Like Chocolate and Peanut Butter

February is an XL special month around our house. Our wedding was in February -- February 3, 1990, to be exact. Our elder boy was born in February -- Day No. 24, 1994, to be exact. My dad's birthday is February 19, may he rest in peace.

And mixed in the middle of all these important dates is a special day for many: Valentine's Day. It's today, as a matter of fact! It sometimes gets lost around our house. You don't have to tax your brain very hard to figure out why.

But when I was a kid, I remember one February when we forgot my dad's birthday. I mean completely.
I still can picture how it all went down: I  was with my mom at Sprouse Reitz . (No one knew exactly how you were supposed to pronounce the second word in that dime store's name. Some gave it a short I sound, some a long I. Not a good idea to plop down a store with such a foreign-sounding name right in the middle of rural West Texas. But the debate really doesn't matter now, as the store is long gone. Maybe the name confusion was behind its demise.)

Anyway. There we were at the checkout. My mom started writing her check. She gasped and pulled a horrifying face, realizing that day -- that VERY day -- was my dad's birthday. I can't remember exactly what happened after that. I know we tried to throw something together quickly in an attempt to cover up the fact that we completely forgot his birthday. He knew. He just did. It was horrible. And he'd probably gotten my mom something really sweet for V-Day. Yeah. (HUGE pause here, please.)  THAT is a joke. My dad was known for buying her unromantic gifts, like bowling balls and microwaves, on holidays. And Mom always had a very appropriate, but not exactly mature, reaction to such gifts. Then Dad would surprise her on no special occasion with a bottle of her favorite perfume -- Joy.

As for me and my husband? We did NOT have a Valentine's Day-themed wedding, just so you know. I don't remember exactly why we picked February. Maybe because it isn't so hot in Texas in February? I know my husband's sister had been married the April prior. Maybe we were trying to give his family some time to recover from that celebration? Or maybe, since we got engaged in July, we needed a few months to pull it all together. We tried to book the chapel at our neighborhood's huge church for February 10. But they ran you through that place like cattle. All that was available was a crap time. AND you had to use their organist. We didn't even want organ music.

So we settled on a different church. A slightly different date. A female minister. The only requirements were that we didn't play secular music or carry an animal with us down the aisle.

I'm not kidding. 

Apparently they'd had trouble with a bride who carried a kitty cat in a basket to the altar. Or maybe it was a dog. Anyway, we were happy to comply. During the ceremony, my nephew caught the tulle around the candles he was lighting on fire.. I wonder if the church made a "no tulle" rule after that fiasco?

Still, it wasn't a Valentine's Day wedding. My bridesmaids wore black velvet and blue taffeta just to prove it -- one big group of healing bruises, they were. And my maid of honor continues -- to this day -- to point out the sweetheart neckline on her dress. I don't know why. Were sweetheart necklines not trendy in 1990? The florist wouldn't allow me to carry a round bouquet. She flat out refused to create a round bouquet out of fresh flowers. I was a trendsetter even back then, right? For years, people have been paying good money for round bouquets. (I'm guessing I was partly responsible for making sweetheart necklines all the rage too, but I can't be certain.) So much for designing my own wedding.  And at our reception, the hotel planner had promised she'd have "to go" boxes for us, since we'd be too busy to taste the food. She forgot. So our boxes were full of all the stuff no one wanted at the reception -- vegetables. No bacon-wrapped shrimp to be found. And the DJ? Prior to the wedding, we combed through his song list, marking through songs we didn't want him to play. He completely ignored our notes. All. night. long. Last song of the night? "Dancing in the Sheets." Classy.

Then the hotel lost our reservation. I'm sure it is because my husband's dad has his exact same name. And while we were Bill & Kristi, my new SIL's name was Christine and her husband was Bill. They ended up with a really swank room, by the way. And we did too, once I'd said my very loud and quite colorful piece to the desk clerk. So we blew off steam on our wedding night by tossing raw veggies out the window of the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas. Classy, part II.

Was all this foreshadowing to a disastrous life together?

What were we doing together in the first place? We were an accidental combination, like peanut butter and chocolate, that -- despite a long list of Either/eIthers  -- somehow worked.

I don't know where this photo originated. I stole it from Angrivated.

We don't always work properly. We've never worked properly. But we still turn out some stellar results now and then, including two fantastic sons. We've been together long enough to experience everything we vowed: thick and thin, Hell and high water, better and worse, rich and poor, sickness and health, new life and death.

We're very different, independent people, but we share so many good times together. We're a lot like the odd couple. I think we are exactly the odd couple. I get offered the senior discount at the movie theatre; he looks exceptionally young for his age. I'm deaf; He's color-blind. He's neat to my messy, tall to my short, dark to my light. But together we are whole. Together we know everything. (That's my story, anyway.) All our seasons haven't been rosy. But right now we seem to be in a good place, and I can't ask for anything more. I really can't.

We may not be a match made in Heaven, but somehow we found each other on this big ol' planet. It's a relationship that's partly a function of time and place and circumstance. But mostly a function of love.

And it stuck. 
Somehow.
Kind of like peanut butter and chocolate.

Happy February! And if you celebrate it, Happy V-Day! May you have round floral bouquets but NO bowling balls tossed at your feet.