Well I may not be Perez Hilton but I figure it’s high time to get on the bloggin’ bandwagon.
If you’re wondering about the goofy blog title, google the lyrics to the 1970′s song of the same name by the Philadelphia band, the Stylistics. No one in music has ever possessed a falsetto like Russell Thomkins, Junior’s.
Prince did a real groovy cover of the song for his 1996 album, “Emancipation,” and I also like Aaron Neville’s version. The song means a lot to me because it was performed A cappella by my dear friend, Gordon Davies, at my 2001 wedding.
Some bloggers, when referring to husbands, use the term “DH,” which I’m guessing means, “dear husband,” but I’m going to call my guy “Daddy-O,” because that’s what we call him around the house.
Our wedding ceremony took place at the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue and 12th Street in New York City, and the reception was to be held in the roof garden of our Upper West Side apartment building. Daddy-O works in film production and had set up the roof with tents and food stations, kind of like a film set but with a bar. There was even a crew catering truck parked outside our building on 81st Street, and the catering staff ran the food and dishes ten floors up and down the elevator, to the roof and back again.
It was July, and in the early evening a storm blew through Manhattan with hurricane force. It came on suddenly, and the wedding guests grabbed stereo speakers, chairs, food and drinks, and ran everything down to our new apartment on the third floor. We had moved into the building just weeks before and didn’t know our neighbors, but some of them joined in the party. The caterers set up in the building’s hallway and along the stairwell, and 80 or so people crammed into the apartment, which was barely furnished. Garry Novikoff (“Gazzer”) set up his keyboard and began playing and singing, “Fly Me to the Moon” while we all danced, soaking wet, around the crowded living room.
We cut our wedding cake, a chocolate layer cake with buttercream frosting from the Cupcake Cafe, and because I was eight months pregnant, our guests began singing, at first,
“The bride feeds the groom, the bride feeds the groom,” then,
“The groom feeds the bride, the groom feeds the bride,” and finally,
“The groom feeds the baby, the groom feeds the baby …”
After which Gordy launched into this lovely song while everyone sat silently listening to him, the wind howling outside and heavy rain thumping against the windowpanes:
“Betcha By Golly Wow, you’re the one that I’ve been waiting for, forever. And ever will my love for you, keep growin’ strong, keep growin’ strong.”
The song has brought us great luck. And those who knew me well teared up, because it did indeed seem like I’d been waiting forever for Daddy-O to appear. For years I wasn’t sure I would ever find him.
I once wrote my mother an email saying I was holding out for a man who was kind and creative and appreciated music and movies, but still had a solid head on his shoulders and the smarts to manage life effectively, and he should be fit and athletic, too. I wanted him to be able to hike up a mountain and camp outdoors and build a fire with flint and sticks like I learned how to do in Girl Scouts. I also wanted him to dress up in a tuxedo like my old Ken doll and look like he was totally comfortable. Not much had changed since I was eight years old. I wanted Everyman, I suppose, because I’m a bit of a chameleon myself, with a French manicure and hiking boots.
“You’ll never find him in New York!” My mother screamed over America Online. “That kind of man is a needle in a haystack!”
“You gotta stop dating all those freaky players,” said my childhood friend Minsky. “You need a nice Midwestern boy with glasses. Someone normal and trustworthy you can have babies with.”
My friend Rick was more blunt. “You should’ve never left the Mormon church,” he said. “You would’ve been living in Utah with one of the Marriott boys and six kids by now. You missed your calling.”
All along I prayed, and wrote paragraphs about this man in my visualization journal, long before “The Secret” ever came out, and I even drew a picture of a tall (because I’m 5’10), thin guy with glasses and chunky shoes and comments written all over the page with arrows pointing to parts of his scribbled body, words like, “dimples” and “honest” and “good quality belt.”
Desperate? Neurotic? You betcha! I was 33 years old, blindsided by a divorce a few years earlier, and felt like I’d dated just about every eligible male in the city. Like Charlotte York wailed in the coffee shop, “I’m exhausted! Where is he??”
On the first night of September, 1999, I spontaneously decided to join hundreds of rollerbladers I’d seen gathered in Union Square Park, part of a group called “Blade Night Manhattan,” on a roll around the city. We skated from 14th Street up the West Side to the Central Park band shell, dodging taxis and messenger bikes along the way, and the police arrived and turned on their siren lights and blasted music, creating a roller disco for us. We boogied on our blades around the band shell for awhile until it was time to skate back down the East Side to Union Square.
Ladies, if you are looking to meet a man, here’s a tip: Go rollerblading alone. Of the hundreds of skaters that night, I think I was the only female not skating with a guy. I felt like the belle of the ball! My dance card was being checked by the airline pilot, the rock-and-roller, the firefighter and a long-haired dude I call “Snapple guy.”
Snapple guy started talking to me back at the band shell, and when we approached Union Square Park he asked if I wanted a Snapple. “Sure, I’ll have a Snapple,” I said, and off he skated to the nearest deli.
Meanwhile, the way Daddy-O tells it, he himself was halfway home to his apartment on Bleecker Street when he thought, “I should really turn around and go talk to that girl (love that I was a girl and not a ‘woman.’) Otherwise I might never see her again.” So he skated back, and when Snapple guy headed out, Daddy-O made his move.
“Did you have a good time?” he asked.
As we talked, Snapple guy returned and skated behind Daddy-O in circles, waving my pink Snapple in the air, but thankfully he didn’t interrupt us until after Daddy-O had taken down my phone number.
Daddy-O called the next day, and on 9/9/99 we met for our first date, a casual dinner at the Grey Dog’s Coffee on Carmine Street. To be honest, I had no idea what he looked like until that first date, because when I met him, he was wearing a helmet and pads and it was kind of dark and we were all sweaty. When this tall, thin guy with glasses showed up, my first thought was,
“Oh. my. gosh. It’s the guy from my picture!”
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“The Midwest. Ohio.” He smiled.
We sat talking at the Grey Dog for over three hours. Then we talked some more, at the neighboring Daddy-O pub, until the middle of the night.
Nine years later I still find his dimples irresistible.
And after two years of hiking, camping, kayaking, going to movies and concerts, building fires in the woods, and conceiving our first baby, there we stood: Me, very pregnant, looking like a giant marshmallow in my white chiffon wedding dress. Him, in his tuxedo, looking entirely comfortable.
And Gordy pulled off an excellent falsetto, almost as good as Russell Thomkins, Junior’s.
I didn’t show Daddy-O the picture I had drawn of the tall guy with glasses and a good quality belt until years later, after the ink on the marriage certificate was good and dry. Imagine how that would’ve freaked him out?
So, I guess that’s as good a start as any, and it is where my new life began. Let’s see what happens next.
That’s a scream! I’ve heard that song so many times and had NO IDEA that what they were saying. But heck, I though ‘She’s Gotta Ticket to Ride’ by the Beatles, was ‘She’s Gotta a Tic in Her Eye’! Okay, not really, but it’s funny.