Meeting J-P, part 1

It was a Tuesday night, a scant month before the bar exam. I arrived at Amanda’s early to help her get ready for the enchilada cook-off. Despite my early arrival, however, two others were already milling about when I arrived, waiting for the party to get started. As I expected, Ion was there, mixing up the first batch of margaritas. And, as I most certainly did not expect, an unfamiliar blond boy was there, perching casually on the side of the couch and chatting easily with Amanda and Ion.

To say I was surprised by this boy’s presence is an understatement. I thought I had met all of Amanda’s friends, and I couldn’t imagine who else would show up for a Tuesday night enchilada cook-off besides our classmates, all of whom were reveling in those heady weeks between law school graduation and the Fourth of July, when our bar exam studies finally grew earnest.

But there he was.

Never one to miss the opportunity to meet someone new, let alone someone as cute and tall and blond as this boy, I greeted Amanda and Ion, grabbed a margarita, dropped my flan on the table (having decided not to participate in the enchilada cook-off portion of the evening), and immediately introduced myself to this boy named J-P. (At the time, of course, I didn’t know about the hyphen. It was several weeks before I learned it was "J-P" and not "J.P.")

We spent most of the night talking, circulating just enough so as not to seem to monopolize each other. I complimented him on his enchiladas, the only vegetarian entry in the bunch, but voted for someone else’s. He tasted my flan. We both drank more of Ion’s margaritas. At some point, Amanda pulled me aside and asked excitedly if I liked him.

I did.

Did I.

She seemed a little surprised at the match, but the only hesitations that she voiced were that he could be goofy and that she thought he might still have some minor entanglement with a previous girlfriend. Certainly nothing to make me run in the other direction. And, as I soon learned, he was indeed goofy, but in the most charming, adorable way possible. As for the girlfriend, well, whatever entanglement may have existed shortly disappeared.

And that was the beginning.

***

I’ve often thought about telling the story of our meeting and subsequent courtship, sparing no detail, but doing so in a single post would make for an interminably long post. I also thought about doing it in a serial format, but that would require writing much more frequently about J-P and me, which seemed a little much. Instead, I’ve decided to write snapshots of our story annually, on the anniversary of the day we met. It won’t be a true serial, so there will be no cliffhangers that you’ll have to wait a year to be resolved. It also will not be perfectly chronological. It will just be a chance for me to reminisce about that time – that first night, that first summer, and that first year.

A few snapshots

We're on vacation this week in McCall, Idaho, with a bunch of J-P's friends from high school and their respective wives, fiances, girlfriends, and children. We rented two beautiful houses right next to each other on the eastern shore of Payette Lake. The setting is gorgeous (pictures later) and there is a ton of stuff to do. Yesterday we hiked in the nearby state park that occupies a narrow spit of land stretching out into the middle of Payette Lake.

J-P on the trail:


Lunch with a view:


And on the other side:


The gang:


From the left, that's Eben with Evie, Christy, Melissa, Nels (in front), J-P, Saira, Joe, Arleigh, Lindsey, Becky with Sam, Brett, and Mike with Kate.

Great group, great hike, great day!

The house that roared

I’m still here.

***

So, you might know that J-P and I are on the verge of our next big what-are-we-doing-with-our-lives decision. My job in Nashville ends in early September, and we have to figure out what we’re doing and where we’re going next. There are a lot of variables in play, but one of them, believe it or not, is our house.

J-P and I love our house, as in seriously L-U-V LUV our house. And if you’ve ever seen it, you understand why. It’s old, built in 1899, and super cute. Though it was renovated at some point in the last decade or so, the renovators did a great job, maintaining much of the house’s old character. It’s got a beautiful front porch, high ceilings, three fireplaces, a spacious kitchen, and a great deck out back. And our landlords are fabulous. They’re two middle-aged guys living in California who’ve decided to retire to Nashville at some undetermined point in the future. They’re friendly, responsive, and thoughtful.

Even though we’re renters, we love this place as though it were our own. In the summer, we’ll sit outside on the deck with a few gin and tonics and play rousing games of what-would-we-do-if-we-owned-the-place-and-money-were-no-object. (Quick answers: finish the attic to add another bedroom and bath, re-landscape the backyard, put in new kitchen cabinets and countertops.)

After lots of discussion, we had pretty much decided that, if we found jobs here (mostly meaning, if J-P found a job here other than the temporary contract work he’s been doing on and off for the past two years), we would stay. If we stayed, we would ask our landlords if they were interested in selling. (Not that we were holding out too much hope for that – it felt like wishful thinking more than anything.) And, if they were interested in selling, we would buy.

But the jobs just aren’t here. And so, we put this idea in the back of our minds, focusing on Plans B, C, and D.

Fast forward to last night: our landlords were in town visiting. They wanted to come by to meet us in person and see the house. (I guess that might seem weird, but we had always had very nice conversations with them on the phone, so it seemed only natural.) They were lovely, and we spent a nice hour or two chatting over a bottle of wine and cheese and crackers.

At some point, one of them said, with a tone that was sort of joking, but maybe not totally joking, that the house could be ours for a really good price. And then, later, he said it AGAIN in the same only-half-joking way. Which makes me think they weren’t totally joking. Maybe the economy is taking its toll on them – one was recently laid off – or maybe they are reconsidering what seems like the somewhat impetuous decision to relocate from San Francisco to Nashville. But it seems that there’s a decent chance that, if we wanted the house, it could be ours.

I know we can’t make a decision like this because of something so ephemeral as real estate. There are so many other important considerations – jobs, family, jobs, friends, lifestyle, and, oh yeah, JOBS, just to name a few. But wow, the full weight of a possibility that has suddenly become real hit J-P and me both with the force of a locomotive last night.

So it seems Plan A is back on the table, at least for now, if only because it's fun to think about.

An Armenian summer's day

As most great ideas do, it started with a few bottles of wine. As we sat around the dinner table one night, I listened as J-P and Sarah and Aaron retold stories about Armenia that I've now heard dozens of times, and I realized that the places and people have become familiar to me, even if they are still technically strangers. Gyumri, Vanitzor, Lake Sevan, Yerevan. Med-evacs and marchutneys. A8s, A7s, and A9s. Casino night. The Halloween party. Thanksgiving. The vodka. The cold winters. The wild dogs. The fresh apricots.

While we talked and drank and drank and talked, we had one of those impossibly far-fetched ideas -- what if we were to host a khorovats here in Nashville, and invite every last A8? (For the uninitiated, "A8" refers to the eighth class of Peace Corps volunteers sent to Armenia, who were there in 2000-2002.) Would the weather cooperate? Where would everyone stay? Could we find the proper ingredients in Nashville -- the lavash, the cheese, the skewers for the khorovats? And, most of all, would anyone bother to come?

By the third bottle of wine, we decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it, certain that everything would work out.

And so it did.


Jeremy, Jen's brother Wade, Jen, Tamara, Jill, Aaron, Sarah and Scarlett, Sharon, Bon Bon, Artur, Melissa, and J-P.

On a humid Saturday a few weeks ago, we sat on our deck for hours, the smell of lamb and pork wafting over us from the khorovats pit that J-P dug for the occasion, ingesting bottles of vodka and club soda in nearly equal measure, enjoying the lavash and cheese imported from Boston, dusting off the old stories for another re-telling, sharing information about those who couldn't be there. For me, the day was a chance to reconnect with some of the very good friends that I've met because of J-P, and to meet, for the first time, others who shared some of the most formative years of J-P's life. Not to mention that I finally got to experience the ritual of the khorovats and the outstanding meal it produced, and to enjoy one of the first truly summery days of the season.

As I said to J-P late that night, it was better than I ever could have hoped.


One of many toasts.


Sharon, Sarah, Jen, and Bon Bon.


The three musketeers.


The dinner table overfloweth.

P.S. There is a post with the food details to come on Strawberry Beret. I'll link as soon as it's up. UPDATE: It's up!