Team "We're Just Sayin'..." circa 1983
Sure, last night was New Years Eve, but more importantly,
the We’re Just Sayin… team celebrated the 30th
anniversary of the day we got engaged.
30 years, who would ever have believed that we would last 30 years. David asked me what I wanted to do to
celebrate this momentus ocassion. When we lived in Virginia, we would have gone
out for dim sum with as many friends as possible. And that’s
what I wanted to do. (We have no friends in Newburgh, just family and that
works very well. I
apologize, David may have friends here, he, like our puppy, wants to meet and
find some good, everywhere he goes). But that’s
not what I want to blob about. So we went to Washington and although we didn’t tell anyone, we had a secret
(it was our secret) anniversary
party with our friends, at our favorite Dim Sum restaurant. We knew that not
all our dear friends would be able to make it so we made separate stops to see
them.
We had been together and apart for five years prior to that
night. It’s unclear what
happened that made him ask me to marry him, (except at Germaine’s suggestion I took everything
that he had left at my house, and dropped it off at his one of his good
friends. I usually say that I packed it up and threw it out on the street. And
while that sounds much more dramatic, I lived near Dupont Circle and in those
days it wasn’t as upscale
as it is today. For example, I
paid the drunks who hung out at the corner liquor store to watch Seth when he
crossed the street to go to McDonalds.
Anyway, I thought that was the end of a long and tumultuous
five years. But not so fast, Fanny. (No idea where I came up with Fanny—it just sounded poetic.) He was away on one of those “Days in a Life…” books. I think it was a Day in
the Life of Hawaii. Maybe he spent
too much time in the sun, because when he came back, he took me to Georgetown
and proposed – there was no
diamond exchanged, that came later.
That evening we had a New Years party at Germaine’s restaurant. David had made some 3X5 cards, on which
he announced our engagement. He handed the cards to Dave Kennerly and said, “I’m
going to say whatever is on those cards in Japanese, (no he doesn’t speak Japanese, so you can
only imagine), and you read the translation in English.”
Yes it was hilarious, but no one, including Kennerly had any idea of
what was to come. On the last card he said that I had accepted his proposal of
marriage. Here’s what’s important, we were not kids and we knew if we
waited to get married for more than 3 weeks, we would talk ourselves out of it. But the third weekend was the Superbowl
– so we actually had to
wait 4 weeks. Getting married was an excellent decision.
Last night (New Years Eve), we had dinner with family and
reenacted the proposal. Yes, David spoke -- or didn’t speak -- Japanese, and everyone enjoyed the
presentation—I hope.
"Happy New Year" is something people just say when the year changes. It is a
nicety. What of instead of "Happy New Year" we said something a
little more substantive, like, "this year I intend to make your life
happier by (fill in the blank).”
It's just a
thought. Now I have to make a plan
about how to do that. We’re just sayin’…Iris
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