In retrospect: The first time I ever saw your face

Keeping on with the retrospective posts I have decided to recollect on the day that I met my husband.

Our first meeting

As you have read, I met my husband on Valentine's Day 2001. It was not on a blind date. It was not even a date. It was just dinner with some friends. Valentine's Day was not my favorite holiday. I would have been content if it was just another day of the year. Valentine's Day had become a day of bad luck for me. Years before I had some not so pleasant experiences on Valentine's Day. They might not have been unpleasant at the time but they turned out to be not so good years later. I just did not have any luck on Valentine's Day. So in 2001, I continued on with my Anti-Valentine's Day rituals. I just wanted to enjoy dinner with friends. We all did not have anyone in particular for Valentine's Day so I figured dinner with friends to forget that we did not have anyone special in our lives. We had nothing to celebrate. We were just having dinner and it just happened to be Valentine's Day.

I arrived late to dinner that day which was nothing out of the ordinary for me. I had worked that day and knew ahead of time that I was going to be late. Being one of the last to arrive, I had to sit at the end of the booth. But I was not the last one to arrive to dinner. A few minutes after I arrived, a new member came to join us for dinner. It was a guy. I certainly was not thinking anything much less dating potential. As the last two to arrive, we sat across from one another in the booth. His name was Kris. He was not dressed particularly well. He was not the most attractive. But I was not looking to meet someone. I continued on with my bitter rage against meeting people on Valentine's Day so I am sure I was not the most attractive that day either.

I do not recall what I ordered for dinner that day, but I do recall what he ordered. The sight in fact is burned in my memory. He ordered a Smokehouse Burger. It was not just your regular burger. It was a bacon cheeseburger topped with onion rings and oozing with barbecue sauce. I could not imagine eating it and I was glad that I did not have that in front of me. As I watched him eat (I just could not help but watch as he was sitting directly in front of me) the barbecue sauce dripped everywhere. He had it dripping from his mouth, his hands, and just everywhere. I could not believe the sight I was seeing. And in public, too! If there could have been any potential here, it certainly was shattered after that sight. I did not think human but rather heathen.

Smokehouse Burger

Our second meeting

About a week after our first meeting, I was meeting some friends at Stevie Tomato's for karaoke night. Being Filipino, I love karaoke. I love to sit in the audience and sing along. Sometimes I even work up the courage to get up on stage and perform. I never get nervous being on stage but my voice is a separate entity from me and she gets quite nervous in the beginning but she settles down after a bit. Other friends from the singles group were going to be there even though I was meeting other friends. After a while, someone new came to join us. I had a few to drink so I was very comfortable and we talked most of the night. As the night was ending, he asked me if I wanted to go to get something to eat at Denny's. I agreed. It was much easier to talk and be heard at Denny's than it was at Stevie Tomato's. We did not have to shout or repeat ourselves. We stayed up for quite sometime just talking although I think I did most of the talking that night. We traded email address and phone number. I was quite happy to have made a new friend.

When I got home that night, I logged on to my computer. I found my new friend online and we continued chatting until the wee morning. It took me some time but I soon realized that the person I had met a Stevie Tomato's was the same person I had met the week before at Ruby Tuesday. He cleaned pretty well. He was dressed nice. He was even nice to talk to. I thought I had made pretty good friend.

Within a few months, Kris and I began dating. This was the start of our on again off again relationship. Who would have known that it would come to this?

In retrospect

On the day we were engaged, Kris and I went back to that Ruby Tuesday. I thought often of that day we first met. I thought how funny it was that on that day when I was not expecting to meet someone I met the man who would someday become my husband. I was not attracted and I did not think for a moment on that day I met him that I would be married to him someday. We ordered that famous Smokehouse Burger just for old time's sake. For extra added measure, Kris slathered on even more barbecue sauce. I looked at the half of a burger I had sitting before me. I could not even figure out how to hold the burger without getting sauce on me. I tried from every angle and just could not figure it out. So I finally picked it up and took my first bite. As I finished biting into the burger, I looked at my now fiance and uttered the sincerest apology I had given in a long time. Kris asked me why I was sorry. I told him, "All those years ago, I thought it was you who was the heathen. I was wrong. It was never you. It was the burger." We both had a pretty good laugh. I am glad that I did not let the burger get in our way and now we are happily married.

Kris and the offensive burger (May 29, 2009)

Kris taking a bite from the Smokehouse Burger (Notice the barbecue sauce oozing from the burger)

There was more sauce than this when I met him

Notice the barbecue sauce dripping from the burger

Valentine's Day

Last year for Valentine's Day I had my friend from work make a "bouquet" for Kris in commemoration of our first meeting. My former co-worker Erica made it. I told her the story and the details and she did the rest. She used nine Spongebob Squarepants crabby hamburgers and added red hearts. She used red and yellow-orange cellophane. She put it all in a yellow-orange pot with white dots to resemble a hamburger bun with sesame seeds. She added the Ruby Tuesday logo to top it all off. It sits atop one of our planter shelves in the living room.

Hamburger Valentine's Day Bouquet

Groom's Cake

For our rehearsal dinner I bought Kris a Groom's Cake. It was fitting to get a cake in the shape of a burger. I had it made at Publix and had them write on the "It was you" in reference to that it was the burger and it was him all along. He was the one meant for me.

Groom's Cake

My Groom and his cake

It is a great memory for both of us and a great look back into what we knew then and what we know now.