed event.

You Say Homemade Pasta. I Say “Reservations”

But for roasted duck, bacon and pork shumai, he was a vegetarian with a much-used pasta maker. The first time she went to his house, the place reeked of hops from the beer he was brewing.

She, as the joke goes, made reservations (or ate cereal) for dinner. The first time she cooked for him she made roast beef – burned to a crisp – and used a jello mold to bake a bundt cake.

He liked homemade ice cream and gourmet dark chocolate. She liked cake made from a mix and ate M&Ms by the fistful.

Yes, the Vegas oddsmakers would have said it was a chump bet to wager they’d stay together.

He loved the outdoors, running and most especially cross-country skiing. She loved Broadway musicals.

For Christmas, he bought her a pair of blue skis.

“Skis?” she questioned, rubbing her ankle that ached from the pins holding ankle together after a recent injury. “You bought me skis?”

“Yes, they’re steel-tipped, waxless,” he proudly explained.

“They could be diamond-tipped and wax the floor for all I care,” she thought.

He did get her out on the skis – once. He helped her get the skis on, and when she stood up, she fell.

“I hate you,” she said, rubbing her ankle.

She went East for a big career promotion. It was a life-changing moment, but somehow across multiple time zones and business trips to 32 countries, the romance stayed strong.

Proposal #1

He proposed at a Wendy’s. She was shocked, not about the proposal, but about the proposal site.

“Why are you asking me here?”

“So, you have to tell all your friends and our grandchildren that I  proposed to you in a fast food restaurant,” he said with a big smile, obviously quite pleased with himself.

She refused but suggested he ask again from a more suitable site.

He did. They said “I do,” and 31 years later, he and she are a decidedly happy “we.”

Some things the Vegas oddsmakers get wrong.

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Happy 31st Anniversary, Handsome Hubby

December 6th, 2017

(The photo above is from a recent visit back to The Pink House, a restaurant in Genoa – Nevada, not Italy – where we went for our first dinner date in 1983.)