Thinking Back

Recently my wife and I celebrated our 10th anniversary and a couple of friends from work had their 1 year anniversary as well as my pastor and his wife had their 4th. It made me think of the different stages of marriage I’ve been through with my wife. A good marriage is like wine it gets better the longer it ages. I also thought about how we started out together. She hated my guts for no reason and I could care less if she liked me or not. I was nice to her, and she was really mean to me. We worked together and we shared break together one night and realized our favorite jelly beans were the green lime ones. It was love at first jelly bean I guess you could say.

Our first date was one to remember! Not in a good way either! I decided to take her to a fancy German restaurant. Little did I know that the menu wasn’t to Stacey’s liking. We waited in line and were seated. The waitress brought us water and menus. I noticed she just stared at the menu. I asked her what looked good to her. She stated that nothing on the menu looked appetizing. After short discussion I decided I need to act fast. My plans for the night had been compromised and I had no plan B. I offered up the suggestion that we could look elsewhere for dinner. She was all up for that and I was scrambling to think of a place to take her.

Being we lived in Portland, Oregon our options were endless. I decided to take her to a coffee shop located in downtown Portland. It was Saturday night and we were about 50 minutes away from our destination. When we arrived we found the wait to be over an hour! That idea was a dud! We then set out to an unknown location. We spent more time in the car looking for a place without a line then anything (Reservations might have helped!). Stacey mentioned a little Chinese restaurant she had been to before. After about 3 hours after the German restaurant ordeal we arrived at this Chinese restaurant where the owner’s 4 year old son ran around blowing on a harmonica all night!

We ordered and were served our dinner. I don’t quite remember what I ordered except for a plate of white rice with green things mixed in with it. Now normally I wouldn’t make a fuss but these green things were strangely chewy and I’ve never seen them before in my life! I called the waitress over and asked what they were. She replied in a thick Chinese accent “That is tree fungus” I wasn’t sure I heard here correctly and thought it sounded weird due to her accent. I replied, what did you say? She spoke slower and loader this time, “It is tree fungus”. My face must have been amusing to my lovely date sitting across from me, because she began laughing hysterically.

So instead of a fancy German dish I was stuck with a plate of rice with a side of tree fungus! All the while this little kid is blowing on a harmonica loudly sucking in and blowing out! It was a date from hell!!! Yet it was the best date I have ever been on. It must have been the fact I was in love and didn’t care. So the moral of the story is your first date doesn’t always have to be perfect for you to find the one you were meant to marry. That wraps up our first date other then the fact Stacey was grounded and she snuck out and was out really late with her mom sitting at home fuming. That is a whole other story!