Hello there...Mike here. Katie's still alive, as you can see, since she actually posted something last night (it reads Wednesday because that's when she started, and it took her three nights' steady working to finish it). She composes very slowly, something I understand because so do I. I write very quickly, at first, but the product is generally wretched. So I rewrite it, several times, and that consumes time. One of my favorite quotes is from Steinbeck, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it's pretty close: "I am an average writer, but I am one of the world's greatest rewriters."
Now that's a statement I can appreciate.
A good friend of mine, Elin, whom I met through ballroom dance nearly ten years ago (you meet lots of Russians and Ukrainians in ballroom), has pressed me for details on how Kate and I met, and further, that I should post those details on the blog. Sounds like a good idea to me, so here goes. This first installment is actually the text of an e-mail I sent Elin, at which point she urged me just to post it. So in the upcoming several weeks, while I'm out in Alaska and not otherwise occupied, I'll be composing chapters of my story with Katie.
One quick note, on the title: Pup & Ben. Our devoted millions of readers (or thereabouts, the numbers are a little vague) no doubt know all about our nicknames for each other. But for those few who might need introduction, I'll give you some background--maybe a little more than you need. I'm not religious. I consider superstitious and mythological traditions to be mind games. At times grand, inspiring and profound; at times amusing and mildly interesting; at times annoying and childish; at times horrifying; but mind games nevertheless. (And as humans, to a large degree we need the mind games, because life can be a pretty uncertain and frightening experience. But enough of that.) Astrology falls into the "amusing and mildly interesting" category, not only the twelve-phase planetary houses of the west, but the Chinese system of years.
So...according to the Chinese, I was born in the year of the dog, and Katie, the year of the tiger. Each animal has traits. The dog is loyal, protective, and intolerant of weakness. The tiger is solitary, fierce, and cunning. (I've never met anyone more forthright than Katie, but maybe I'm a little more gullible than I realize...) So last fall, I cast about for a fun nickname to give her, and decided on Bengal. She responded in kind and dubbed me Pup. One day while browsing through some of her digital photos of us, I saw a folder titled, "Pup & Ben", and liked it a lot. So, that's the name of my little history of us: how we met, how we courted, and how we wound up where we are now.
So...that intro is longer than the first actual entry will be, but so what? I won't need to repeat it. Here's chapter 1 of my account, of how Pup & Ben came to be a couple, and then a family...
We met last September (2008)--actually, we've worked out that it was September 6. I was working in Starbucks--already having trouble finding full-time work, so I sucked up my pride, and worked with 18-to-22-year-olds selling coffee to sometimes haughty customers. Katie showed up one Saturday night, by herself, looking very cute and very focused on her computer, by the front window of the store. It was a slow night, as Saturdays could be. (Saturdays tend either to be madhouses or dead. Not really anything in between.)
She was pretty gorgeous, and very intently working at her computer, so I decided to spy on her. I grabbed a broom, walked behind her, and pretended to sweep, while I eavesdropped. She was carrying on an intense sign-language conversation with a man on the computer screen, via webcam. I had no idea who the guy was--he was dark, bearded, and looked vaguely criminal to me--but I was thoroughly impressed with her. I'd heard this woman talking on her phone, so I knew she wasn't deaf, but she was fluent in sign...it seemed to me that the only hearing people who learn sign language, are those with a strong sense of empathy.
So without saying a word to each other, I knew I liked her a lot.After a half hour she hadn't ordered anything, and I was wiping down the counter for the third time when I decided to abuse my privilege as a barista (as we're called), and bring her a free drink. (We're allowed to make them for ourselves, but not give them to customers. But baristas give them to cute customers they like all the time.) So I made her a frozen flavored cream drink, a Frappuccino.
I wasn't sure she liked coffee (most of the flavors are coffee-based), so I brought her what girls usually ordered--strawberries & cream. She didn't betray the fact that, as she told me later, she doesn't like strawberries--at all. Instead, she smiled very sweetly at me, said thank you (and also signed it, though I didn't recognize the sign), and turned back to her intense conversation over the webcam.
Twenty minutes later she packed up, took her drink and walked out.
Eh, easy come, easy go, I thought. Though she might be back...(and as it turned out, she would indeed be back...)
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