A modest proposal

We celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary on Friday. I’d like to pick up the story where I left off last year. Hmm. Let’s see. We had just done the narsty, but I hadn’t proposed.

Yeah. That’s a story.

I’ll bet you’re thinking I spent three days fixing some incredible meal for Karen, that I popped for the best bottle of wine I could afford, and that a woodburning fireplace and classical music figured in somehow, too. I kind of like that memory. Too bad it’s imaginary.

Karen was in her last year at Berkeley and I was in my first year of med school (Stanford, sixty miles south). As much as possible, I spent the weekends with Karen, hanging out in her studio apartment atop one of Berkeley’s sleazier massage parlors. Lord, what a dive. When we moved Karen in, foil covered the studio’s one window (accordingly, we called Karen’s predecessor “the Unnamed Vampire Graduate Student”). The window overlooked a ventilation shaft. If you got down on the floor and looked up, you might correctly guess the weather.

We shared a twin bed. (Every couple should do this in the beginning of their relationship so they can truly appreciate the queen-sized or king-sized bed when they get it.) This was not a problem, as we were in the spooning phase of our relationship. Living in terror that her black-belt-in-Judo-father would pop in on us in the middle of the night, that was my problem.

As much as we were in love, we sucked miserably when it came to romance. Candlelight dinner? One or the other of us would pipe up: “We’re having a romantic moment!” thus ruining the romantic moment. Do you see my predicament? I couldn’t have stage-managed a romantic proposal if my life depended on it. Honestly, I didn’t give it much thought. We both knew we were going to get married. The rest was details.

Some weekends, we carpooled back-and-forth from Berkeley to Palo Alto with Karen’s friend Kira. Karen and Kira had been pals since grade school. They roomed together at Berkeley for a couple of years and they both graduated from the College of Chemistry. Anyway, if I remember correctly, Karen was driving, Kira sat in the passenger seat, and I sat in the back. Kira, never the shrinking violet, began pressing me on my plans vis a vis her best friend. Here is a dramatic reenactment dredged from the depths of my memory.

Kira: Well, young man, what I’m asking is, what are your intentions towards our Karen?

Me: Oh, we’ve pretty much decided to get married.

Kira: Really. When?

Me: We haven’t picked a date.

Kira: But you’ve proposed?

(Cue road noise and perhaps the sound of Pink Floyd’s The Wall playing on the car’s tape deck.)

Kira: Surely you’ve proposed.

Karen: Not yet he hasn’t.

Me: So what do you say?

Karen: Sure.

Kira (screams incoherently, since she realizes she has just played witness to the lamest, most unemotional marriage proposal in the history of mankind)

If not exactly true, it’s at least true in spirit.

***

I decided straight away to ask her Dad’s permission. Karen’s mind boggled at the thought. Ask his permission? I think she was not-so-vaguely offended by the idea.

His main concern: he wanted to know how I would support Karen. (Now she’s really pissed. She fully intended to support herself with her grad student stipend.) Before Karen could commit patricide, I said, “With my student loan money, sir!” I convinced him that banks loved med students and would give me as much money as I wanted.

Here’s a pic of Karen and her dad just prior to the wedding:

He died a little over a year ago of pancreatic cancer. What a miserable way to go. Needless to say, we miss him a lot.

Tomorrow: an atheist and a lapsed Jew have a Buddhist wedding.

D.