The Summer of 1996

It was 14 years ago this summer that I met my wife-to-be; let me take you back to those not-so-innocent days. The first time I went into her apartment, I saw her kitten sauntering out of the bedroom. Once she saw me, a stranger in her place, she turned around and high-tailed it back to the bedroom; she would've slammed the door behind her if she'd had the means.

In those days, my girl was on the notorious prescription drug(s), Phen-Fen. It had helped her lose a good deal of weight. She ate extremely healthily, much more than me. One evening, she made us some Boca (no meat) burgers. They were awful, but I didn't tell her that. She never wanted to accompany me to one of my favorite restaurants, Taco John's, because they didn't have any low-fat menu items. One evening, she said, "Screw it" and went to Burger King with me where she had a Whopper; Lord knows she wasn't getting that in the bedroom.

I knew I had her in the palm of my hand when she started stocking food items that were my favorites, in particular, a 2-liter of Sunkist that sat on top of the fridge. One of my favorite things to do at her place was play solitaire on the computer. Her bedroom had a twin on the floor and one up on a loft. I never asked, but they must've been a residue from her dorm days. On some evenings, when she was at work and I was bored as sin, I snooped around her things.

One thing that bothered me a bit in those days was that she wouldn't go to bed at the same time I did; she liked to stay up late. Her favorite song at the time was Robert Miles' electronic classic, "Children". We took turns in her car listening to our favorite radio stations; I preferred country, she, dance/pop.

The first movie we went to together was "Phenomenon" starring John Travolta, the second, "Jack" starring Robin Williams. Coincidentally, she watched a movie last week which starred both of them: "Old Dogs". We went to a matinee of "A Very Brady Sequel" a couple weeks later where we were the only ones in attendance.

On one late summer evening, we took a walk around the bike path at Lake Winona (we initially met very close by). About 10 minutes in, it started pouring, so we ran back to the car. It's the kind of scene you'd see in a formulaic romantic movie.

During this period, I was reading "When Bad Things Happen To Good People" by Harold Kushner. I don't specifically remember this; I saw the book on the floor in one of the pictures taken at the time.

That fall, she attended graduate school where she was assigned a report for Human Development, a psychology course. The instructor said that a video report would be great for those who had camcorders. She ran the idea by me and I was all too happy to help. Here are the first few moments: