SOC Sunday~Beginnings: The Beginning of Tit Elingtin and Me

It's Stream of Consciousness Sunday, and I'm hooking up with Jana's Thinking Place for a 5-minute free write on the topic of beginnings.

Since I recently celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary with my hubby, co-author and editor Tit Elingtin, I'll share the story of how we met and got engaged. We met on February 27th, 2000, when I was working as the hostess in a restaurant. He came in on a Sunday to sit at the bar, drink a beer and read his mail - he lived in a nearby town, but still received mail at a P.O. box in my city. He came up to the hostess stand, flipped over one of the restaurant's business cards and said, "You're a cute one. Write your phone number down for me." So I did. He left, then came back in and asked me how old I was. I guess I looked younger when I was 22.

We went on our first date that same night, to the movies. There, we had our first kiss.

I told him not to ask me to marry him until we'd been together at least a year - he waited almost that long. One night I went to the bathroom, and when I came out, he was kneeling on the kitchen floor, and he proposed. He happened to be in his underwear at the time - he's one of those guys who'll take off his clothes and sit around in his underwear to watch TV at the end of the day. He had a cubic zirconia ring - he took my brother to the mall to help him pick it out - way too big for my finger. I have tiny hands.

I said yes, and the next week we went shopping for my "real" engagement ring. It's a half carat diamond. We got married on July 13, 2002.

The Stories I'd Like to Tell You About Erin O'Riordan

The "Bitches in Bookshops" post was intended to post tomorrow, but in my state of dealing with a head cold, I couldn't read a calendar.

I hadn't been linking up with All Things Fadra for Stream of Consciousness Sunday for a few weeks, but here we go.

Today’s (Optional) Writing Prompt: What are the stories of your life that you love to tell people when you have a chance?


I hadn't been linking up with All Things Fadra for Stream of Consciousness Sunday for a few weeks, but here we go. Let's see how much of my story I can free-write in five minutes:

My dad's family is Northern Irish, from Derry (Londonderry, U.K.). They came to the U.S. in the first half of the 1800s - probably around the 1840s. They fought in the Civil War for the North. My dad's dad was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, and raised in Los Angeles. A juvenile delinquent, he was given the choice of military service or jail. He joined the Navy. In 1941. And got sent to Pearl Harbor. He was 17 at the time - he was wounded, but survived. My dad was born in 1952, after his father got back from the Korean War.

My mom's Polish-Jewish family is from Warsaw, Poland, and came over around 1900. My mom's dad also fought in WWII; he once told me and my brother that what he did during the war was "sit at a desk and smoke cigarettes."

I was born in 1977, grew up a typical '80s kid - Cabbage Patch dolls, My Little Pony, jelly shoes and all - and have wanted to be a writer since at least the second grade. And Catholic schools - lots of Catholic schools, from kindergarten all the way through St. Mary's College of Notre Dame, Indiana.

...and five minutes is up.

Introducing, for the first time at Pagan Spirits, Stream of Consciousness Sunday

I stumbled across All.Things.Fadra the other day, and I thought Stream of Conscious Sunday - a prompt for five minutes of free writing - seemed like an interesting idea. I thought I'd try it at least once and see how it goes.

Today’s Writing Prompt: How did you spend your Sunday mornings growing up? What are some of your favorite memories?

When I was growing up, I had to go to church every Sunday morning. It wasn't typically something I enjoyed, except for the year I made my confirmation in the Catholic church, when I was an eighth grader. I went through a phase when I was convicted about my faith then. It didn't stick, though. This was shortly before I looked at the family tree in the front of the family bible and discovered that Mom and I were of Jewish descent. Being multicultural then made me question whether I could remain faithful to any one religion when, apparently, I was supposed to be given choices. It set me on the path to my current state of embracing parts of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and the Pagan Wheel of the Year with a "take what you need and leave the rest" attitude.

Before church, it was time for Sunday morning cartoons, and when I was a kid that meant Hanna Barbera. I think the Flintstones were part of the line-up, but that wasn't my favorite. I preferred Josie and the Pussycats, Jabber Jaw or the one with the cave people and their pet dinosaur - yeah, that sounds like the Flintstones too, but this one wasn't a comedy. I think it was actually set in the future. It looked like the moon was broken, which always freaked me out a little.

For the rules and the linky, please visit All.Things.Fadra.

Post-stream of consciousness, I looked it up: the show I'm talking about is called The Herculoids. It was produced from 1967-69, but all of the cartoons I watched as a kid on Sunday mornings in the '80s were already old reruns.