Bali, plus ten

Ten years ago, Claudia and I met for the first time.

Met face to face, I should say.  We'd been meeting online for a few months at that point.  We were both active on the same mailing list.  One day I e-mailed her off list -- in all innocence -- to ask about a fine point of Turkish grammar.  We started mailng back and forth and, well, one thing led to another.

At the time, I was living on the small Pacific Island of Saipan, where I was legal counsel to the Governor.  By the autumn of 1997 I had been there almost seven (!) years.  My boss had just lost his bid for re-election... partly because of the Asian economic crisis, partly for other reasons.  The election was in early November.  So in September, I made a reservation to go to Bali for two weeks.  "If he wins," said I to myself, "it'll be my celebration trip; and if (as seems much more likely) he loses, it will be my consolation."

Claudia meanwhile was planning a trip to Nepal.  Why not (I asked cunningly) turn it into a trip to Bali instead?  We could meet in person, travel around together if we cared to.  Bali was, after all, very nice...

Ahhh, so clever I was.

(Tip for scoundrels: do not meet a young woman in Bali, no matter how personable she may seem online.  Because Bali is the most romantic damn place on Earth.)

Ten years.  The first three years of that, I was all "ahh, she's just this German woman I see sometimes".  Then there was sort of a... punctuated equilibrium, kind of a thing.  After that things moved quickly.  Radiated, if you like.

I want to take the boys to Bali someday.  I think they'd like it a lot.

Happy anniversary, my dear.

Comments

[Carlos]

Hooray! I am a hopeless romantic, and I love this story.

Cheers! [raises coffee mug] Wait, let me put in some Sambuca. [raises it again]

[Mike Ralls]

Congratulations you two!

You know, now all the advice you gave me when I took my at-the-time-girlfriend to Bali suddenly takes on a different shade. :)

Definitely take the boys to Bali someday. I bet they'd go nuts.

Cheers,
Mike