Gettin’ hitched!

So, me and Anahi were gettin’ real close and all that stuff. I’ve been acting like a total nerd ever since I met her. I even asked her to be my girlfriend and she agreed – score!

When she finally graduated from high school I was like, “Hey, move in with me?”

She was all, “You live in a plummin’ PARK!” and I was just, “So? You still love me…”

She does.

I knew my next step was a very adult one (so unlike me) so I went to the only adult I was close to: Frankie.

Frankie is this oddball dude I met when I visited Granite Falls a while back to meet up with this Hermit woman. Turns out she wasn’t there and Frankie was in her place. Whatever. He’s a good guy but kinda weird. He’s not an old geezer but he’s got a full head of gray hair. He doesn’t wear shoes and his ears are funky looking. If I believed in fairy tales I’d say he was an elf.

Anyway. I decided to visit him and talk to him about marriage. I wanted to make sure I was making the right choice. Frankie said he didn’t know much about marriage, actually.

What he DID tell me, though, was that I should know all three of her traits before I ask her to marry me. What, only three? I mean, people have lots of traits, not just three… OKAY, I did tell her before what my top three were, but… well… actually, hear me out.

Frankie believes in some belief system called “Game Awareness”. I don’t know exactly, it’s like a weird religion or cult thing. Aunt Aya also believes in this thing as well as my older sister, Chiyo. Aunt Aya learned about it when she stayed with the hippies and Chiyo at summer camp. I also remember this one dude from when I was a kid; he was looking for his son or something and came to see us and all this stuff and he was Game Aware… I don’t know what I believe, but… it’s irrelevant…um…

ANYWAY, I knew I needed some more help from other guys so we met some of Frankie’s friends in the park. They asked the basic questions: Is she pretty, is she crazy, some other stuff… In the end they gave me some OK advice. Much less freaky than Frank’s (despite the personal questions).

Cut to the chase, but… I proposed! I didn’t take the guys’ advice and asked about her last trait. I loved her way too much to back out of it at that point! It would be like me asking her how many guys she woohooed with before me (none, ha!).

She said yes, of course.

She invited over her family so we could get married RIGHT THAT DAY. This is her dad

…and this is her mom.

This punk is her little brother.

I added a wedding arch because I knew it would be a place that future couples could enjoy in the park plus we would have a nice memento of our wedding.

I’m not actually one for weddings. I mean, I’ve been to all of my siblings’ weddings so that’s what, five? Suzu isn’t married. I don’t know if she’ll ever marry. She has a boyfriend who’s a ski instructor or something up in the mountains. She’s still writing her book. Whatever.

Back to Anahi and me.

We exchanged rings (hey, I was able to pay for one!)…

…and just like that I became a married man!

As we watched the stars later that night we talked about a lot of stuff. I learned something really important, though. Anahi grew up to hate children. This heir stuff was going to be harder than I thought…

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