Hitched!

It’s highly advisable, if you can work it out this way, to get married in an “00” year because then your anniversaries just follow the numbers and neither of the parties involved will ever forget how many years you’ve been married! It’s October 14, 2011 and I have been married for 11 years – now that’s some easy math!

Lots of people have grand engagement stories – we don’t. It was just me and Craig, hanging out in his apartment in “Harlem” (we didn’t think 110th was considered Harlem back in the day; the kids that egged a group of us one Halloween shouting “Welcome to Harlem!” apparently did) and we decided to get married. Woot!

How we met is a better story:

It was 1998 and my company was moving into a new building which happened to be where my friend Rich worked. Despite being a huge city, New York is really just a small town – this is how it’s possible to explain that I worked in the same building as someone who I knew in Wilmington, NC (Side story: At one point in his NYC career, Rich worked for an insurance company and processed one of my insurance claims. Now that’s just bizarre. Rich - did I just make that up?) Anywho, Rich worked on the 25th floor, I worked on the 4th floor and up on that 25th floor Rich worked with Craig. How lovely. Rich and I would often meet for lunch. At one fateful lunch (at Daily Soup) I said “Which one of your friends can I date?” and Rich drew up a very impressive list. Craig was on that list! Yay! Raise your hand if you’re in a relationship that Rich orchestrated! (At least 16 people are raising their hands, I’m sure. Rich missed his calling as a highly-paid matchmaker.)

And what commenced was a very stealth shock and awe campaign to get Craig to like me. Probably what happened is that Rich when back to work and said “You should date and then marry my friend, Lisa” while I fretted and tried to play it cool. Rich, Craig and I (and the newsstand guys whom all three of us loved) had a series of coffee breaks in the lobby of 810 Seventh Avenue and then soon it was just Craig and I having coffee breaks. Likewise, we’d meet for drinks with friends after work and slowly the group would dwindle to just me and Craig having dinner. How very stealth indeed. Much of our courtship involved abusing the messenger service my company contracted, but don’t worry, the messenger service was in on it and loved it. I think one guy stuck around my building just to bring notes and letters between the 4th and 25th floor. This was before email was de rigueur. I think I still have some faxes from Craig - before Facebook, readers, we had to rely on faxing!

People assumed we met in the elevator of our building but, as any good New Yorker knows, that would be impossible: there are different elevator banks for the higher floors – c’mon people, get with it! I was smitten with Craig because he met a lot of the criteria I had on my “list” which included gems like “Can’t have played the flute in high school” and “Must know how to read”. As for what Craig liked in me, one time I left one of our drinks/dinner evenings to head to a midnight showing of “Titanic” which is exactly what a super fun girl would do and who wouldn’t be crazy about THAT?

And two short years later we got hitched! The brilliant Girl Wonder, Ella, is still mad she wasn’t “invited” to our wedding. Don’t be surprised if you get a wedding invite from us in the near future. I think Ella would very much like us to have another wedding. And, also, I would like to register again. Eleven years has been hell on some of my cookware.

Most importantly, happy anniversary to my dear husband who goes along with my every whim and continues to make me laugh! Hurrah!