Some Important Anniversaries

Today, tomorrow and the next day mark three important anniversaries for Ed and me. One year ago today, Ed finally came to his senses and asked me to marry him. One year ago tomorrow, we got married. And one year ago on the 21st, he began his “one year” deployment to Iraq.

It’s amazing how quickly the year has passed. And I realized the other day, that some people still don’t have the full story of how we ended up married.

So, for another random adventure in the life of Kathy and Ed, sit back, grab a cold drink, and enjoy….

As noted in a previous post, we closed escrow on our house on Ed’s birthday. Two days later, we flew to Houston to celebrate his mother’s graduation from college. At this time, he still hadn’t told his family that he was deploying to Iraq. At first, his excuse was that his mom needed to pass her finals and he didn’t want to distract her. Then, he didn’t want to ruin her graduation ceremony. Two days later, it was Mother’s Day – again, not a good time to break this kind of news. When I flew home on Monday, May 14, Ed still hadn’t said anything. Finally though, sometime before he came home on Wednesday, he told his family.

Ed arrived back in Sacramento on Wednesday, May 16. On Thursday, he and my father’s wife (well, mostly the latter) cleaned the new house and prepared it for occupation. Friday, May 18, we, assisted by two strong (and bonded) helpers, moved the contents of our apartment across town to the new house (we figured the bonding was key, if they dropped the washing machine, we’d get a new one. If we dropped it, we were S.O.L). Which brings us to Saturday, May 19, one year ago today and the first of the three anniversaries.

We spent the day moving into our home and doing our best to make it our home before Ed left. We placed furniture, decided what pictures what go in which rooms, etc. It was then up to me to implement all of this. That night, we went out for dinner at one of Sacramento’s nicer restaurants. At some point, roughly halfway through a bottle of wine, Ed asked me to marry him. Given that we’d also had aperitifs, I told him to ask me the following day. I needed to know that it wasn’t the wine talking.

Sunday, May 20th. Deployment minus 20 hours. Ed again asked me to marry him. Right. On a Sunday? Where does one go on a Sunday to get married at the last minute? (Vegas was not an option. One, we didn’t have time. Two, I find Vegas appalling on so many levels). However, there is more to Nevada than just Las Vegas. Douglas County, for example, is in Nevada. And, apparently, at some point between coming home from Houston and going to dinner, Ed had confirmed that the Douglas County clerk’s office in South Lake Tahoe was open on Sunday. Moved by this evidence of advance planning (at least I knew it wasn’t just the wine talking), I accepted his proposal. We hopped in the car and he drove to South Lake Tahoe while I edited my sister’s resume.

It was a beautiful day in Tahoe. The snow had melted, and the sky was clear and blue. Perfect, right? Well, except for that sense of dread that settled over me as we pulled into the parking lot for the County Clerk’s office. Not because we were about to get married. No, as those who have known me for a while will not be surprised to hear, I had forgotten my driver’ license. I’d taken it to the restaurant the previous night and hadn’t put it back in my wallet.

Fortunately, the clerk on duty that day allowed me to use various other forms of picture and non-picture ID to prove that I was me and I was over 18 years of age. After filling out some paperwork and paying $55, we received our license. We found a list of on-call wedding officiants posted on a bulletin board outside of the clerk's office and called the first name on the list. After making arrangements to meet in two hours at a scenic overlook of the lake we grabbed a quick bite to eat (Chevy’s Tex Mex – I didn’t know about Freshies at the time) and headed off to the overlook. We met the minister, requested the contemporary service, headed up to a nice spot with a view, and got married in front of an interpretive panel.

I can’t speak for Ed, but I don’t remember a thing we said. I’m sure the usual stuff about love and sickness and health was there. I do know that it was beautiful and more thrilling than I had expected. As for our first kiss, well, “since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.”

Of course, in addition to forgetting my driver’s license, we also left the camera at home so you simply have to take our word that this all happened.

We spent about a half-hour walking around in a daze and then drove back to Sacramento. Because, as you may remember, Ed was scheduled to deploy the next day. We got home around dinner time and spent our wedding night…come on! This is a family blog. We’ve worked really hard to keep it PG all year long. A few swear words might have snuck in, but that’s about it. Do you really think I’d go into detail about our wedding night?

Well, ok. If you insist. We spent our wedding night… finishing our move out of the apartment. We had to gather all those little odds and ends that never seem to make it into boxes. We also needed to clean; that cleaning deposit was going to cover the cost of the U-Haul truck. And of course, there were far more odds and ends and dirt than we anticipated. Now, doesn’t this sound like the wedding night every girl dreams of? We finished around 1:00 am. Ed’s flight to Philly left at 5:30 the next, I mean, that morning – May 21, 2007.

Somehow, we did actually make it to the airport in (what should have been plenty of) time for his flight. Kind of. See, usually when we travel, we don’t leave first thing in the morning. So we didn't know that a lot of people catch the 5:30 – 7:00 am commuter flights. We also don’t usually check luggage. We just grab a boarding pass from the self-check in machine and head to the security line. Unfortunately, Ed actually had to check in along with a lot of other people. And, he missed his flight. It was only through the clever machinations of a creative ticket agent that he arrived in Philadelphia a mere 30 minutes behind the rest of his unit.

You may have noticed that a key element is missing from this story. Like, announcing our nuptials?

We decided to keep our new status a secret. We decided that we’d renew our vows in a few years and announce it then. This idea soon became absolutely untenable for Kathy. Keeping the secret was hard! Plus, our belated announcement might irritate some people. And that didn’t seem like the day to have friends or family irritated with us.

But how to tell people? Dropping it casually into conversation seemed weird. And in what order would we tell our parents? In the end, we decided to send announcements. At first we planned to send them in July, when I visited Ed back east, before he left Fort Dix for Iraq. However, he wanted to see the announcements before I sent them. (Apparently this is not a marriage built on trust). He of course loved them, but then it was too late to send them. (I didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout by myself). In the end, we mailed them so they would arrive while we in Paris for his mid-tour leave. I dropped them in the mail the day before Thanksgiving. Those for whom we didn’t have snail mail addresses received an email blast from Paris. If you’ve come late to the blog, you can see a copy of the announcement in the November archives.

For Ed’s family members who didn’t get the email or the paper announcement, I apologize. I tried to get your addresses, but Ed didn’t have them and I couldn’t really explain to his mom and sister why I needed them, without giving the whole thing away. We do have about a dozen announcements still, and Ed will send them once he gets home.

So here we are, one year later. The rest of Ed’s unit arrived back in the states a few days ago. They will be released on Thursday, in time to spend Memorial Day weekend with their families. Ed, however, is still Kuwait. As the unit movement officer, he is waiting for his unit’s “stuff” to ship. Once that happens, he too should be on his way home. We'll miss getting to celebrate these anniversaries together, but at least we can look forward a second year of marriage that has a pretty good chance of being better than the first.

In closing, a special message to my husband. Happy anniversary, hon. I love you.