Our Story

I'm kind of a romantic.  It's true.  Under all the salt and grump and cynicism, I love romance. I have spent many happy hours curled up on my couch giggling like a moron as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth realize how much they actually like each other, over and over again. There's satisfaction in watching the hero and the person who drives them absolutely insane circle and jab at each other in ever tightening circles until they both realize that there is absolutely no one else who could make them happy. It's a formula, but damn, it's a tried and true one.

With Valentine's Day approaching, I've been reflecting on my own love life.  There were many crushes, most of them quite ridiculous, because I was one of those girls who noticed boys early and always had one boy or another who had my attention. Most of the crushes withered away into sheepish shadows with time, and one is a cringing memory, but there has been only one great romance in my life.

I first met Rick in 2000 in our seventh hour debate class.  He was talking to my cousin, and I, as an old veteran of the team, went to introduce myself and welcome them both.  I said hi, shared my name, and told him that if he ever hit on me that I would cut off his testicles and hang them from my rear view mirror like furry dice.  Classy, I know.  Rick didn't miss a beat and replied that he hoped my mirror was reinforced.

Hey, we can't all meet at a ball, okay?

Apparently, though, this wasn't the first time we had met.  At the end of my sophomore year, I had gone with a couple other members of the team to stump for the speech and debate team in the junior high drama classes.  We gave our recruiting spiel and performed our acting pieces and didn't think any more about it. Rick, however, was one of those 8th graders in the audience.  He had just about talked his mother into letting him go to the local charter school, but after our visit decided he would rather try going to high school with the hot girls. I would later find out that he had gone home and told his mother that he felt like he had met me before.

Thus, in the fall of 2000 we found ourselves on the speech and debate team together.  He was openly interested in me, no doubt due to my aforementioned charm, wit, and sparkling people skills. I didn't share his feelings. It wasn't just that I was a worldly junior and he was an uppity (if built) freshman.  I was looking ahead to college somewhere far away from our rural village, currently crushing on a senior with absolutely zero return interest, and had a crippling insecurity complex.

Luckily, Rick was playing the long game.  We traded awkward jabs for the next year; he was particularly proud about giving me a bottle of Midol for my birthday, though he had wisely traded the anti-PMS pills for M&Ms. Gradually I found him more charming than annoying, and we actually became friends.  One night on the trip home from a tournament, we were sharing a seat and I fell asleep in his arms; he later admitted he didn't sleep at all that night, even after he got home.

Despite our growing friendship, I was still off-balance with the attention--it was not something I had ever experienced before--and I was often rather dismissive of him. For months he was there...and then, suddenly, he wasn't. It's not a flattering confession, but nothing got my attention faster than him getting a girlfriend.  It's actually pretty impressive how quickly my lack of interest reversed.

We started dating officially in 2001. Our first kiss happened on a moonlit country road after we'd walked for almost an hour.  Both of us knew what was going to happen, but I delayed until the road ended.  I had no idea what I was doing, and promptly burst out laughing after he kissed me.  He took it like a gentleman and I drove him home.  We walked in to find an empty house and a serial-killer message scratched in Sharpie across the old green fridge: "We're at Grandma's WHERE ARE YOU???" That night I learned all about Family Home Evening as I ferried him over to his grandmother's house for the weekly dinner he was over an hour late for.  His sister ran out to meet us as I pulled up.

"I tried to help, but you're in so much trouble. Grandma is so mad.  She slammed the peas."

I wasn't ready for that kind of fight.  Rick barely got a chance to shut the door before I was peeling out of the driveway.

Despite that inauspicious beginning, I was welcomed into the family. A few weeks later, I was home alone on Thanksgiving making cookies when I heard a knock on the door.  Rick was on my front step, embarrassed and adorable.  I leaned out the door and saw his dad and uncle sitting in the car, grinning like Cheshire cats.  Rick explained that his mother had found out I was home alone and decreed that dinner was canceled until I arrived. How could I refuse?

Rick was the first one to say the L word.  It was easy to follow a few days later.  It's a trope, but I knew very shortly after we started dating that I would marry him.

Rick proposed on a hot August night while we watched a meteor shower on his roof.  He took it back two days later.  I was upset (I've never done well with abrupt change) but he was adamant that he didn't want to be engaged until he could tell everybody. He was particularly worried that his parents would not like it, especially since he still had a year of high school left. I couldn't argue against that. Two months later, we were standing in his living room and he was being a smart aleck (shocker, I know).

"Watch yourself, or I won't ask you to marry me," I teased him, getting ready to go home.

His arms slipped around my waist. "Are you asking me to marry you?"

I started to demur, but then straightened up. "Yes I am."

He smiled. "Then I accept."

Our parents took it better than he had expected.

We got married in June of 2004, just weeks after he graduated high school and we both graduated college. We've been adventuring together ever since.  It hasn't always been easy. Even a ridiculous romantic like me doesn't believe that being soul-mates means you get a free ride. Somehow we've made it through 6 kids, 8 duty stations, 3 deployments, several funerals, sickness, crappy jobs, financial stress, and depression.  We've grown up together, bumped against each other, knocked off some of each other's rough edges and bruised each other.

Still, looking back, I wouldn't trade him for any Mr. Darcy or John Thornton, Aragorn or Gilbert Blythe. He's already all of them, and more.  As infuriating as he can be, as pragmatic and irritatingly logical, he's also funny and kind and quick to apologize. I know he's always there, and I can trust him to be.  I am grateful every day that 18 years ago he kind of liked me threatening him, and decided to stick around. It's been fun.

Fire and Ice...lots and lots of ice.

For those of you don't watch Alaskan weather, January was a record setting month for Fairbanks--we had 33 days where the high temperature was less than 5 degrees.  The lows dipped into the negative mid-40s.  Average temperature was -27.

The point is that it was cold.

I've moved a lot, and I know that cold is relative.  In Texas and southern Arizona, anything below 60 degrees sends people scurrying for sweaters and to crank up the heater. In Kansas, we got out the coats at 40.  One Christmas in northeastern Arizona, I refused to leave my house because it was 27 degrees outside.

Alaska is a whole other animal.  Here's a quick guide to the 150 degree range you can expect up here between July and January.

• 70 degrees and up: too hot.  Everybody is mostly naked, on the river if possible, or lying on the floor in front of the fridge with the windows open and the fans on. There is actually science behind this--the angle of the sun at higher latitudes means that more sun hits the entire body, resulting in more solar exposure, making you feel warmer even though the air temperature isn't necessarily that high. Air conditioning is not a thing.  It's unpleasant.

• 60-69 degrees: Perfect weather in God's country...except when it's raining and/or on fire. People are outside all. the. time.

• 50-59 degrees: Still swimming weather, with the added perk that the water's too cold for the little parasites that cause swimmer's itch to survive.  Great time to go hiking, just be ready to peel off layers when you get too hot.

• 40-49 degrees: The weaker members of society briefly think about wearing close-toed shoes.  Everybody who has been here at least one winter is still in t-shirts and shorts.

• 30-39 degrees: Sweaters and vests start appearing.  You can see your breath.  People start digging their real shoes out of the closet where they were thrown four months ago. Mothers threaten to burn any flip-flops worn again before May.

• 20-29 degrees: Starting to get a little chilly.  People still go outside for fun, though kids are often forced into a jacket and boots.  At this point, the only people looking forward to winter are those fresh from the lower 48 who are still all shiny and don't know what's coming, and the nuttier Alaskans who actually enjoy the long cold.

• 10-19 degrees: Not yet so cold that it hurts to go outside. Perfect temperatures to go sledding, hiking, skiing, or visit the ice-parks. The amount of gear needed to be comfortable is still reasonable. Cars get plugged in if they're left outside.

•  0-9 degrees: Crisp and clear and you feel like a real moron when you forget your thin gloves because touching doorknobs is starting to hurt. The tough guys start wearing their jackets.  People throw coolers on their porch and use them as extra freezers.

• -1 to -9 degrees: Any exposure longer than answering the door requires a hat. There is now often at least a 70 degree difference between inside and outside your house.  Even the dogs wear boots for walkies. Your breath freezes on your hair.

• -10 to -19 degrees: The first breath outside freezes your nose hair and makes you cough.  Walking from the car to the store is long enough for your fingers to start to hurt even in gloves.  School is not delayed, and kids still go outside for recess.  The ski hill is reluctantly still open. Ice fishing huts start sprouting on the lakes like festive mushrooms.

• -20 to -29 degrees: Outdoor recess is canceled.  Skiing is canceled. Snow machining is canceled. Everything else goes on.  Winter coats, boots, gloves and hats become standard public attire regardless of circumstance or location.  Cars are left running in parking lots and no one steals them.  Everyone goes shopping so they don't have to go out if the temperature drops further. At these temperatures, any open water starts turning to vapor.  And yet, some people continue to make poor choices.

• -30 to -39 degrees: Frost appears on the inside windows of houses, interior corners of car windows, and anywhere there is a draft or metal that reaches outside.  Car batteries risk freezing even when plugged in. Being outside is now incredibly uncomfortable for long periods of time even with several layers of clothing and people just don't do it unless they run sled dogs, are congenitally insane, or are tossing boiling water to make a cloud.

• -40 to -49: Things start to break...including Alaskans, who respond to these temperatures by getting mostly naked and taking pictures at temperature signs, mostly as a big F-you to nature, but also as some irrational but desirable right of passage.  Coldstone Creamery and the fro-yo place do a shocking amount of business.  Ice fog--when any moisture left in the air now freezes--is now a thing.

• -50 and below: There is now over a hundred degree difference between the foyer and the porch.  The rare Alaska black snake starts popping up on the highways as various belts snap off cars.  Seasoned Alaskans talk about the good ol' days when it was like this for weeks and tell anyone who will listen about when it used to get really cold.  Everyone else just hopes the power doesn't go out and binges Netflix under several blankets.

It sounds a bit extreme, but you'd be surprised how quickly you adjust to it and kind of start to like it.  Seriously, people up here are talking about the single digit positive temps predicted this week as if they were a tropical heatwave and are planning excursions during "the gorgeous weather." Stockholm Syndrome at its finest.

At least it's a dry cold.