Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, everyone, this is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
[00:00:08] Today I'm going to share how Craig and I celebrated our first year anniversary.
[00:00:16] But before I get into the story, I want to just tell you a little bit about me.
[00:00:23] I consider myself a plain Jane.
[00:00:28] I know my friends are laughing right now.
[00:00:31] I'm not very fancy. I just don't have it in me to be fancy. I am not somebody that would ever dress up formally.
[00:00:43] As a matter of fact, if I wasn't when I was in high school, if I wasn't wearing a cheerleading uniform, I was in football jersey and jeans.
[00:00:53] I'm just not somebody that ever rarely, if ever wore a dress and that carried over. I mean, it's easy to see me in a navy uniform, right?
[00:01:07] I wear my uniform every day.
[00:01:10] And when I was in the hospital, I wore a nursing uniform in the hospital every day. So I'd wear a uniform one way or the other. And at home, I was in casual attire.
[00:01:22] Of course, I lived in San Diego for a while, so it was shorts and T shirts there.
[00:01:29] But when I was in Iceland, it was always jeans.
[00:01:34] I remember. I mean, it just wasn't a far stretch for me to become a nurse because I could wear a uniform to work and then I could wear jeans when I got home.
[00:01:46] I remember my parents came to visit me and I was in an overalls kick.
[00:01:52] So I would go to work in my nursing uniform and I would spend all weekend in my overalls. And finally my mom said to me, do you ever wear anything besides a uniform and overalls? She was thoroughly disgusted with me.
[00:02:09] I think I mentioned to you at one point she had actually said to me, when are you gonna start carrying a purse? I go, why? Why do I need to carry a purse, Mom? If I'm driving, I just put my license in my back pocket. She's like, oh, God, my poor mom. My mom was quite feminine. Okay? I wore zero makeup. Zero makeup ever.
[00:02:37] That whole time I was in the military, I. I can't even remember wearing any makeup.
[00:02:44] And I didn't wear make much makeup when I went to work as a nurse either. I never wore mascara, I never wore eyeliner, any of that stuff. But I did tend to wear lipstick. And really it was more because I was prone to getting cold sores. So if I kept my lips, I found out moist, then I rarely would have a cold sore, which is a good thing because those are so miserable, believe me. But that is about the only makeup that I ever really wore.
[00:03:23] So I marry Craig.
[00:03:27] And really, Craig is a lot more fancy than me. I mean, he's fancy fancier than me. He wants fancier cars, fancier way of life.
[00:03:39] And I'm like, okay, fine, get what you want, but I'm not going to be participating.
[00:03:46] I'm just. It's just that way. It's always been that way.
[00:03:52] And like, you know, from the episode, if you've been listening to me or following me on my podcast, you know that he married me because I could ride a motorcycle. I mean, when I moved in with him, I had my bicycle, and I would ride laps around our area on my bike.
[00:04:15] I would walk the railroad beds for exercise and fitness.
[00:04:22] But I was never in a gym anywhere.
[00:04:28] I can't be bothered buying gym clothes. I don't feel comfortable in them.
[00:04:34] I'm just a plain Jane.
[00:04:38] So when we got engaged to get married, I took a lot of heat from people because Craig did not buy me a diamond ring. I'm like, well, what? Why do I need a diamond ring?
[00:04:53] I work in a hospital as a nurse.
[00:04:56] I work with people that need help moving their bowels. I don't want to have a ring on, especially when my hands are all gloved up. Most of the time it's just a pain in the neck. I was perfectly fine with not having a ring, but they thought it was shameful that he didn't buy me a ring. And they started to wonder if he was going to take advantage of me because I was such a plain Jane. Was and still am, believe me, a plain Jane.
[00:05:35] So we got married. We bought our bands together very plain. Just a plain gold band. I got. And he got a plain gold band. But I will say Mr. Fancy Pants got a wide gold band, and I got a skinnier one. I guess it was. It was kind of wide, but he wanted me to have a wider one. I'm like, first of all, I'm short, so my hands are small.
[00:06:04] You know, I don't have room for a wide band on my hand. Trust me.
[00:06:08] So.
[00:06:09] But that just went hand in hand with me. I was perfectly happy with a simple gold band. Right up my alley. I don't need much, trust me, I. My motto has always been, I don't need much I. But if I do need something, I'll buy it myself. That's just how I am. Very independent that way.
[00:06:31] So we get married and, you know, and really, if you've heard the story of our wedding, you know, it was more like a backyard barbecue or a family reunion, really. Very simple. I did wear A wedding dress. I got to give myself that much. But both times I got married to my first husband and to Craig. I spent a hundred dollars on a wedding dress.
[00:06:56] I'm not gonna spend thousands of dollars on something fancy. I love the show. Say yes to the dress, but not for me. Okay. I just like to see what other people buy.
[00:07:08] It's just not up my alley. The overalls are great for me.
[00:07:14] So we get married, and we had a great first year.
[00:07:18] We're very, very compatible. That's one thing I will say about us. We have our fights, but rare, actually.
[00:07:25] I'm not too confrontational until I get pushed past my limit. Then I'm like the Tasmanian Devil, and no one wants to talk to me. So I'm pretty laid back most of the time.
[00:07:39] Well, he.
[00:07:41] I think he had some regrets.
[00:07:45] Not because of me. I could care less. But because he took heat, too, for not getting me a diamond ring and not really going all out for the wedding. And. And I'm like, who cares?
[00:08:00] It doesn't matter.
[00:08:02] None of that matters. It's all about how we get along.
[00:08:08] Nonetheless.
[00:08:09] Our first year anniversary is coming up.
[00:08:13] He decides he wants to do something really special.
[00:08:18] At that time, I was working at the Behrend center, the nursing home in Portland, Maine. And I was a resident service director on a skilled unit. So the residents that lived on that unit, it was only a 25 bed, but the residents that lived there required more care than the other parts of the nursing home.
[00:08:43] So I worked there because I could provide.
[00:08:47] Like, we had patients with tracheostomies.
[00:08:50] I had a patient on a home ventilator.
[00:08:54] We had patients with a suprapubic catheter. So that's a catheter that goes into your bladder, but it doesn't go via the normal way that you eliminate urine.
[00:09:07] So we had some technical challenges on that floor with our patients.
[00:09:13] I know one patient was in an electric wheelchair, and he couldn't talk.
[00:09:20] So that's the kind of unit that it really was.
[00:09:25] So I was working there. I loved my job, absolutely loved it. And we had one RN that would pass the medications to. To the residents.
[00:09:36] And then the rest of the team was certified nursing assistants, and they were just a great group of gals.
[00:09:45] I really, really enjoyed all of them. They were like my family there.
[00:09:51] And I would even make rounds with them and help them pull patients up and help them clean patients up. I didn't mind a bit. We were definitely a team.
[00:10:04] But that first year of the anniversary, all of a sudden, Craig Got this great idea and I knew nothing about it. He called Wanda. And if you remember, I have told the story of my friend Wanda. She was the assistant director of nursing there. He called her to help her come up with a game plan to surprise me on our one year anniversary.
[00:10:34] I knew nothing about it, but the staff was also in on it because she let the staff know.
[00:10:42] So our anniversary just happened to be on a Friday.
[00:10:46] So starting on Monday, Wanda would come to the unit with one single rose and a clue.
[00:10:55] The rose was in a vase and there's a clue attached to it.
[00:10:59] So the first clue was one year down and forever to go.
[00:11:06] This night calls for a special night and our chariot will await us.
[00:11:12] I'm like, what in the hell?
[00:11:16] I had no idea. First of all, I'm like, what? Who is this from? Craig? I said to Wanda, she goes, oh, you'll see. I'm like, what is going on?
[00:11:28] Oh. She puts the vase on the desk and I go about my business for the day. Really didn't think too much of it.
[00:11:37] Well, then the next day comes and there's another rose in a vase and she sets it right next to the first one, right? And there's a clue. It says, prepare for an evening of romance where a fragrant surprise will set the mood.
[00:11:56] I'm like, what?
[00:11:59] I do not know what is going on here. I really, really, really had no clue. Okay?
[00:12:09] She thought it was the most hilarious thing. She was enjoying every second of me being befuddled. And the staff, they were having a good time with it too. And they were teasing me all day long. What do you think that means?
[00:12:24] I said, I have no idea what he's even talking about.
[00:12:29] The third day comes another clue.
[00:12:33] And that clue was a timeless treasure born of the sea, will adorn you, a perfect reflection of our precious first year.
[00:12:45] Precious first year. I said to myself, he's losing it.
[00:12:52] I don't talk fancy, I don't dress fancy. And somebody is calling our first year anniversary a precious first year. I thought, actually thought he had lost his ever loving mind. I'm not kidding you.
[00:13:10] Well, there's three roses all lined up on the desk. I And I've got the three clues in my office and I'm looking at them going, what the world is going on?
[00:13:22] So day four comes and the next. And here comes the next clue.
[00:13:29] Tonight will savor the flavors of a country known for its passion pasta. And amore says, tonight, Tonight is not our anniversary. I don't know why he put tonight there.
[00:13:48] I finally figured that one Out. I said, oh, he's gonna take me out to an Italian restaurant. I go, I got one clue.
[00:13:56] I finally. I finally got an idea of what's going on. He's gonna take me out to dinner to an Italian restaurant.
[00:14:04] And then the last day, the day of our anniversary, I get this.
[00:14:11] Get ready for a luxurious journey that will whisk us away to a destination while we're where we will raise a toast to our first year together.
[00:14:25] So I get the last rose on the Friday, and all of the staff is standing around. When I'm looking at the last rows and reading the clue, I'm thinking, I. I really did think we were going out to dinner. And that seemed, you know, that's right up my alley. I mean, my family is from Sicily, so I absolutely love Italian food.
[00:14:52] It was not going to be a hardship for me to go out to dinner with him to celebrate our anniversary, and especially if it was an Italian restaurant. So I'm like, okay, I get it now. He's going to take me out to dinner.
[00:15:05] And then Wanda comes down, and she came down with Pat. Pat was the nurse practitioner that took care of the patients medically.
[00:15:19] She would round on all the patients for the physician, and then the physician came in once a week if there was a problem.
[00:15:28] So she came down with her, and they're both like, you know, giggling like little school girls. I'm like, what is going on here?
[00:15:35] They go, you gotta come to the front door.
[00:15:38] The front door of what? The front door of the building.
[00:15:42] I'm like, I just.
[00:15:45] I don't know. I just was not prepared.
[00:15:48] So they walked me down to the front lobby, and there, outside the doors of the front lobby in the roundabout was a limousine.
[00:16:00] I looked behind me, and all of my staff had followed us down there, and they're all clapping and cheering.
[00:16:09] And Wanda goes, come on, we're going for a ride. I go, what?
[00:16:13] So we get in the limousine.
[00:16:16] The limousine was fully stocked with champagne and beer. My friends drank beer, and then there was champagne in there. She says, the champagne is for later. The beer is for us for right now. But get in. We're going on a little ride. We're going for a little ride. I'm like, what?
[00:16:36] So I get in the limo, and the limo proceeds to drive us all around Portland.
[00:16:44] We ended up picking up a couple other people that I worked with, a couple of Wanda's friends. I think there were like six of us in total in the limousine.
[00:16:57] And she says, craig made a hair appointment for you. I go, what? Yes. We're gonna drop you off at the salon and you're going to get your hair done, and we're going to drive around in limousine while you're getting your hair done.
[00:17:14] I'm like, how come I'm not driving around in the limousine? Because you got to get your hair done. Oh, boy, I thought I got gypped on that part.
[00:17:24] So anyhow, they dropped me off at this really high end fancy salon downtown Portland.
[00:17:32] And I go in and they. The woman says, oh, I've been waiting for you to come.
[00:17:38] I'm going to do your hair and makeup for you. And in the back are two dresses that your husband picked out. And you can decide which one you would like to wear tonight.
[00:17:51] My shoes.
[00:17:53] Nylons. We wore nylons back then. And two of my fancier dresses were there and it was up to me to pick out the one that I thought that I would want to wear. But first she was going to do my makeup and do my hair for me.
[00:18:14] First of all, I just told you, I don't wear makeup.
[00:18:18] So you have somebody putting makeup on me. Like, oh, my God, my skin can't breathe with all that makeup.
[00:18:26] I am just not somebody that wears foundation.
[00:18:30] Okay? She put eyeliner on me. She put this heavy mascara on me. I'm thinking, oh, dear God. Lipstick, Bright lipstick.
[00:18:42] A darker shade of lipstick than I would ever wear anywhere in my life.
[00:18:49] And then she did my hair. My hair looked really good. It was shoulder length. I have naturally wavy hair. So she shaped it, curled it, cut it.
[00:18:59] So it was layered. It looked really good.
[00:19:03] I was in there probably for two hours being pampered.
[00:19:07] Then I go in the back, I pick out the dress that I'm gonna wear, get my shoes and my nylons on, and I step out of the salon and there's the limousine waiting for me with my friends who have been drinking for two hours in the limousine, riding around Portland, Maine. Can you even imagine that? They had the time of their life? Let me just tell you, they were in heaven. They were having the limo driver roll down the windows. They were hooting and hollering at everybody. Anytime saw a store that they wanted to stop at, they'd make the limo driver pull over.
[00:19:52] They visited all these crazy stores in Portland. Portland is very eclectic, I would say. And so there are a lot of different stores. And they went into bookstores, clothing stores, resale shops. You name it, they went into it. All of them were three sheets to the wind. But they didn't care because they had a limousine driver and When I got in the car, they said, well, Craig's not going to be here yet. We've been catching up with him. He's still got a couple more things to do. So we still have another half hour, 45 minutes. So we're gonna have the limo driver take us down to the water so we can look, you know, look at the water and see how we like it. And I go, we can go to the promenades. And they go, yeah, that's a perfect idea. Little did I know.
[00:20:47] So we went to the Western Prom first. The promenade is where the big hospital is in Portland. Main Medical center overlooks the Western Prom.
[00:20:57] And there's some of the most beautiful historical homes that you've ever seen. And the gardens are just spectacular.
[00:21:07] So I didn't mind driving through that neighborhood. It was wonderful. And then just to see the ocean on the other side. It was just beautiful. What a beautiful, beautiful way to see the city. It was starting to get dark now.
[00:21:26] It was. We got married in September.
[00:21:30] And in Maine, it gets darker earlier than it does here in Michigan. In the winter it would get dark by 4 o'. Clock. So it was 6 o' clock and it was starting to get, you know, dusk.
[00:21:45] So to see the lights on the water was just spectacular. It was really, really nice.
[00:21:51] So then Wanda said, well, let's just go over to Cape Elizabeth while we're here.
[00:22:00] And Cape Elizabeth, you have to cross a bridge to get to. It's like a little peninsula.
[00:22:06] And we drove around that and looked at all the water and the houses and everything. So we took that drive and then we came back and they go, okay, we can go to the Eastern Promenade now. And I go, okay, yeah, yeah. The Eastern Prom is where you can really see the water. The ocean is there.
[00:22:28] And so we drive up to the Eastern Promise. And then he doesn't even really stop the limo driver, to kind of let us look like he had been doing with all the other stops.
[00:22:43] He. He just keeps going and he swings around the corner and he goes to the bottom of the hill and there's a gazebo there.
[00:22:53] And in the gazebo is Craig.
[00:22:57] I think I could cry here.
[00:23:00] He's all dressed up in a. In a black suit with a white shirt, black tie.
[00:23:08] He's got in his arms a dozen long stem red roses.
[00:23:15] I'm like, oh my God.
[00:23:18] So the limit limo driver stops the car, opens the door and lets me out and he, I go over to Craig and he gets down on his knee and he said, I'm so happy that we had such a great first year to grow together.
[00:23:41] I hope you'll continue to be my wife for as long as I live. And I was like, oh, my God, of course. I. I can't believe you did all this. This is so great.
[00:23:54] He said, well, we got one more stop to make. We're going to the Roma for dinner. And the Roma is like, one of the best Italian restaurants in Portland. At least it was at that time. I did look it up, and it's still there, and it's right on the street up by the Western Promenade. But you have to go down the stairs to get into the. The basement, and that's where the restaurant is. And it is such a great restaurant.
[00:24:24] So in the meantime, he took us up there, and he left my friends at the. The Eastern Prom, and he said, I'm gonna take him up to the restaurant, then I will come back and get you and take each one of you home.
[00:24:42] And so. And that's how that worked.
[00:24:46] And Craig had had somebody drive him to the restaurant. He drove the. The truck to the restaurant. He had a Toyota pickup truck at that time. Still does. And he parked the car, the truck at the restaurant so we would have a ride home when we got done eating.
[00:25:10] So the limo driver dropped us off at the restaurant, and then he went back and got my girlfriends, and he drove them all home. Home, because all of them were three sheets to the wind after driving around in the limousine, right?
[00:25:27] And we get into the restaurant and we. We're seated at our table, and then out comes the gift.
[00:25:35] And he had got me the most beautiful single strand cultured pearl necklace, which, of course, I still have today. I know that shocks all of you. It's so funny because he's very good at buying me jewelry, but I don'. Wear jewelry now. I've been retired for a couple years, so I'm starting to wear a little bit of the jewelry that he bought me, which is kind of nice.
[00:26:02] And I thought, you know, this year, on our anniversary in September, I'm gonna get that pearl necklace out, and I'm gonna wear it on our anniversary. It's so special.
[00:26:15] Not only was it special for me and for Craig, but my friends and the staff talked about that day for the whole next year. They just loved the whole clue thing. They loved how the limo came to the Baron Center. They just had the best time remembering that story.
[00:26:38] And I do, too. It actually brings tears to my eyes because we. We were working so hard.
[00:26:46] He wanted to do something special for me. It still wasn't a diamond ring. And you know what? I didn't care that it wasn't a diamond ring. I didn't need a diamond ring. I mean, I'm taking care of patients, so I'm always have my hands gloved up anyway.
[00:27:03] And it was not a problem for me. That pearl necklace means a lot to me and that was one of the best and most special nights for us in our marriage.
[00:27:19] So I guess when you think about it, maybe the moral of the story is that when you're not expecting things, when you least expect something, or maybe if you're not pretentious about things, that's when things come to you when you're least likely to expect them.
[00:27:44] And that's what he did for me that day.
[00:27:52] I hope you enjoyed my story.
[00:27:57] It was a complete honor to retell that story again.
[00:28:02] It made me smile, believe me.
[00:28:09] I hope you continue to listen until the next time.
