The Story of How Me and Jason Became Happily Ever After

I've known my husband since I was eleven years old and he was twelve.  My family ran onto some hard times and had to move to the po' side o' town.  That's where Jason lived too.  He was sweet on my sister for a while, and would bring her roses he'd stolen from somebody's flowerbed.  I stayed inside watching Golden Girls and Cagney and Lacey with my Grannie and didn't give two thoughts to boys. 

We went to Middle School and High School together where he was a year older than me.  We hung out in different crowds, but said hello in passing.

 I was in my early adulthood when I figured out that I knew everyone in both the police record and the wedding announcements.  Early adulthood is when society dictates that you should get married.  I wasn't married, nor was I anywhere close.  There's a sort of panic that sets in when you figure out that you aren't on the same time frame as the rest of the world.    

Being a single girl in a small town is not an easy thing to do.  Up until I found and married Jason, I was constantly being asked who I was dating, why wasn't I dating, or someone was trying to fix me up.  Eventually I think people decided I was probably a lesbian and left me alone. 

One day in 1998 I went to the grocery store to buy Fruity Pebbles and Ramen Noodles, probably.  As I was walking out, a girl I knew stopped me in the parking lot and told me someone's truck had just rolled into my car.   In small towns everyone knows what everyone else drives.  I rolled my eyes. This turned out to be my third wreck in a parking lot!  In my experience, you're pretty much out of luck.  The police won't do much because it's considered private property.  You just have to hope the other guy has insurance and is a respectable dude who will take care of it.  I walked a little further and noticed that this old, green, beat up Ford pickup had rolled out of gear about fifty feet and slammed his taillights into my headlights.  Neither of us were in our vehicles at the time.  This old, green, beat up Ford just so happened to belong to Jason.  I knew that the minute I saw it.  Small town stuff.

So I waited on him to meander out of the store.  He was all apologies, promised he'd take care of it.  And he did.  He called me up and asked me to take it to a certain body shop, the car got fixed and life went on.  And that was that. 

For five years.
Dates with crazies came and went.  
Then I became a recluse. 
I would never go out. People would tell me I needed to be out meeting people. But I had met people, and they turned out to be daddy's boys or killer cops and I'd rather stay home and watch Survivor alone. If somebody wanted to date me, they were going to have to knock on my door. That was my mindset.

Then one day I came home from work to find Jason's name on my caller ID.  That was curious, but I assumed it was a wrong number.  He called back two days later and asked me out.  We talked for three hours.    I was teaching school and a parent of one of my students, that happened to be a friend of his, had suggested he ask me out.  He remarked that I was too sweet for him, which is true, but decided he'd get his nerve up anyway.   I'd had my experiences with cowboys, not to mention their dads, and didn't figure it would go anywhere, but I agreed.  Eating Ramen Noodles was getting pretty old by this time. 
 
It worked out pretty good.
He wore a yellow shirt. 
We had a second date.
He took me horseback riding.
He had to give me a boost on the butt.
I was petrified.
We got married.
He still has to give me a boost on the butt. 
A much bigger boost on a much larger butt. 
 
But sometimes, when I get nostalgic, I'll think about the wreck.  I found out later, that of course that poor boy didn't have any insurance and ended up breaking a horse for the guy to pay for my car repairs. 
 
It's a funny story I guess.  Maybe even a coincidence.
 
Perhaps it was Fate.
Or Destiny.
Or the cosmos aligning perfectly with Mercury in the Sixth House.

But if you really want to know the truth, I believe it was God. 
I believe that he intended for that collision of two unmanned vehicles to be the beginning of Jason and Angel.  A collision of love.
And we just weren't listening. 

That was probably one big gigantic move on His part to create His will for two dumb pilgrims down here, and we missed it.  So he went to Plan B.    He works around our goofs. 
Because He's cool like that.

A Bad Man Once or Twice

Happy Valentine's Day my friends.

Recently, my life has been getting in the way of my blogging.  I have overloaded my plate once again, and if I have one more commitment added, I think I'll internally combust. 
Right now I am supposed to be running seven miles, training for a half marathon that I so foolishly signed up for, but the wind is howling and I'm not doing it.  I'm not.  Instead I'm blogging.  And eating sunflower seeds.  And drinking chocolate milk.  Ah, the simple pleasures in life. 

Jason is in a cooking mood.  Tonight he's preparing veal chops.  Baby calf.  Speaking of baby calves, on the way to Sunday school, my niece Ashlynn commented that it smelled like the baby calf's bottle.  It was just my hands.  I had rubbed on some Bert's Bees Wax milk and honey lotion and coincidentally, it smelled like cow udders.  Nice.

And my brain is like a ball of yarn.  I chase rabbits occasionally.

I've had a whole week's worth of blog posts planned to lead into Valentine's day, and haven't had 2 seconds to sit and write this week. 
In honor of the blessed day of love, I give you this quote: 

"A woman's got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one." 

And I have a good one, let me tell you.  He's the best. 

And I've had one or two bad ones too.

I didn't marry until I was 29 years old.  In that amount of time I had about three dates.  One was forgetful, but that quote jogged my memory of the other two.

I met this guy one time at a hockey game.  He asked me on a date.  I don't know why I said yes, because he was about eight and a half feet tall and we looked like Mutt and Jeff.  He wore a black cowboy hat and said yes ma'am.   We lived in two different towns.  When he called me on the phone, he said he'd like to take me to the cowboy church.  Well, isn't that sweet?  A good guy finally.  I don't remember all the details, because I'm low in B12 and I found out at my doctor's this week that if untreated long enough, it can lead to dementia, which I think I've surpassed.  But somehow we met up.

Now don't get me wrong, I thought going on a first date to church was a bit odd, but I was  looking for a good Christian man and figured it just might be the will of the Lord.  You know how sometimes he screams things at us?  So we went to the Cowboy Church.  His dad sat with us.  As far as I remember it was a good message.  When it was over, we were going to get something to eat.  Well come to find out, he and his dad had Chinese buffet every Saturday night after church.  So we went and had chinese......with his dad.  Okay,  now it was just way weird.  Tex didn't have much to say anyway, his dad didn't either. I don't recall saying too much myself.   I kind of felt like a third wheel ruining their regular Saturday night ritual.  Seems to me, Tex could've told his dad that he was having a date and needed to be alone, but perhaps he was too shy to have a date by himself.  I'm not sure, and I didn't stick around long enough for him to poke his head out of his shell.

I met this other guy at a baseball game.  (I'm making myself out to sound like some sort of a sports nut, and that's the farthest from the truth.)  He was a handsome devil, and in law enforcement.  A dangerous combination I agree.   He invited me to go on a motorcycle ride with him.  So the next day, I climbed on, helmetless, and he took me down some crazy back roads I'd never been before.  The whole time I was thinking of all those 20/20 episodes I'd seen where killer cops had never been found guilty.  We finally stopped on some desolate road in an obscure location by some water.  I had no idea where we were.  He proceeded to pull out a six pack of beer from the back of his motorcycle and drank all six in a matter of 30-40 minutes and then, we got back on that motorcycle with no helmets, and CHiP drove 100 mph home as I prayed the entire time. 

At one point, he took his shirt off and forced me to stare at his hairy gorilla back that he thought was tan and muscular.  It was tan and muscular from what I could tell when his hair wasn't blowing up my nose.  Then he actually said the following words to me.......these words actually came out of his mouth........"if I have any zits back there, go ahead and pop them." 

Really y'all, I can't make this kind of stuff up.

After that I locked myself in my house and never answered the phone again. 
Until Jason called. 
That's tomorrow's story.