Just like Las Vegas, except…

The extremely fantastic Soup Husband Curt arranged a top-secret overnight getaway for us this past Friday night.  There are so few surprises in a 15-year marriage that we resort to things like making reservations and not telling the other one about it till the last minute. I did it to him last month – secured babysitting and whisked him away to a restaurant that included a bar and a TV so we could watch the NHL playoffs. (Yes, I am the best wife ever.)  But Curt upped the ante, so to speak with a surprise getaway to…

LAS VEGAS!

Well, not exactly Las Vegas, but close in tons of many a few ways, and in some ways better. For example, where we went, was:

• Much less expensive than Las Vegas
• Did not require us to board an airplane and transfer in Atlanta
• Featured a half-price happy hour that included top-shelf mixed drinks and appetizers
• There was no smoking anywhere

Our getaway was truly the next best thing. After securing dubious babysitting arrangements, we drove 5 miles from home, and booked a room with a lake view here:

And here is another spectacular view from the 9th floor of the Marriott:

If you squint your eyes, it kinda resembles The Strip, doesn’t it? Maybe just a little bit?

OK, well maybe not. Nevertheless, it’s what we have right here in our zip code, and the thing is, if you’re away overnight without the kids, you could be staying in the neighbors’ basement and sleeping on their sofabed and it would be pretty darn fine. (Almost.)

We checked in, dumped off our bags and shortly thereafter parked our butts on the barstools at The Hamlet. We made friends with our bartender (hi, Andrew!), and got all bossy about the remote convinced him to change the TV channel so we could watch the hockey game. We ordered yummy appetizers (they were half-price, too) and talked him into heavy-pouring our extra-large gin and tonics.  We made friends with the nice people on either side of us, in that any nice person at a bar can be an instant friend for the time you both occupy stools at the bar. We ordered sliders for takeout and went back to the room to watch the rest of the game and sleep on the fluffy, comfy bed.

And no preschool-age children woke us up to be tucked in or to inform us that they had, again, peed through their Pull-Up, and no cats started YEEEEOOOWLing at 6:00 a.m., informing us it was TIME TO EAT, DAMMIT!

In the morning we feasted trucker-style on their breakfast buffet, which was included in the room rate. (Take that, Las Vegas!) If you live near Gaithersburg, go try the Marriott’s brunch – a nice lady made me an omelette, but could have made me a waffle if that’s what I had wanted. They had POUNDS of bacon waiting for me (I do love a big pan of bacon on a breafast buffet), grits, cheese blintzes, and healthy things too, like fruit.

Then we drove the short drive back home and confronted the reality of peanut shells and rogue popcorn on the living room floor and undone dishes and half-empty pizza boxes in the kitchen, but we did not care.  Our getaway was quick and low-budget, but all we really needed was a chance to finish a sentence without being interrupted, to drink a beer without having to mediate a quarrel or yell at the kids to turn off the TV – I said it’s time to take a shower – brush your teeth – I said GO TO BED! It’s exactly what the doctor ordered every so often. It helps us remember why we married each other.

Try it. You’ll like it!

Engaged

Marcy at The Glamorous Life is collecting engagement stories from anyone who wants to post one.  Now that 16 years have passed, it seems like a good time to get this bit of family legend in writing, because, what with early onset Alzheimer’s and Adult ADD and other maladies that affect women of a certain age, I could very well forget how ours goes before I put it to paper. I mean, wouldn’t you love to have your mother’s or your grandmother’s engagement story in writing?  (Note to my future grandchildren: You’re welcome.) So then, here goes:

We met as recent college graduates, enjoying the single life in the heart Washington, DC.  It turned out, we grew up in similar families about two hours from each other in Central PA, and even went to the same college, but our paths never really crossed until we had moved to within one block of each other in DC, near 16th & U (kids, this was back when you didn’t go east of 16th street for fun). We were introduced at a party hosted by friends of mine – and his – from college. They wanted me to meet some guy named Scott, but I was drawn to this other cute boy, Curt, who almost didn’t come to the party because he was watching a baseball game.  I knew then that if I was going to impress this one, I had better be able to talk some sports, so I wisely brought up Penn State Football and the rest is history. Pretty much.

I was in the process of moving to a basement apartment in Cleveland Park (this is a rite of passage in DC: All young city-dwelling singles at one time or another must live in a basement apartment) and in exchange for one free month, had access to it and the “opportunity” to paint it. I asked him to help. He said yes.

Fast-forward to about 12 to 18 months later. We were at a house party in Germantown. Adult beverages were being consumed. Favorite songs were being played. As The Violent Femmes’ “Add it up” played in the background (and what a romantic song that was to have as a backdrop for what was to come), Curt and I were perched in a doorway, talking about I don’t know what, when Curt declares this:

Oh, don’t worry, Meg – someday we’ll get married!

Of course I had felt he was The One from practically the day we met, but to hear him say this was a thrill. From there, we began setting the plans in motion, even reserving the date with the ministers before we made things official. (Funny coincidence about the ministers: The minister who married his parents was my minister when I was a teenager, and the minister at his church when he was a teen was my parents’ high school classmate and was in their wedding.  Talk about the planets aligning! We had both of them marry us.)

We had not been ring shopping or even talked much about rings – I wanted to be totally surprised. Lucky for me and conveniently for him, Curt’s best friend from home had become a jeweler (and still is, and his stuff is gorgeous, so buy some bling from the Caleb Meyer Studio and tell him Meg sent you). Caleb and Curt faxed designs back and forth and Caleb made me this perfectly goregous, absolutely stunning, completely unique ring.  Yet, even though I knew it was coming, I didn’t know exactly when.

Until one October Friday. After work, we had planned to go to Pizzeria Uno in Cleveland Park, and not just because they served giant, 22-ounce drafts of Rolling Rock.  Before meeting Curt at my apartment, I stopped in at The Limited on Connecticut Ave., where they were having this fun sale – 20% off of everything RED. I selected a pair of red jeans, because what wardrobe is complete without a pair of those? But when I got to the checkout, the clerk informed me that they were not red but maroon, actually, and thus did not qualify for the discount.  But I’m not one to make a scene, so I rolled my eyes until they popped out of my head, sighed loudly, complained to the person next to me, then paid for the jeans and left. Take that, Mean Clerk!

I stomped into my apartment still fuming and raging. As I was changing into my RED (dammit, they were red!) jeans, I was retelling the story of the “red sale” to Curt, who was sitting quietly on my bed looking kind of… funny.    I sat down next to him. He held out a ring box.

“Ohmagawd, Is this it???” I asked, hyperventilating, and what I meant was, wow, it’s TIME (finally!), this is THE PROPOSAL MOMENT and I NEED TO SEAR EVERY DETAIL OF THIS MOMENT INTO MY MEMORY and WOW THIS AWESOME GUY IS ASKING ME TO MARRY HIM! and THANK GOODNESS and I AM SO LUCKY and YESSSSS!

Only what Curt heard was more like ….is this…. IT? That’s all? That tiny ring?

Heh.

Once we cleared up that little misunderstanding and I stopped crying (I am such the crier), we proceeded to Uno’s, and THAT was where Curt told me the rest of the story.  Earlier that week, he had borrowed my car one evening for some reason I didn’t quite understand but whatever, dude. He didn’t get back until way past  midnight. Turns out, he had actually driven up to Hershey, PA (a 2.5-hour drive) to ask my mom in person whether he could ask for my hand in marriage.  She said yes (and probably also, what took you so long), and then Curt got back into my car, picked up a sub from Mr. Sorrento’s to fortify himself for the long drive, and headed back to DC.

My car was never the same after that night, but is that not the cutest thing ever? Yep, I thought so, too.

The next day we drove to PA so Caleb could resize my ring and also deliver the news to Curt’s parents, and that’s a funny story too. You see, we had also secured an apartment and planned to move in together right after becoming engaged. Curt wasn’t sure his folks would love us shacking up before being officially married, but we were moving ahead anyway, partly because my landlords were nutty-crazy, and because, you know, two can live as cheaply as one and all that. Coincidentally, Curt had also just accepted a job offer for his second post-college job.

So you see, there was much Big News to deliver, and here’s how he did it:

Mom? Dad? I have some exciting news!

Meg and I are getting married! And, I got a new job!

(andalsowearemovingintogethernextmonth)

And they were thrilled. Naturally! They barely batted an eyelash at the semi-controversial piece of news because he couched it in other really great news and, well, they wouldn’t have dared. At least not in that moment.

Meg and Curt, July 2006

Now, that’s thrifty!

My husband only wishes he could still be driving his first car, just like this man! Of course, at some point, Clarence Cleveland Curtiss turned the corner from tightwad and rolled right on into icon… but somehow, I doubt Curt’s Volare Station Wagon would have ever eventually become cool. Let alone lasted that long.

Read the story… then go have your oil changed. I mean it; no more procrastinating!