Could be today's title isn't completely accurate. It wasn't a "show." Come to think of it, not a lot memorable about our honeymoon. By the time the wedding was over, the drunks were all safely tucked away or passed out, we were on our way to a town near Salt Lake City so I could meet my new father-in-law and step-mom-in law for the first time. Was the honeymoon actually planned? Of course not! We barely had input in planning our wedding, why would we do something as outrageous as plan a honeymoon? By putting our respective pockets of change together, a few monetary gifts from the wedding and a couple days off from work we thought, "Why not?"
So, here we are in his lovely 1960 baby blue Ford Thunderbird, covered in cheesy best wishes and toting several lines of cans, shoes, squirrels (and possibly a homeless person or two) in our wake. Oh, let me just take a quick side step and tell you about this car. I married the man for this car. No, seriously, I did! He bought the car when we were just dating because I happened to mention offhand one day that my dream was to have a baby blue T-Bird. Well, did his rating factor ever go up when he picked me up from work one day in this spiffy car! Of course, I think I've mentioned before that I also married him for his dancing, his profile, his sense of humor, his winter tan, his mom, the fact he was so darn cute and (my dear daughters, close your eyes on this part) a fantastic kisser! But most of all.....his car.
Side note: I even learned to drive in this car. I knew how to drive a car a wee bit, but never enough to get licensed. My dad was one of those old fashioned fellows that believed everyone, male or female, hadn't any business driving a car unless they understood the workings of it....and most of those parts were under a nasty hood covered with grease. Uh uh, not for this girl! At 16 or 17 I took a lot of pride in my beautiful, long fingernails and I wasn't going to ruin a "look" on a greasy old engine so I could drive a car. Which I didn't have much interest in doing to start with, soooooo.....I held out for a good-looking dude and enough patience to teach me without yelling. Got part of that. He yelled at me and my lack-a-daisal approach to driving so much, that I once stopped in the middle of a busy downtown street in Denver, flounced out from the drivers seat in a snit and with quiet dignity (yeah, right.) informed him I didn't like his attitude, so therefore he could drive. That may not be verbatim.....the wording could possibly have been a bit more colorful and stated with a dose of coldness sarcasm. Yes, I did have a few "close calls" during my learning process and put a few minor scrapes in his white walls, but he tended to over react to those things.
Where was I? Oh yes, back to the honeymoon:
So, here we are with our loose change heading for Utah. I think we probably fought most of the way there but, can't remember for sure. It would more than likely be worth putting money on that we did because basically the first 10 years of our marriage was one long, ugly, drawn out fight. We believe in hindsight it may have been because we were both wrangling for control. Don't ask me if either of us ever got the upper hand because frankly, I think after awhile we were just too exhausted and too old to keep seeking the power. Or...maybe I won!
Meeting my new set of in-laws was stressful for me because I was very shy back then and the in-laws I'd met up to this point were a bit over the top. (Ooooohhhh, there's a blogging subject....the first time I met several of them. Yikes!) We hit it off, however, and I loved them both from the get-go. At this point though, I was starting to have doubts about my brand new husband. The next morning after we arrived, my new step-mom-in-law had to go to work, so my new hubby volunteered me to cook breakfast. What? I hadn't cooked breakfast for him yet, and I was suppose to prepare a meal for both him AND my new father-in-law? He obviously didn't catch the venomous glare I tossed his way since he was busy chatting with his dad. I decided to keep it simple and just fix bacon, eggs and toast, which I had cooked many, many times. But, this was the morning I burned the bacon, put black lace on the hard fried eggs and incinerated the toast. I was practically weeping! My idiot brand new groom moans, "Is this what I have to look forward to?" He was so new at this marriage business he had no idea when to keep his trap shut and about what. But, dad, the new guy in my life, thanked me for making breakfast and preparing everything just the way he liked it. Of course he didn't like his food charred, but he was nice enough to convince me he did.
I do want to mention here that even though my spouse apologized about 200 times, I never fried another egg for....about 2 years. There are some dances you just don't want to go to with me!
Anyway, honeymoon, honeymoon, honeymoon....then we head back to our home in Denver. That home happened to be the apartment I'd been living in with two roommates and since my rent was paid up to the end of the month, we had a couple weeks left before getting our own little apartment.
When we arrived I went stomping in through the front door cursing and muttering to myself. My friends inquired to the whereabouts of Bob and why was I mad? (Smart girls that they were, they were backing up and taking cover while asking all this.) I had stayed mad through most of the trip and the drive home across mountainous icy roads and just been too much. I was in kill mode and ready to pack his clothes up and ship him across town to his mother. They had a nice little "welcome home from the honeymoon" party there for us so we had to slap on smiles and pretend to like each other. Sigh! Never an easy thing for us to do when we were being snarly with one another.
You may wonder how long we kept the honeymoon "glow" going? Believe me, it was a very, very long time. Then things started getting interesting. But, that's another story or two. Besides, did I mention he was really, really cute?
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