Weddingbee

He went inside to meet his family, and I sat on the bench and had multiple heart attacks. All throughout dinner it was the talk of the night, how it was just FATE he’d show up like that. As any self respecting dumper would do, I ignored it, and tried to go on with my life.

Fast forward a couple of years (about 5 and a half).. Natalie and I are no longer friends, I’m now working as a bookkeeper, and Mr. Kiwi is who-knows-where. Aside from a few VERY random sightings, we had managed to completely lose each other amongst the rest of the Los Angelenos. There was the one time I called his house to find that he had moved out, and when his brother gave me the new number, it was disconnected. I called the old house to get the right number, and whaddya know? Disconnected. It was all okay anyway, as I was just calling to see how he was, since my feeble mind had wondered what I had done to him. (Cue eyeroll, I WAS that conceited).

Anyway, life changes and so do people. Over the years between our break up and our reunion, I had searched for him. I had had my share of the bad boys, and wanted to see what the only good guy I had ever dated was doing. Was he married? Did he have kids? Did he still live here? What would I say to him if I did see him? After years of signing up for Classmates.com (where they SPAM you constantly after signing up), Reunions.com, searching on Yahoo, Friendster and Myspace… I got a hit.

Friendster had him, and I sent him a message via their messaging service. As I checked out all the ladies who were his friends, I contemplated the message I sent him. I vaguely remember, “Hi Mr. Kiwi, it’s Miss Kiwi here. I don’t know if you remember me or not (I kinda hope you don’t), but I was just seeing how you were doing, and I hope you are doing well.”

I sat with bated breath for days (Mr. Kiwi STILL takes forever to respond to emails), until the response came back. It went something like, “Ha, of course I remember you. I’m doing good (AH, it’s WELL), and you?”. All those days of nervous fretting, and that’s what comes back? And what’s with the “ha”? Is he laughing because I’m a terrible person? Anyway, we traded emails for a few days, and it turned out he signed up for Friendster two weeks before I looked for him again. It’s FATE! After the initial few emails, we started chatting on the phone again. And then made a date for November 1, 2003. Almost exactly 6 years after our first real date, we were dating again.

Things quickly became serious, and after just one incident of eating mustard when I hated it, I let my neuroses show. I was the real me, and this time he was also less tolerant of my crap. He even let our (second) first date be with a particularly unpleasant friend (at the time, not any longer) of mine. He STILL didn’t judge me by that terrible date, and agreed to see me again, one on one. This time, our first movie together was “Love Actually”, and it was perfect.

Sure, I actually questioned myself about my feelings, I was worried I was just dating him because I didn’t want to hurt him again. I was confused about what was happening. How is it possible to dislike someone so much earlier in your life, and then all of a sudden find them perfect for you? I was worried that didn’t happen in real life, and wondered how was it possible that this was a second chance.

Mr. Kiwi must get some major respect, because how many people would give a person like me (Jamba Kiwi, not bookkeeper Kiwi), a second chance knowing it could happen again? After a few months I stopped apologizing, his friends stopped giving me the suspicious side-eye, and I met his family. A year after our new first date, we moved in together. In March of 2006, we got engaged.

And the rest isn’t history, it’s the future.

P.S. Even though Natalie and I are no longer friends, I did email her when we got engaged. Despite the loss of our friendship, I did get a “What the hell! Congrats! And I told you so.”
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We began to talk on the phone every night, and we’d hang out while we worked, I’d even come in a couple times when I was off and he was working, just bring my friends in for a free smoothie. Then came the day a girl came in and started to chat him up. What? What is this? No no no, he may not be mine, but he’s not yours. So, later that night I took the initiative, and told him he was now taken. Bossy britches, right? I call it being a strong woman! Now that we were dating, we went to movies (Seven Years in Tibet was our first, Seven Years in the Theater, I call it) and out to dinner, hung out with my friends- they loved him, while at that point (at my bitchiest), I was ambivalent. In real life, I am the most neurotic person ever- I eat weird, I have weird habits, and I’m a nerd. At that point, I hid all my neuroses and just played the “Normal” girl routine. I should have known that wasn’t a good sign.

Our relationship spanned the few months of my birthday, Christmas, and New Years Eve. During that time, he treated me like a queen, buying me presents and even going beyond boyfriend territory- he took a week of my shifts when I had pneumonia/asthma and couldn’t breathe, much less work! Despite his caring nature and his complete unselfishness, I was getting annoyed. I treated him badly, and picked fights constantly. My friends told me I was being a total a-hole (their words), and that I would regret what I was doing to this innocent, loving man. The situation wasn’t made easier when our boss found out about our “secret” relationship, and decided it would be cute if we were scheduled together for all of our shifts. Cute? More like the kiss of death.

When you’re young, you tend to do stupid things, right? Watch out, here comes one of mine. Although Mr. Kiwi was the sweetest person ever (I’m totally not exaggerating, he really was), I was bored. I wanted something more exciting, someone who would fight with me- just a little arguing. You must remember, I grew up in quite the volatile home, so fighting was normal to me. Anyway, Mr. Kiwi would not argue. He was quick to give me what I wanted, all the time. I got tired of having my way all the time (did I seriously say that?), and told him on one fateful day (his birthday, four days before Valentine’s day, and four days past our 3 month anniversary) that I just couldn’t do it. I even spoke the cliche- “I’m not ready for a relationship”. So, we broke up. On his birthday.

Four days later I received a call from him. He was in front of my house, and pleaded with me to come outside. “You can’t just show up like that!” I told him. His response? “You can’t expect me to just give up, can you?” Wow. I’d never had a person actually care enough to fight for me. So, I went outside, and there he was with a stuffed penguin (I had a theory about penguins and why they need fingers, something I had apparently spoken about frequently), and a huge bouquet of cream roses (”I couldn’t remember if you liked white or yellow, so I got cream”). I took the flowers, feeling so bad (but not bad enough to change my mind), and thanked him.

When we had to work, we avoided each other at all times. Things were awkward and I was paranoid something would happen. A co-worker would tease him about me, and since no one knew we had broken up, Mr. Kiwi would snap. HERE’S that anger I had been looking for! Someone else took a picture of us taken at Jamba Night (a party with all branch workers), and ripped it in half, and posted it on the office bulletin board. Now, I probably should have mentioned that Mr. Kiwi was my boss at Jamba Juice, all of which made our break up even harder, as he wouldn’t ask me to do any of my chores, and I wouldn’t take his orders, either.

Eventually, word got out. The golden Jamba couple had broken up. What would happen? Well, Mr. Kiwi would quit, and I would get his job. What happened after that is a completely different story.
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Since I didn’t have a license, I needed to get a job somewhere close to SMC, and the perfect place was the 3rd Street Promenade, which is a three block long open mall, with the Santa Monica Mall at the south end of it. All along the promenade are stores and restaurants, ranging from high end clothing stores to a Mc Donald’s. The promenade is where it’s at. My friend Natalie and I set out to put applications in at all sorts of stores. She chose clothes and shoe companies, and I chose book stores and the Jamba Juice that was just put in a few years before. I figured there was no better place for a vegetarian nerd!

Luckily for the both of us, we were both asked to come in for interviews at two places. I was going to interview at Borders and Jamba Juice. Natalie was going to Charles David and BCBG shoes. The day of the interviews, I was a nervous wreck. As you all know from previous posts, my dad is a huge support for me, so he came with me, only at a distance. My Borders books interview was unremarkable, but my Jamba Juice interview was perfect. The person who interviewed me was Carlyle, a chubby guy who was just adorable. I knew then (my boy-crazy self), that I wanted this Jamba Juice job.

During the interview I let all sorts of tidbits about myself slip in… I love juice, I’m a vegetarian, I was a girl scout for 12 years, I help old ladies across the street. Basically, I just talked myself up and let that be that. A few weeks later I was offered the job, my first REAL job! I was now a smoothie master. Okay, I had a few more weeks of training to become that master of blending, but I loved it.

Other than a broken bra strap on the first day of real work, things went smoothly (ha, pun intended!). I got to know my co-workers, and fell in adoration of one particular co-worker, Stephen. A few months older than I was, I was gone. The funny thing is, at that point someone else had fallen for ME- Mr. Kiwi. Stephen and I dated a few times, and as I got to know him better, I fell even harder. Little did I know my life was going to take an interesting turn!
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Well, when we looked at flights for Los Angeles to Kauai, it was pricey. We decided we couldn’t afford the flight. So then we looked at Cancun. The flights were a lot less, and we started making plans. But wait… we don’t have passports and Mr. Kiwi doesn’t have his certified birth certificate. We’re out of luck.

Then, I decided to check the flights again… and what do you know? We found flights to Hawaii for just a little bit more than the Cancun flights, which was okay, since we saved money not having to expedite passports! So, we’ll be staying at the north shore, in Princeville, for a full week, courtesy of a parent at Mr. Kiwi’s school. It appears we get to have our romantic honeymoon in Hawaii, just a mere 8 months (to the day) after our wedding.

Now, I need your help: any tips or favorite places, or things to do in Kauai?
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Now that the big anniversary is coming up, my aunt asked me for ideas for decorations and centerpieces. I told her that something that is popular nowadays are the tables with pictures of the couple at different ages. She had a problem with that one, since both my aunt and uncle grew up in the projects and didn’t really have very many pictures of themselves as kids (not being able to afford a camera). I told her a different idea would be to have those picture frame boxes as the centerpiece with pictures of the couple throughout the 50 years- cheaper than flowers, and a chance to showcase the many great times they had. She actually loved that idea and was going to scour the stores for bargain picture frames (too bad I have no idea how to make them).

That’s just one idea though, can anyone help me think of more ideas to help celebrate a 50 year anniversary?

For your consideration, here are pictures of the happy couple (although not together, what is up with that? Is that the secret to 50 blissful years?) at our wedding. They have always been like surrogate grandparents to me, and I really want to help make their anniversary the wedding they never had.

My aunt with my cousins

My uncle being, well, himself.

This here is the shot of my aunt and uncle helping me out, like they always have. Man, my dress was a three man job!
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This one is on our Los Angeles Dodgers snowglobe.

This one is on my finger (obviously)

Another with the wedding band

There are a ton more, but here’s the final one!

I am so glad I changed out my crappy before ring! It was all my fault, too. Word to the wise: Don’t impulse buy! Mr. Kiwi is so glad I have a new ring that is absolutely perfect for me, that was made for me.

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In full disclosure, I must tell you: those weeks leading up to your wedding are full of choices to be made, items to drop from the lineup, even people to drop from your life. Don’t fear if you’re even reconsidering your fiance, it’s only natural- when everything else seems to be hanging from a thread (in the case of some alterations, literally), you have to wonder if the other things will remain. If your doubts get too overwhelming, take a break from all the planning and take a “me” day. Read a book, take a bath, sit in the park. Do anything you can to just remember what your life will be like when the wedding no longer hovers over all you are doing.

I’m thankful that it didn’t come to that with Mr. Kiwi and I. When the programs had to be printed at Kinko’s the night before the 9am wedding, Mr. Kiwi took care of it. When we had to deliver all the reception stuff to the hotel the afternoon before, Mr. Kiwi did it. Did I see him the night before the wedding? Yes, because although we upheld some traditions (not seeing the dress before the ceremony), this was one I couldn’t go without. The morning of the wedding, as I was awake at 5am, my nerves were nothing to do with my marriage. It wasn’t until recently that I thought about that. After focusing for months on the possible marriage, when it came down to it, all I did was look down that aisle at my future husband and smile, knowing that I had made the right decision. Okay, and I did think a teeny bit about not falling as I walked.

Point of the story: I think it is okay to question things. It’s your brain’s way of making sure you know exactly what you’re getting into.
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My super cool idea was not even necessary, as I showed up for my appointment, handed the man my application and he asked me two things: “Did you change your name at Social Security?” Yes. “Do you have the ORIGINAL marriage license?” Yes. “Then have a seat and we’ll be with you shortly.” It was very soon after that I was called up, handed my application and original version of my marriage license over with shaking hands to the clerk, and the motions to change my name began. When I didn’t hear a “Sorry…” I realized I may have gotten lucky. Hm, she was asking for my $23.00 for a new ID. Ohmagosh. I looked back at my dad and gave him a happy look, and he grinned back. Third time’s a charm!

I took my picture (it will never be as good as my original picture *tear*), my receipt, and my old ID with the hole punched in it and wandered blissfully out the automatic doors of the Culver City DMV. I guess everyone was right- it really does matter who you “get”. As maddening as it is to have NO continuity at these DMV offices, I can only tell you what I learned after trying three times: Don’t Give Up. Also, as Mrs. Bluebell told me, don’t leave with an ID that reads what you don’t want, it WILL be harder to change it again after that. If they deny you the right to change it to what you want, just leave with nothing, and try again, possibly at another branch. And don’t mention how many times you’ve had to do it, just act as though it’s the first time ever.

Thank goodness it’s DONE!
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