Magical Beginnings

A few months ago, a couple I'm friends with told me how they met. They both joined a JET-like teach English in Japan program and were congregating in Narita. It was summer, very hot. The girl is waiting in the lounge, sweltering. The guy walks in lugging a suitcase and wearing his winter jacket. On the hottest day of the year. Everybody else is dying of heat and this guy's wearing his warmest jacket. So she asks him why he's wearing his heavy winter jacket, and he tells her that it was too heavy to carry.

Which in its own way makes perfect sense.

They've been dating ever since. And that beginning kind tells you everything you need to know. He's a little zany. She likes it.

Needless to say, they're fun people.

When I first "met" Karla, she was descending from a ladder outside her apartment building, which was on fire. Black fumes, 30 fire trucks. I didn't hit on her or anything, I just asked if she was ok. She shook a little bit and walked past me. It was a fine response. Then a few weeks later I met her in a bar called Viva Zapata. (Funny story there: Mark Smith once convinced me that their phone number was 777-SHOE, because zapato means shoe in Spanish). She was drinking a Labatt's Blue that she'd smuggled into the bar in her purse. Being Canadian, she liked Canadian beer (which wasn't offered at Viva's) and she was trying to polish off the rest of her stash.

And really, that was all I needed to know.