Of Thee I Sing Baby...

Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring Baby... 

Today, The Husband and I are celebrating fourteen years of wedded bliss. I thought this would be a great time to write down the story of How We Met. It's pretty cute...at least in my opinion. 

The Husband and I have always been involved in "the Theatre". He was usually more of a straight play actor, I was always in musicals, never a straight play. I have had the opportunity to play some really fun roles in fact. My favorite being Kathy Selden in "Singin' In the Rain", a show I did right before I met The Husband. 

As that show ended, my director asked me if I'd be interested in being the dance captain for  "Of Thee I Sing", a Gershwin musical he was choreographing. The show would be a collaboration of various theatre groups and would be rehearsed and performed in Philadelphia's City Hall. I had to think about it for a while because although I was teaching elementary school in The City, I still lived at home with my parents in the suburbs about 40 minutes outside of Philly. I talked to my mom about it and she said, "Go ahead and do it, maybe you'll meet a nice lawyer in City Hall." We laughed at the time but never realized how prophetic that statement would actually be. 

Auditions started in the beginning of September, I think they were actually on the second day of school, and it was my first year as a teacher. (I was twenty-two.) It was my job to teach a simple dance combination to all of the actors who were auditioning. I vaguely remember The Husband coming through to audition but I definitely remember his friend Mike coming through and I think they came together...I'll have to check with The Husband on this one! They were a part of the Philadelphia Bar Association's theatre group and their group was one of the collaborators. 

Rehearsals followed soon after, I played a beauty contestant in the show and The Husband and some of the other younger guys were dancers at various points in the show when male dancers were needed. As dance captain, I was responsible for helping the "slower learners" pick up the steps so I must have worked with The Husband a lot (hee hee Honey, are you laughing?) ...he wasn't really on my radar yet though...

We often had Saturday rehearsals and would all end up going out to eat at Reading Terminal Market together. I started to notice that The Husband was a nice guy and I also noticed that other girls in the show were noticing that The Husband was a nice guy. After he made white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for rehearsal one weekend, one girl commented that "He's so sweet, someone really should snatch him up." I started to think about it but wasn't too keen on the fact that The Husband had a beard or that he was shorter than I am. I was also a bit intimidated that he was an attorney and I was "just" a school teacher. (remember, I WAS only 22 and still a bit immature) Nonetheless, he started to grow on me the more I got to know him and I realized that him being a lawyer wasn't intimidating at all. 

During all this, I was also dating another guy but it was very casual and although he was nice, there wasn't much of a spark. I tried to make it known to other members of the cast that I was interested in The Husband. The Husband now tells me that people mentioned this to him but he didn't really believe them and that he knew I was dating someone else. One weekend during the rehearsals, The Husband had a party at his house and we were all invited. I went and was very jealous of another girl who was there talking to The Husband a lot. They both had a love of the show "Northern Exposure" and I had never watched it so I thought he liked her and not me! LMAO! The party was fun and I was really starting to like him after it so I continued to spread the word. 

He never got the message. I finally got sick of waiting for him to ask me out so I got up the nerve to do it myself. I think the show had started its run or was about to start so it was late October at this point. One night when we were trying to leave to go home for the night we found out we were locked in the parking garage. Actually, there was no one in the booth to take our money and it seemed like we waited a really long time for someone to get there. I decided then that I would ask him if he wanted to meet for dinner the next night. Obviously, he said "yes"! We agreed that we would meet in front of City Hall and find somewhere to eat.

He took me to a nice little Italian place not far from City Hall called Girasole (sunflower in Italian) I was expecting that we'd just grab a quick sandwich or something like that but he picked Girasole and I certainly wasn't disappointed. I was also expecting to pay since I was the one who asked him out but of course, he paid too. So sweet... Our date couldn't last that long since we had a show to do that night, we walked back to City Hall and did the show. (It's funny to add in here that our dressing room for the show was in Philadelphia's City Council caucus room and when I say "our" dressing room. I mean everyone's. dressing. room.  We all got changed and in and out of costumes in the same place. Pretty normal for theatre but still a bit weird as soon as you start liking someone in the show with you! )

The next night, he gave me a little card saying that he had a good time on our dinner date. I was smitten and SO happy. We continued a whirlwind romance after that first date. The boy I was dating called me during the run of the show and I told him I had met someone else. I even remember telling him, "I think I'm going to marry this guy" and he told me I was crazy. Not so crazy now huh? 

We spent as much time together as possible and got engaged on Valentine's Day a mere three and a half months later! I know my parents were a bit worried that it was fast but he asked them before he proposed to me and they gave him their blessing. We planned a long engagement and were married a year and a half later on July 23, 1994...fourteen years ago today! Asking The Husband to meet me for dinner was one of the best things I ever did, that's for sure! 

Here's a picture of us around that time, we are SO young (and skinny) it's unreal. We worked on The Spirit of Philadelphia as singing/dancing waiters to earn money to help pay for our wedding. This picture was taken during a special employee party we had there. I loved that job, he hated it but that's another whole post! 

I know I've written before about what a great guy he is and I know I will always feel that way. He's smart, handsome, funny and a great father which is the most important thing I would ever want in a man. 

Thank you for being such a great husband My Bug! I love you so much!