part four: connecticut kind of sucks, and not just b/c it’s almost impossible to spell

part 4 of a multipart series about our 3-weddings-3-states-1-day BFGW anniversary extravaganza (click here for part 1)

holly determined the best place for us to get married in connecticut was hartford. i just asked her why and she said she doesn’t really remember, which seems appropriate for a city that’s fairly forgettable in a state that’s not only nearly impossible to spell but can’t decide if it’s part of the tri-state area or new england.

yeah i’m bitter about connecticut. i’ll tell you why in a minute.

since holly’s not interested in giving me input here, i recall she zeroed in on hartford b/c of its central location and the fact that it was on interstate 91, a great but boring road that crossed thru all of our wedding blitz states.

so we get on the road just minutes after our first wedding of the day, our mouths and hands full of sandwiches and chips we bought near the brooklyn municipal building. i had both of our cellphone GPS systems going so two different julies were telling us where to go.

i call any sort of “GPS lady” julie after julie the automated amtrak lady.

(back when i used to call amtrak in the late 90s/early 00s, an automated lady used to come on and say “hi! i’m julie!” it was always kind of fun to scream “AGENT!!! I WANT TO TALK TO AN AGENT!!!!!” right off the bat. unfailingly chipper, she’d say, “i…think i heard you say you’d like to talk to an agent. is that correct?” and then i’d yell back, “YES! AN AGENT! I’D LIKE TO TALK TO AN AGENT, JULIE!”)

(this is what i did for fun before texting & facebook.)

(holy crap now i feel kind of bad bc i just googled “amtrak julie” and found this article. there’s actually a lady named julie that does the amtrak julie voice and she seems really nice! damn. now i kind of feel like a jerk.)

anyway, after about 90 minutes on interstate 91 with our two talking julies, we saw a drab skyline appear.

“babe!” i shouted. “that must be hartford! it looks…it looks…so…boring! i can’t wait to get married there!”

we roll into hartford and quickly find the city’s municipal building. as soon as we park, sketchy panhandlers came up to us asking for money. this confused me.

isn’t everyone in connecticut supposed to be rich? i asked holly, who shrugged, dodged the panhandlers, got a parking ticket thingy to put on our dashboard and told me to hurry up and finish putting on your lipstick already, we still need to get to vermont blah blah blah i blocked the rest out.

so we run past some kind of hartford PR event (oh i am SO glad i don’t do that for a living anymore!) into a room with a bunch of cashiers and tell the lady behind the glass we want to get married. she points at paperwork and we get to it.

we need a justice of the peace, so the lady gives us a few cards for local justices of the peace. yes, justices of the peace have business cards. it felt weird to me, too. 

as she starts typing everything up, we start calling the justices of the peace (ok, i’m just gonna stop and clear the air: “justices of the peace” sounds weird. it’s been the elephant in the room since three sentences ago) leaving voicemails like, hi, we’re holly & jessica and we need a justice of the peace in like five minutes. can you make it?

i don’t know where the hell all the justices of the peace were. it’s not like there’s that much going on in hartford.

once again, we start to panic. no actually i start to panic. holly doesn’t panic much, unless, of course, i push her to the brink of panic with my new jersey-induced neuroses, which i’ve never done so shut up. i’m jewish, it’s in my genes, i can’t even help it.

she tells me she’ll be right back and walks out of the room with all the cashier windows (what does one call a room like that? i have no idea). i refresh my facebook newsfeed every two seconds until she comes back five minutes later.

“i found a justice of the peace, babe. she’s meeting us outside in five minutes.”

you see why i keep marrying holly? INGENUITY. turns out there was a justice of the peace somewhere else in the building and she actually found her. leave it to holly to find a justice of the peace when you really need one.

just when everything seemed to be going so smoothly, we hit a snag. (cue the record scratching and the silverware clinking)

the cashier lady looks down at the paper and then back at us.

you’re already married to each other? she asks.

yes, we say. in washington, dc, and we got married again this morning in new york. 

not surprisingly, she goes to get her supervisor. who, of course, is unnecessarily grumpy.

grumpy supervisor: so you’re renewing your vows?

us: no, we’re getting married to each other. again.

grumpy supervisor: right, you’re renewing your vows.

us: no. we’re getting married.

grumpy supervisor: but you’re already married to each other. 

us: right. but we’re doing it again.

grumpy supervisor: why?

us: because we’re celebrating our anniversary by marrying each other in three states in one day.

grumpy supervisor: (confused look)

us: until same-sex marriage is federally recognized, we’re going to keep marrying each other in every state we possibly can.

grumpy supervisor: (still looking confused) well you can’t do that here. because you’re already married somewhere else. 

holly: but someone in this office told me last week we could.

grumpy supervisor: well that person didn’t talk to me. 

we went back and forth a little bit more until this we decided this woman wasn’t interested in taking our money and giving us a piece of paper.

that’s when i decided i didn’t like connecticut.

i mean, i never really had feelings about connecticut before, other than it seemed like a boring state that didn’t have much to offer other than…hell i don’t even know. it was kind of like skim milk: never really impressed me, would rather avoid it if i could.

fuming mad, we left the building. it was starting to rain and the justice of the peace was waiting outside for us, smoking a cigarette with an effeminate male colleague. (writing that just made me laugh. i don’t even know why.)

“you gals ready?” she said, raspy-voiced and smiling. she reminded me of ladies in our neighborhood.

we sighed and told her what happened. she furrowed her brow, blew some smoke and said that was ridiculous and that the city ought to just take our money.

she put out her cigarette and told us that by the powers vested in her by the state of connecticut, she pronounced us married.

so we were half-married in connecticut. it was better than nothing.

we said thank you and ran back to the car.

“happy anniversary!” they shouted, blowing smoke out into the rain. “good luck!”

(so many complete strangers wished us well that day. it was really touching.)

i mentally gave the entire state the middle finger as we drove away but then felt bad since connecticut actually passed same-sex marriage, which is more than i can say for our home state of maryland right now. plus i really liked the smoking justice of the peace (and her effeminate male colleague!) and she was in connecticut. so instead i gave it a ross & monica finger, which seemed not as bad, and told holly to step on it. it was already 2pm and we had to get to the brattleboro, vermont courthouse before 5pm.

ok i just lied. i’d never tell holly to “step on it.” (who even says that??)  i think i actually told her not to go too fast b/c i didn’t want us to get a speeding ticket. then she pretended not to hear me and went 80mph anyway.

ready to get your maple syrup on and get hitched in vermont? i asked.

hell’s yeah i am, holly said.

come hell or high water, we were going to have at least two weddings in one day. it was on like donkey kong, folks. we were doing this.

part three: no matter how many times we get married, i’m gonna cry every freakin time

part 3 of a multipart series about our 3-weddings-3-states-1-day BFGW anniversary extravaganza (click here for part 1)

well you can blame holly for my shameful tardiness on part three. she got a cold that basically shut down Planet Earth and our entire household b/c i was making her tea every 5 to 10 minutes. then i got a cold. then it was christmas. then it was new year’s. then i was in a bad mood and didn’t feel funny or like doing anything, including writing.

my last post detailed our whirlwind trip to brooklyn & the anderson cooper show, home of lispy anderson cooper psychofans, one of which said i was just like his bitch sister-in-law (whatever, i’m sure she’s not actually that much of a bitch). the post before that was about our first stop in northern new jersey for my BFJHSR (Big Fat Jersey High School Reunion) where i actually managed to convince my former classmates that i invented post-its. (actually, i didn’t mention it b/c i didn’t want to make everyone jealous. between that and how good i look in jeggings–yes i wore jeggings to my reunion–i figured i might start to alienate people and really, who wants that?)

so we wake up the day after the anderson cooper show on our three-year BFGW anniversary riproarin ready to go get married THREE times, starting in new york, new york at the brooklyn municipal building.

we skip breakfast (lattes only; bad idea). we didn’t do research on parking (another bad idea). so we’re not actually first in line like we thought we’d be and in a city of 8+ million people i guess november 15th–or any other day, for that matter–is a pretty popular day to get married.

before we even get in line we hit a snag: despite holly’s online research to the contrary, we need a witness. we look around and zero in on a friendly-looking woman about our age. she’s accompanied by just about the cutest little button of a girl i’ve ever seen. blinded by hunger (that was only mildly eased by an overly sweet chocolate milk i bought downstairs while holly stayed in line) and the need to get married as fast as humanly possible (after all, we have to make it to three courthouses in three states–before 5pm. and the last courthouse is in vermont. and at that point it was almost 10am) i blubber out: hi! would you be interested in being a witness for our wedding?!

without hesitation–and with a thousand-watt smile–she immediately says yes, she’d love to. you gotta love new yorkers.

here they are:

mary & daughter: best witnesses ever.

so we finally get to the front of line and we’re praying we get the nice lady at the window, but of course we got the grumpy one. WE ALWAYS GET THE GRUMPY CASHIER LADIES. it doesn’t even matter where we are. we could be on the freakin moon and we’d get the grumpy cashier lady. the kind that don’t even bother answering you when you ask them how they’re doing.

me: hi! how are you? 

grumpy cashier lady (GCL): mmm-hmmm. 

me: we’d like to get married today!

GCL (sighing): can’t get married the same day you apply for a license without a waiver from a judge. 

both of us: what??

GCL (louder sigh): can’t get married the same day you apply for a license without a waiver from a judge. 

holly: but we didn’t see that on your website.

GCL: (blank stare) (goes to get equally grumpy supervisor)

equally grumpy supervisor (EGS): how can i help you?

holly: we’d like to get married today. we have all the necessary paperwork. we’re already legally married in washington, dc.

EGS: you can’t get married the same day you apply for a license without a waiver from a judge. 

turns out, we’d need to go to another building to get this waiver–if we could even get it signed. and it wasn’t just any judge. it was a supreme court county judge.

good luck, said the equally grumpy supervisor. they almost never sign them. 

nice!

so we run out of the building, run across the street and go up to the fifth floor of this other judicial-type building where we wait in another line to present a form to another front-desk person. except this time it was a guy and he was really nice.

he tells us that he’ll need to tell the judge why we want to get married today. we explain that we’re celebrating our wedding anniversary by getting married in three states in one day. and all before 5pm.

he says he loves the idea and starts typing up the form. then we wait some more. my blood-sugar is already low and i’m starting to panic. then i start getting emotional b/c i’m so happy we’re doing this. holly takes a photo of me as i wipe away tears with a crumbly paper towel from the ancient ladies room, then tells me she’s posting it to facebook. the lighting is exceptionally bad & the photo makes me look pale and blotchy. i threaten to elbow her in the teeth if she posts it. she tells me to lighten up. i threaten to divorce her in multiple states and she does it anyway. it never uploads and i tell her that she’s lucky b/c it was a close call.

the nice man comes back before she can try uploading it again and gives us a form with instructions on where to go next. good luck! he shouts after us. happy anniversary! (you really do have to love new yorkers.)

we get to the room, open a heavy wooden door and…it’s a big, scary courtroom. in session. with incredibly high ceilings and a very serious looking judge sitting at a huuuuuuuge wooden desk.

the judge looks at us. the lawyers turn around. the trial stops and the clerk motions to us to come up to her desk. it was kind of like the movies except for there was no jury, no popcorn and i was feeling kind of scared. was our wedding blitz about to end before it even got started?

holly hands the form to the clerk lady, who looks at it, nods and tells us to please sit down.

we walk back to the seating area–they’re kind of like church pews–and the trial continues. i look around the cavernous courtroom, wondering how long this is going to take and if i could make it to lunch w/out fainting. the trial has something to do with medical malpractice. something about x-rays and fingers and bones. just as i start to panic that we might be here til lunch, the judge stops and asks us to approach the bench. gulp.

the clerk hands her the form. she puts on her glasses and reads it, then looks over her glasses and down at us and asks us what the hurry is. she’s a distinguished, middle-aged african-american woman that looks like she has more important things to do than stop a supreme court trial to listen to a couple girls who want to celebrate their anniversary by getting married a gazillion times in one day.

holly and i explain quickly. we both hold our breath. please say yes please say yes please say yes, i repeat over and over in my mind. i’m sure holly’s thinking the same thing. every second feels like an hour.

the judge pauses, then breaks into a huge smile. why that’s a lovely idea. of course i’ll sign the waiver. congratulations on your anniversary!

yes, you really do have to love new yorkers.

we thanked her, sighed a huge sigh of relief and ran back to the municipal building, waiver in hand. the grumpy supervisor actually broke out into a smile when we handed her the waiver. and there was mary and her daughter, still waiting after all this time to be our witnesses.

we paid our marriage license fee and holly, mary, her little daughter and a young couple we befriended in line earlier all filed into the little chapel. and who turns out to be the local judge that marries us? the grumpy supervisor! and she even gets a little bit friendlier.

the other couple goes first. holly’s offered to be their witness. mary and i both snap photos of them. here they are, post-wedding, outside the municipal building. i wish i remembered their names! they were adorable.

how cute are they??

we’re up next. we take off our wedding rings and give them to the judge. as we’re standing there in the official chapel, i feel the waterworks coming on. and i fear it’s going to be bad. mary is beaming. this makes me want to cry even more.

this is what i’ve always wanted, i think. just a plain, legal ceremony. nothing fancy. just the two of us, a judge and a witness. and here i’m finally doing it.

the judge asks holly if she’ll take me as her lawfully wedded spouse.

i do, holly says, putting my wedding ring back on my finger.

the judge then asks me if i’ll take holly as my lawfully spouse.

i do, i say, finally breaking down in a blubbering pile of tears.

i don’t remember what the judge said in between, i don’t remember what she said before and i don’t remember what she said after. but it was exactly what i always wanted to hear. just like the the movies. except real life.

me, attacking holly, blubbering with tears, newly married in the brooklyn municipal bldg chapel. mary, our witness and new friend, beaming.

officially married in the state of new york (and washington, dc), we said goodbye to our new friends, ran out of the municipal building, grabbed a couple sandwiches and jumped in the car, connecticut-bound, for wedding blitz wedding #2. HOLLA!

part two: it’s cold & bright on the set of the anderson cooper show

"hi, i'm anderson. i know it's cold here, but my smoldering eyes will keep you warm ."

part 2 of a multipart series about our 3-weddings-3-states-1-day BFGW anniversary extravaganza (click here for part 1)

we determined the most sensible thing to do after my big fat jersey high school reunion was, of course, go to a taping of the anderson cooper show.

i mean, what else are you supposed to do after an evening saying things like oh yeah! i totally knew that was your identical twin! (twice!) and yeah yeah! i totally meant to wear jeggings while the rest of you beeotches had to wear GOWNS.

the next morning, before getting on the road to nyc, we hit the ritz diner, where we ate unnaturally large, fresh cheese blintzes (delicious) while holly joyfully discovered taylor ham. (as a non-pork-eater, i’d never tried it.) no one at the diner could actually explain what taylor ham was, which, personally, would worry me a little. this did not bother holly one bit, as she announced to the cashier that she’d like to get some for her family for christmas.

anyway, yes, anderson. anderson cooper is holly’s gay boyfriend. as soon as his new show hit the air and she found out it taped in manhattan, she decided we needed to go. being a planner, i.e. the one in our relationship who’s able to plan beyond what’s for lunch that day, she got free tickets like a month in advance. we were pretty  psyched.

we rolled into the park slope neighborhood of brooklyn, i.e. the place where almost everyone i’ve ever known from every facet of my life–i’m talkin jewish sleepaway camp, middle school, college, first jobs, you name it–lives, sunday afternoon to stay with our fabulous friends meredith & tiffany, who are basically famous for being one of the first same-sex couples to marry in new york. they also both have great hair and seem too attractive to actually be gay. (sorry to go there but i’m gay and i’m totally going there)

to add insult to injury they’re able to run up to their fifth-floor walk-up with vegan-food-stuffed reusable grocery bags, laundry and bikes all strapped to their backs while holly and i basically had small heart attacks every single time we went up there while each carrying a single ikea pillow.

whatever. we live in baltimore. we dodge bullets. we feed stray pitbulls. we…oh hell. we stay inside hiding all day. that’s why we’re both out of shape and i have a vitamin D deficiency.

so of course i wake up monday morning, holly’s big day, w/a five-alarm migraine–the kind where i can’t even eat or look at a ray of sunlight–and we get to the building where his show tapes just as the last elevators went up.

“sorry, ladies,” the fancy elevator guy told us. “you just missed the last elevators up to the show. you’ll have to wait on standby.”

it was like i could hear holly’s heart literally breaking. i felt so bad. i obsessed over how bad i felt until anderson’s psycho fans came along and then started obsessing about how the hell i could get away from them while staying in line.

first, a disheveled looking lady came up to the surprisingly friendly elevator guy to tell him she had “a message” for anderson. and that she needed to go upstairs to give it to him since she couldn’t find his email address on the website anymore. i kept wanting someone to tackle her bc she was holding a lot of bags. (hello! bombs!)

then a lispsy gray-haired guy came up to us and asked us 10 million times how we got tickets for the show even tho he said he had tickets for the next day. then, while holly was in the bathroom, he had me take a photo of him standing next to a photo of anderson. then he asked the elevator guy if the fact that he worked on a cruise ship would get him up there while i covered my hands in antibacterial gel bc i had touched his camera.

then the crown jewel of psycho male anderson fans came along: this mustached middle aged dude with an on-and-off-again yarmulke (i.e. the little skullcap jewish, mostly orthodox, men wear on their heads). he immediately honed in on holly as a friendly bystander and started loudly singing to oldies to her. i was rude to him, of course, i don’t even remember what i said, i just wanted him to go away. then holly got mad at me bc i’m always freaking on the crazies.

you only make them crazier, she hissed thru her teeth. even tho i told her she was wrong, i knew she was right. but it was too late. the damage was done and, to be completely honest, he really did just get crazier. in the meantime, bc of my pounding headache, everything seemed very loud and very bright. things were not, as you might say, off to a great start.

our luck changed fast tho. the elevator doors opened–DING! “ok, they have room for four more,” the elevator guy said. “you guys are in.”

YES. things were getting better.

we got into the elevator and crazy mustache yarmulke man asked the poor anderson cooper lady that happened to be in there already a million questions until we got up to the 5th floor.

we wound up sitting in a balcony above and off to the side of stage for the first segment while mustache man stood not sat two inches behind me, breathing on my hair while simultaneously waving to anderson like he was on a navy ship about to set sail for five years.

despite the little voice in my head that warned me not to freak out on him, i finally turned around and whisper-yelled, directly into his face, can you move back??? then he loudly mumbled about how i act just like his bitch sister-in-law and then i prayed for the remainder of the segment that he wouldn’t hit me on the head with a chair.

we moved down to the main area for the rest of the segments. i should note that the set of his show, like all big television sets, i suspect, is outrageously cold. i’m usually five to seven degrees warmer than everyone else around me so this is really saying something. it’s also pretty much the brightest place on earth. not the best place to have a migraine, is all i’m saying.

and of course! of course anderson had to stand right next to us for what felt like half of the damn penn state show (it was a special on the penn state sex abuse scandal). i kept telling myself to keep my head up so i wouldn’t have a double chin on air but i knew it was useless so i focused on the view outside and my relief that psycho mustache man wasn’t behind me breathing into my hair and comparing me to his sister-in-law who probably isn’t as much of a bitch as he says she is.

we had a pretty good time, all things considered. kathy griffin (LOVE HER) showed up for a new year’s segment and they practiced slicing champagne bottles open with knives. and his fabulous mom, gloria vanderbilt, suddenly appeared. i kept wanting to tell them all we were getting married three times the next day but i figured i’d hold it in bc anderson would be reading it here on my blog anyway.

anyway, if you happened to see the penn state show, that zombie girl with the ponytail, double chin and massively dilated pupils next to anderson is me. and i was totally wearing the sweater i wore to my big fat reunion, so if you were there and you saw me on tv i don’t want to even hear about it.

part one: my big fat jersey high school reunion

i invented post-its, bee-otch!

ok so i posted a million years ago that we were about to embark on weddingpalooza 2011 (three weddings! three states! one day! click here for background) and now that we’re back in town, post-honeymoon, post-holiday, i’m ready to break it down for you, despite the fact that i’m tempted to divorce holly’s ass in multiple states for many reasons including but not limited to:

1. her inability to throw used tissues from her side of the bed into the trash when she has a cold–which she does now, which she continues to remind me of by saying, “baaaaabe. i’m sick. make me tea.”

2. the fact that she continues to butt-dial every single contact in her phone, since she refuses to carry it anywhere but her pocket, like a five-year-old. or my purse. and hello, i don’t want to carry her phone all the time, esp bc it’s always dinging with email notifications from kohl’s, bed, bath & beyond, bath & body works, every single deal-of-the-day and who the hell knows what else bc she signs up for everything while i’m grumpy and sign up for nothing and mark everything as spam.

anyway, there were many stops and much adventure on our wedding blitz. in the interest of time, space & procrastination (yours, not mine; i’ve heard from more than a few of you that lunch at 11:30 is a top workday procrastination station and you know i live to make you happy) i’ll be breaking it down into a few parts, starting with:

1. my high school reunion, i.e. we’re gonna party like it’s 1996.

saturday, november 12th, late afternoon

my high school reunion is in a few hours. while copywriting is a perfectly respectable career, i’ve decided i’m telling everyone i invented post-its.

when we get to the hotel in Livingston, NJ (hometown of my longtime fave chelsea handler WHADDUP CHELSEA! love ya! call me!), the lobby looks like a wanna-be jersey housewives convention. it’s noisy, crowded and smells like a variety of overbearing perfumes–like the mall. or a synagogue function. or perfumania. i wonder what the commotion is all about. is there a hairspray-and-mousse giveaway? eyeliner rally?

holly joins me in the check-in line and i discreetly point out a couple women in leather pants and hooker heels pushing baby carriages. i assure her that yes, this  really is where i come from. this is the land, these are the people, that nurtured my first 17 years on earth. so, really, the daily jeggings, frosty lipstick and occasional chico’s holiday sweater isn’t all that bad considering what i was up against.

a couple hours later we come back to the lobby area for the reunion. luckily the mascara convention is over, and i suddenly see a bunch of people that i think i recognize that i think recognize me. thanks to facebook, i get some names right. this one nice girl, i don’t even know how i remember her name. when i get it right, i feel an immediate sense of pride. i see her again later and get her name wrong bc it’s not actually her, it’s her identical twin. shit! twins! i think.

we walk into Ballroom B or whatever, and it’s pretty fancy. candles, centerpieces, real silver. the whole nine yards. we immediately realize we’re severely underdressed since we’re in jeans & sweaters while all the girls are pretty much in, uh, gowns.

“did we miss the memo?” holly asks me.

i told her there was no memo. just a facebook event page. someone inquired about “dress code,” and i enthusiastically wrote on the wall “jean chic!” since i suggested it, i figured that’s what we ought to go with. brilliant, i know.

“whatever,” i say, suddenly aware just how snug my jeggings really are. and that maybe my boobs look too big in my sweater. “we’re gay. everyone probably expected us to show up in bad pleated chinos, brown boat shoes–the kind with the white stitching and the two-tone laces–and unfortunate plaid flannels. tucked in. oh, and brown belts, also with white stitching. so i actually think we look great. plus i’m wearing my nine west reptile high heels. and jeggings plus high heels equals fancy. so we’re good.”

“well i’m not wearing jeggings. or heels,” holly says quietly.

“you’re fine,” i tell her. “you’re wearing black boots. that have small heels. plus your sweater is black. plus your jeans are dark. plus this is my high school reunion and i don’t even care.”

holly was definitely the hit of the evening, as many of my old classmates already felt like they knew her from this blog. on my way back from the ladies room, i made eye contact with this one guy and figured it’d be rude not to stop and say hello even tho i really wasn’t all too sure who he was.

“hi!” i say. “dave, right?”

“no, rob,” he says. “dave’s my brother,” and he points to the guy sitting next to him. his twin. shit! another pair of identical twins?! what class of approx 144 has two friggin sets of identical twins??

lovely gals that i wish i’d spent more time with in high school tell me stories of fun things we did or funny things i said or did and i realize holy crap, i don’t remember anything about high school. it’s kind of frightening how much of a blank i’m drawing. later on, i realize that, while other people had no idea, high school as a closeted teen was so horrifically painful for me that i think i just left and never looked back.

i tell people about our “wedding blitz” plans for that tuesday, and everyone is so excited. i get hoarse from catching up with people, answering everyone’s questions about our weddings and our life in baltimore. i love that i can finally stand proud with my partner of 10+ years by my side. i love that all my self-doubt is so far in the past. i love that i finally learned how to put a damn arch in my eyebrows b/c dang! i needed a makeover! HOLLA!

wedding blitz: THREE WEDDINGS IN ONE DAY!

in celebration of our three-year wedding anniversary (i.e “the BFGW“) this tuesday (nov.15th), holly and i are going to get married in THREE STATES IN ONE DAY: new york, connecticut and vermont!

(massachusetts is annoying and won’t let us get hitched there, too, since we’re already legally married in d.c. so whatever, we’ll bypass mass. and go get our maple syrup on in vermont.)

(did i just say go get our maple syrup on? omg i kind of love that and i’m not even that into maple syrup.)

of course holly came up with this idea. she of the “b—jerk” (which is pronounced “bah-jerk” not “bee-jerk,” in case you were wondering. and if you haven’t read that post yet, you really should right now).

i guess she thinks i’m not that much of a bitch jerk after all since she wants to marry me three more times, bringing us to a total of five. if she wants to divorce my ass, she’s gonna have to travel up and down the friggin northeast so good luck with that, babe! you’re really in it now!

(holly was laughing and then suddenly stopped laughing and looked scared.)

since we’ll be in north jersey for my 15-year high school graduation on saturday night–HOLLA JAMES CALDWELL HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1996 WHADDUP!!!! (hello, i totally don’t feel that old! 15 years?!!)–which is just a couple days before our anniversary, she was like BABE, I HAVE THIS IDEA.

i was like greeeeat. (holly always has “ideas.”) at first i was like, could we really do this? and then, after some phone calls to different cities/counties in ny, conn. and vermont, i was like we COULD really do this!

so we’re doing it!

we’re doing it to celebrate our 10+ years of love, to take back our wedding day (unfortunately,  it was so filled with drama/discomfort, it wasn’t everything we wanted it to be) and since we can’t be married federally, we decided we’re gonna get married in every friggin state til we can. (fyi: since maryland recognizes our legal marriage in dc, we file our maryland taxes as “married” but have to file federal taxes as “single,” which is ridiculous). we also want to do it so one day, when we have kids and they’re older, we can show them all of our marriage certificates and they’ll see that we lived thru this historical time and fought hard for our love and to be recognized as equal–hopefully marriage inequality will be ancient history by then.

btw: if you’re new to lunch at 11:30 and would like a jessica & holly wedding primer (it gets confusing, as we’ve been married twice “without a divorce in between,” as i like to joke to people) i suggest visiting the BFGW (Big Fat Gay Wedding) page here.

yes, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll probably need a snack break. (i often need a snack break just writing posts. then again i’m ready for lunch at 10am so i think it’s fair to say i have a problem. that or a tape worm. which is also a problem. ok i think i’d rather just be hungry early.)

so here’s hoping we can can hitched three times in three states between the hours of 9am and 5pm. ready! set! WEDDING! xxo!

“did you really just call me a b—jerk?”

where's my chapstick? my lips are totally killing me! gawd!

ladies know: there are fightin’ words and then there are fightin’ words.

if you have a spouse/partner/girlfriend/significant other that is a woman, you know calling her something along the lines of, oh, i don’t know, a bitch is pretty much the wrong thing to do in all cases, no exceptions. even if she trash talks your mom, turns off the tv when you’re watching it, steals the covers or drinks the last of the milk when you’ve been craving a bowl of cereal since you went to bed the night before, or tells you that yes, your butt really does look big in those jeans. (who would do that is beyond me. basically a death wish.)

however, sometimes it’s tempting. that temptation is times two when there are two women in a relationship. (if you’d like to read more woman-woman annoyances i suggest you click here.) because, inevitably, one of you is usually acting like a bitch. or being bitchy. but you never, ever call the other one an actual bitch because you’re likely to get elbowed in the mouth, kicked behind the knee or have something thrown at you, like your car keys, which signals that you’d better get the hell outta this house and drive far, far away, perhaps to your family’s in western pee-ay, before i start throwing dishes like we’re at a big fat greek wedding except for i’ll be throwing them at your head and there will be no dancing.

in the 10+ years we’ve been together, holly and i have pretty much avoided calling each other “the B Word” by generally sidestepping the actual word and instead opting for you’re acting like a bitch.

QUIT ACTING LIKE SUCH A BITCH, BABE! i have yelled, loudly, on more than one occasion.

I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU JUST CALLED ME A BITCH! she usually yells back.

I DIDN’T CALL YOU A BITCH! i yell back. I SAID YOU WERE ACTING LIKE A BITCH. THERE’S A DIFFERENCE. (truly, there is no difference. you and i both know that and so does holly and so does everyone else.)

so yeah, on saturday morning i was kind of acting like a bitch. i’ll admit it. i had worked til like 10pm the night before. and worked, like, 10-hour days at my computer every single day before since sunday. i was tired. and didn’t want to friggin clean the house.

i especially didn’t want to flip the bed or whatever the hell holly wanted me to help her with at 9am in the morning. it irritated me so i acted out and then we got in a fight and didn’t talk to each other for the next three hours. holly stayed upstairs watching, most likely, bad reality tv or whatever was on bravo, and i stayed downstairs doing laundry and watching napoleon dynamite on comedy central trying to forget about how bitchy she was acting as well as raise my serotonin level bc i was starting to feel downright depressed, not to mention hungry.

we eventually started talking to each other again, and i immediately began trying to convince her to take me to chipotle for lunch. she eventually agreed–score!–and we went down to the can company to get some tacos (me) and a burrito bowl (her) and perhaps heal our wounded relationship.

why did you have to act that way? holly asked me, dipping a chip in guacamole. why were you being that way? you ruined the day.

despite my urge to throw black beans at her, i couldn’t help but think she looked cute. dammit. why do you have to be so cute?  i thought, stuffing my face with vegetarian tacos, trying my best to avoid the question and distract her by talking about the weather and pointing at dogs walking by.

babe, stop ignoring me.

i am not ignoring you. i’m talking to you, aren’t i? look at that dog out there! look it’s so cute!

babe. answer the question.

BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT TO HELP YOU FLIP THE DAMN BED OR SHIFT THE DAMN BOXSPRING OR WHATEVER THE HELL ANNOYING THING YOU WANTED ME TO DO AT 9AM. i whisper-yelled.

well why did you have to be such a b…jerk about it?!

a WHAT?! i stopped dead in my tracks. suddenly i wasn’t the bad one anymore.

did you just call me a b-jerk?!! i whisper-shreaked

what? no! 

she knew her mistake. her mouth had betrayed her brain. the secret was out. she basically called me a bitch.

did you really just call me a “b-jerk”???

no. yes. wait, what? no, i said you were acting like a jerk!

no, you said i was being a B-JERK! you starting calling me a bitch but covered it up!

then she started laughing with her mouth full of burrito bowl and almost choked bc she was laughing so damn hard. then i started laughing, too. then we hugged. psych! we didn’t hug in chipotle! 

then some big scary dude with a long white beard in a red-and-black lumber-jack type shirt at another table saw the steelers emblem on my t-shirt peeking out of my jean jacket and yelled YOU’RE IN RAVENS COUNTRY!

instead of shouting something really memorable back i just stared at him, slack-jawed, and shouted “NO!” nice.

just four more days to vote for lunch at 11:30 as baltimore’s best lifestyle blog, personal blog AND best overall blog! hurry up and click below! you can vote every day, once a day! xxo!

i stepped in great dane poop & lived to tell about it

*this post is dedicated to my sister-in-law heather who hasn’t been feeling well lately and could sure as hell use a good laugh.

my sister-in-law heather–the very same one i’m writing this post for–lives on a friggin hillside in washington, PA. don’t ask me why but she does. i swear every time we drive up her driveway i almost have a heart attack. it’s that steep. after we park, i ask holly if we have the emergency brake on so many times she gets this close to elbowing me in the mouth. yeah every trip to heather’s starts off really well.

washington, PA is a unique place in that every single person in western pennsylvania actually calls it “washington, pee-ay” as not to confuse it with our nation’s capitol–what, with all the cows grazing all over the place, i can see how that’d be really confusing–or washington state, which is about 4,000 miles away on the west coast practically in canada.

over the weekend, on sunday, holly and i drove to washington, pee-ay to meet her family at a mud pit and deep-fried food festival disguised as a christmas arts & crafts fair. after eating a late lunch at the washington, pee-ay reb robin (reeeeeed robin. yuuummmmm. sorry, every time i think about red robin i have to sing their jingle), holly went with her mom, twin sister, niece and nephew to some outlets. since i kind of hate shopping (that’s my gay gene rearing its boat-shoe-and-chino-wearing head), i said i’d rather go to heather’s to hang with holly’s gram, who was going back to heather’s, too, and who is fabulous.

holly politely asked me to drive our car back to heather’s. i snapped at her that i didn’t want to b/c the country roads are too damn windy and i’d get lost and maybe even have a panic attack following her sister to the house and i didn’t know where my xanax was. (total lie. i’ve kept it in my bag ever since i flew to san fran for nicole‘s wedding. i know exactly where the hell it is.)

c’mon, babe, she said, her impatience growing. it’s only like five minutes away. that way i can go in the car with my mom.

i said no until holly was good and pissed and then i said yes. i do that a lot even tho i shouldn’t.

i managed to follow heather and her gram back to the house on the windy roads without having a panic attack. we got up to the house and i was like oh beejesus, the driveway. i had totally forgotten about the damn driveway.

well here we go, i thought as i gunned our pearlescent white rav-4 up the hill. (yes it really is pearlescent white.) tho it kind of looked like a rolling turd considering how much craft fair mud was on it.

there were all these damn cars in the driveway so i had to park on the grass. i chose a bad place to park. at that moment i didn’t realize just how bad it was, but from the outset i knew it wasn’t a good idea but i didn’t know what else to do. i felt like the car was going to roll over and tumble down the hill. i rolled down the window and asked her husband if it was an ok place to park. he told me to watch out for the dog shit, which i assumed meant the car wouldn’t flip.

whatevs, i thought. i can a handle a little dog poop. hell, i live in southeast baltimore. home of loose pit bulls that crap in the middle of the sidewalk.

i got out of the car, careful not to let the gravity of the hillside slam the car door on me. (note: this has happened before. it’s not pretty.) i got out to look at the car and see about this dog poop.

i should note that they have a great dane. her name is lena and she is enormous. i love her deeply but she scares the hell out of me. we’re basically scared of each other. i walk in the house and she runs from me. and when she comes near me i run from her. it’s like a game except we’re both scared for our lives.

anyway, her poop was so big it literally took my breath away. i’d never seen dog poop that big in my life. kind of hard to miss, i thought. not gonna step in that. no way no how. i am totally in the clear. you’d have to be a major idiot not to see that.

i walked back around to the other side of the car to help gram up the hill. and then it happened. i put my left foot down and slipped. it happened so damn quickly it was like i stepped on a banana peel. it was like a cartoon.

whoooaaaaaaaa, i said, feeling like it was happening in slow motion. i had to grab heather’s arm to stop myself from tumbling down the hill and in the process almost took down heather, her baby and her grandma.

“that is some serious mu-,” i said, turning around to look at the mud i surely had stepped in.

it wasn’t mud.

i had stepped in the world’s largest pile of dog poop. in my new boots.

there was massive streak of great dane poop about two feet long leading from where i was standing at that moment straight back to the car. and it was deep.

a shiver went down my spine and then i got goosebumps. i was trying very hard a) not to gag and b) not to curse as there was an impressionable baby in front of me, not to mention holly’s 82-year-old grandma who doesn’t know what a cursing sicko i am.

instead of bursting into a tourette’s-like stream of swearing, i shook off my nausea and let out a very unsatisfying  ”oh man.”  it was very hard to hold in all that cursing and i think i injured myself in the process.

i wiped my shoe off in the grass but i don’t even know if i got it all off. nearly a week later, there’s still something on my left boot. it could be craft fair mud, i’m not even sure.

i’m trying to figure out how to end this story. i feel like there should be a moral. i guess the moral of the damn story is that it’s easy to step in dog poop, even when it’s so big it’s basically visible from space. don’t think it won’t happen to you.

heather, i hope you enjoyed this story and that it made you feel better. i’d put in a smile “emoticon” here but the damn blogging software i’m using will turn it into a cartoon smiley and then this looks like a ‘tween blog. i love you and i still love lena even tho she’s the size of a small horse and her poop is huge and i stepped in it and almost fell down a hill and when i see her i want to suck my thumb while rocking back and forth in the corner.

important sidenote!

i’ve been nominated as “Best Lifestyle Blog” AND “Best Personal Blog” in the Baltimore Sun’s annual blog competition!

for Lunch at 11:30 to win, you have to VOTE for it! every day! (yes, you really can vote everyday!) so click on the icon below, register (it takes like 10 seconds to register) and then choose Lunch at 11:30 for both “Best Lifestyle Blog” and “Best Personal Blog.” then write it in for “Best Overall Blog.” xxo!

well apparently i’m 60 because i started shopping at chico’s

before nicole’s wedding, i went to chico’s looking for a dress. i went to chico’s b/c they make “dressy” clothes specially designed for ladies with curves. sometimes, but not all the time, these “curves” are actually rolls. (not dinner rolls, folks; the other kind) other times, they are actual curves. the kind that used to be revered, but are now frowned upon b/c ppl think they represent a poor diet and lack of exercise–even if your diet is actually pretty much fine and you occasionally drop-kick bathroom locks in the ladies room at under armour–when you’re actually just of eastern european descent and hello, hispanic guys totally love you.

chico’s gets a bad rap amongst the younger set, and it really doesn’t deserve it. here’s why:

first of all, chico’s makes clothes you can roll up in a ball and they won’t wrinkle. it pretty much blows my mind. (see “travelers collection.”)

they also have fives sizes: 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. size 4 is actually, like, a size 22. for example: i wear a size 2 and i’m basically like hell’s yeah bitches! i’m a size 2, kiss it! kind of like going to a weight watchers meeting in suburban baltimore (like i did before our big fat gay wedding) and you look around and think: damn i’m fine! which prompts you to leave early to buy an 8,000-calorie celebration frappacchino no whip (hello, whipped cream probably adds like two points!).

chico’s also has the best damn salesladies on earth. they are so friggin attentive i can’t even deal with it. i want to be like YES! yes i’ll take The Big Lady Belt–in black and silver! b/c i love you. b/c you are not judging me like those skinny bitches at Express. and you remind me of my mom. and i want to hug you, let’s hug right now, i don’t even care that i don’t know you, let’s just hug.

so i go to chico’s looking for a dress–this is, yeah, like a week before the wedding. and they don’t have anything for me. i wind up finding a dress at macy’s. oh but what did i find at chico’s? i zero in on this silver sparkly tunic sweater that i decide i really need to have. hello, it’s a TRAVELERS piece, which means i can take it to san francisco without it wrinkling to wear for…something!

oh it’s so sparkly, i say to Judy the Attentive Saleslady.

oh i know, isn’t it *fabulous*? she says back. and it looks wonderful on you. just wonderful.

ohmygoshthanks, i say breathlessly. but it’s too expensive, i continue. i…i couldn’t. 

i’ll give you $25 off, she says.

how could i possibly say no?

ring it up, judy! i say. ring it up before i change my mind!

so i bought the damn sparkly tunic, much to holly’s dismay. and i bring it to california, and of course need to wear it to the pre-wedding party at nicole’s parents’ house in sebastopol. as soon as we arrived i knew it was a mistake.

you know how, at every party, there’s that girl who’s overdressed? you try not to look at her but you have to? i was…that girl.

that’s because it’s a *holiday sweater*, holly told me when i got back to baltimore.

what, because it’s sparkly? i said.

holly: yes because it’s sparkly! it has sequins in it! 

me: so you mean to tell me that i wore a chico’s holiday sweater to nicole’s parents’ party–in october. in california. because i felt really overdressed. 

holly: yes, honey, you wore a chico’s holiday sweater to the party.

me: why didn’t you tell me i was buying a holiday sweater at chico’s?!

holly: i tried but you didn’t listen to me! it looks good but it’s for the holidays!

me: so you mean to tell me i spent $75 on a sweater i can only wear one month a year?

holly: yup. i tried to stop you. you didn’t listen.

ladies, this is the magic of chico’s. while everything else there fits like mom jeans, there will be that one item that absolutely dazzles you. you will be blinded by its beauty. an attentive saleslady will bring it to your dressing room, pump you up with compliments and then give you a coupon. bolstered by a false sense of self-esteem from the fact that it’s a fake size 2, you purchase it and then wear what turns out to actually be a sequined holiday sweater to san francisco in early fall.

so yeah, i play bingo. and i stare out our windows at our neighbors. i shop at chico’s. i’m a senior and i don’t even care. and so help me i’m going to rock that damn sweater the entire month of december. so if you’re here in baltimore and you’re blinded by a silvery tunic’ed figure, it’s actually me. and shut the hell up b/c i’m still from jersey and i’ll kick your ass or hire someone else to do it for me.

a jersey girl goes to under armour

aside from my early tomboyish years (before my muscles had been warped by absorbing years of frosty lipstick & elizabeth arden green tea perfume), i would have to classify myself as a fairly unathletic person.

i mean, i can catch a ball. and i’m a damn good walker. and sometimes i run when we’re walking back to our house after 10pm and we hear footsteps behind us. but honestly? aside from the occasional yoga session—which usually annoy me b/c of poses called “corpse,” “cat,” “cow,” oh and let’s not forget my favorite, “happy baby,” which is just another way of saying “unhappy adult”—i’m not so into sports. which is why it’s so incredibly, fantastically ironic that i wound up contracting (as an SEO web copywriter) at under armour for august/sept./part of october.

yes, folks, that’s where i was. i know you thought i was, hell, i don’t know where the hell you thought i was. but you probably wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that i was at under armour.

i had a lot of fun there. in fact, after a few weeks of writing about staying cool, dry & light on and off the field, i felt inspired to be athletic. so i started climbing the stairs in my jeggings to the e-commerce floor. then one day when i was feeling exceptionally inspired, i drop-kicked the lock closed in one of the ladies bathroom stalls.

(have you ever thought about all the germs on those locks?? ppl touch them after they use the toilet but before they wash their hands. whatever, if you touch them, it’s your business, but don’t try to high-five me or use my computer afterwards)

anyway, as soon as i kicked it, i heard a rip. not just a baby rip. i’m talkin big-poppa/granddaddy rip. rrrrrrrrrrip.

it was…my pants. the entire crotch of my american eagle black jeggings split down the middle–like, up to my butt. like a cartoon. this is what i get for karate kicking the lock closed, i thought as i stood dumbfounded in the stall.

looking in the mirror proved it was every bit as bad as i thought i was.

i felt helpless. like the time i was listening to phonics records in my elementary school library and peed my pants (probably bc i didn’t know where the bathroom was–hello this is important  information for a newbie 5-year-old library-goer. it was my first time alone down there!). i didn’t even know i peed my pants until this really nice second-grade teacher lady asked me if i had to go to the bathroom and did i want to go to the nurse so she could call my mom to drop off another pair of pants for me. i was like, why do i need another pair of pants?

what i’m trying to say is that i felt pretty ridiculous, at under armour w/my black jeggings split down the middle. i was about to miss my boat [yes, i took a boat (a water taxi) to work--i'll need to tell you about that next time] home so i thought fast and called my project manager, who was off-site at the time.

“renee,” i whispered. “i have a…a problem. a girl problem.”

“what, what is it?” she asked. tampon emergency, she probably thought.

“i…i split my pants. down the middle. can i tie the jacket hanging over your chair around my waist and give it to you tomorrow?”

“oh my gosh, totally,” she breathed out. “i didn’t know what you were gonna say, but yes, sure!”

yeah, luckily she didn’t ask how i ripped them down the middle. but she was incredibly cool to let me borrow her jacket even tho she’s like a size zero and the jacket arms barely tied around my jewish birthing hips. so i caught my boat and then holly picked me up on the other side of the water and wanted to go out for pizza.

“but babe,” i said. “my pants are split down the middle.”

“it’s ok, honey. the jacket covers it up. let’s get pizza.”

honestly, the pizza wasn’t worth me worrying that my butt was two to three inches of microfleece away from being exposed to all of fells point but “marriage is about compromise” so we got the darn pizza and then ate it on our roof while we listened to the sweet sounds of baltimore, like helicopters flying three feet above our heads and hookers fighting at jerry’s house.

so that was me at under armour. i have to say that the past 2.5 months have been some of the most ridiculous yet. there was an earthquake. my mom learned how to text. holly began using my health & beauty aids (HBAs) as household tools. i got high on xanax and took a flight to san francisco for nicole‘s wedding. and one time i almost fainted.

to top things off, we now have rogue, psycho mice, so we called shumakers animal control b/c i saw the owner (dave) standing in the middle of the woods in his tv commercial and figured, hell, if this dude can catch raccoons and coyotes, he can sure as hell deal with these crafty sonsofbitches mice.

i’m starting to feel like this is karma is for giving my hamster “baths” in middle school and then drying her with a hair dryer. in my defense, she looked really cute with her fur puffing out and hello, i kept the blow dryer on cool–what do you think i am, some kind of monster?

talk to you soon! aren’t you so happy i’m back? xxo!

my modern love essay that the new york times didn’t publish

i know, i know. i kind of suck b/c i haven’t been blogging lately and you’re sick of seeing that androgynous goth person staring at you every time you visit to see if i’ve updated. (in all honesty: not a clue if that’s a man or a woman.)

i’ve been so busy working (pbbbbt! work! i know, right?!!) that i’m going to cheat and in lieu of one of my typically ridiculous entries, i’m going to share my modern love essay recently submitted to and politely and promptly rejected by the new york times. not a huge surprise they didn’t publish it, as i’m sure they get about a trillion submissions a month, but a bummer nonetheless.

the great thing is that essays like this don’t go to waste when you have a blog. so i am self-publishing my essay. please enjoy all the capital letters and proper punctuation and i promise i’ll be back soon…

You’re Gonna Meet a Prince(ss) 

Throughout my youth and adolescence, my grandmother predicted three things:

1. If I ate any more than 10 grapes (red or green, didn’t matter), I would get a “bellyache.” (This wasn’t just me, either. This was all people.)

2. I’d meet and marry a prince. A “Jewish prince,” she declared, despite my argument that Jewish princes hadn’t existed for at least a couple thousand years, if they ever existed at all.

3. That using a blow dryer every day would ruin my hair.

Which do you think turned out to be true? (I’ll give you a hint: It doesn’t have anything to do with fruit or princes.)

When she died nearly 11 years ago (she was 91, I was 21; “A babe in the woods,” she’d say), I probably had never eaten more than 10 grapes at any one time, and I was still on the fence about the hairdryer thing. But even in high school, I secretly knew in my heart of hearts that the prince she predicted I’d meet might actually turn out to be a princess. And who knows if she’d even be Jewish.

Losing my grandmother was devastating to me. Our coffee klatsch of two was now a coffee klatsch of one. I had lost my best friend.

Who would I have toasted bagels and lox with? Who would I call at midnight just to say hi? And now that she was in heaven, what would she think of the fact that her granddaughter was a rainbow flag-waving homosexual? Surely she would find out (after she hit the Heavenly Diner all-you-can-eat cheese Danish/macaroni salad/pickles and smoked fish buffet, of course).

I tried not to focus on what she’d think, and kept my head down and focused as a young community reporter in suburban Washington, D.C.

And then it happened: I met my princess. I met Holly.

It was an unusually hot April night in downtown Washington. We were both wallflowers at ladies night at a gay bar on 17th Street. Soon we were talking outside. She wrote her email address on a square napkin in blue ink. I emailed her a week later. She wasn’t Jewish. I went out with her anyway. I mean, how long could it really last?

That was 10 years ago.

Since then, we’ve been married twice (once “unlawfully,” once lawfully—both times in Washington, just up the street from where we met in 2001). We bought, gutted and renovated a boarded-up crackhouse in southeast Baltimore, which we now call home. Our life is one big adventure. I love her more than life itself.

While Holly never had the pleasure of meeting my walker-pushing, hell-raising, unfiltered Pall Mall-smoking grandma, I’ve kept her a part of our lives by reminiscing almost daily about our times together. Sometimes I’ll even call someone a bastard (“bas-tid” in Grandma’s Jersey-ese) in her memory. Usually behind their back, but not always. This would have made her incredibly proud.

I don’t wonder anymore what she’d think of the fact that I’m gay. She wouldn’t care. I don’t wonder what she’d think of Holly. She’d absolutely adore her.

My grandmother had four younger brothers. My 90-year-old Great Uncle Ben was the baby of the Leibowitz clan, and is the last sibling standing. He’s become like a grandfather to both Holly and I. He’s been our biggest supporter, and was up front and center—fresh off the plane from Fort Lauderdale—at our legal wedding in Washington in March 2010.

He is the male incarnation of my grandma—kind, funny, generous and always ready with a dismissive “ah-who-the-hell-needs-‘em” hand wave to anyone who does me wrong. I love him so much my eyes fill with tears when we’re together. We both do. And he loves us back.

Holly met him for the first time in August 2009, and he gave her a huge bear hug from his couch.

“My new niece!” he announced, holding her hand, his eyes shining with delight.

He took my parents, Holly and I out to eat that first evening. As he and I walked into the restaurant, he paused—his wheelie walker (the kind with the breaks) and south Florida humidity between us—and turned to me.

“Are you happy? Does she make you happy?” he asked, touching my hand.

“Yes,” I said, tears in my eyes. “Yes, she does.”

“Well, that’s all that matters. If someone doesn’t like it, they can go to hell,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

And with that, I knew. It wasn’t just Uncle Ben speaking. It was Grandma, too.

I’d like to think it was more than serendipity that brought Holly and I together that warm April night 10 years ago.

“That one,” I imagine Grandma saying from her regular booth at the Heavenly Diner, her mouth full of potato salad and beets and everything else she loved from Jersey diner salad bars that I couldn’t stand as a kid.

“She needs to meet that one,” she said, pointing down at Holly. “That’s the one. They’re going to have a wonderful life together.”

And we really do have a wonderful life together. I have my coffee klatsch of two again. Sometimes, when we’re lucky enough to all be together, it’s even a coffee klatsch of three—me, Holly and Uncle Ben.