Grace Goodhue and Calvin Coolidge

 

Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4,1872 in tiny Plymouth Notch, Vermont.
He was a smart, energetic, and very ambitious boy who was destined to go far beyond his humble beginnings.

Perhaps his most surprising accomplishment, was his success in winning the hand of the lovely and charming Grace.

Grace Goodhue Coolidge's charm and lively personality were the perfect match for the future president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. His reserved manner led to the nickname, Silent Cal, and to many stories that celebrated his New England stoicism. One such story was that, while at a White House dinner party, a guest shared with the President a bet she had with a friend that she could make him say more than two words. His alleged reply was a simple "You lose."


Grace Goodhue graduated from the University of Vermont in 1902. From there she went to teach at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts. One morning while watering flowers outside the school, Grace happened to look up into the window of the boarding house across the street. Much to her surprise she saw Calvin Coolidge standing in front of a mirror shaving, wearing nothing but long underwear and a hat. Her laugh made him look and a romance was launched.


Despite the objections of her mother, Grace accepted Calvin's romantic ultimatum of a proposal,
"I am going to be married to you!".
The couple was married at the Goodhue home at 312 Maple Street in Burlington,Vermont on October 4, 1905.


The marriage was a successful one summed up in lovely prose by Silent Cal,


"For almost a quarter of a century she was borne with my infirmities, and I have rejoiced in her graces."

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Collidge

Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti

 Sofia Villani Scicolone was born in Rome and raised by a single mother who was a piano teacher, but aspired to be an actress. Her aspirations, beauty, and talents were passed along to young Sofia who, at the age of 14, was entering beauty pageants and eventually enrolled in acting classes.
When her film career was launched Sofia decided to become Sophia Loren. She met the famous film producer, carlo Ponti, in 1950 when she was 15 and he was 37. Ponti was so much in love with Sophia that he married her in 1957. A small problem was caused by the fact that Ponti was already married. After one annulment and one divorce, the couple legally married in 1966 and remained happy together until Ponti's death in 2007. When asked in a November 2009 interview if she would ever marry again, the still beautiful and charming Sophia Loren replied,"No, never again. It would be impossible to love anyone else."
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Loren

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita

June is the month for gay pride events all over the world, and New York City is proud to be hosting their 20th Gay Pride Fest later this month.

A fitting tribute to NYC's legalization of gay marriage was the marriage between Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita last July 21st.

 Ferguson and Mikita, long time partners in romance, are also long time partners in their support of marriage equality. In September 2012 Ferguson and Mikita co-founded Tie The Knot, a non profit charity whose mission is to raise funds to support marriage equality for same sex couples by selling (what else???) limited edition bow ties. A perfect match for this great actor-lawyer couple!

Congratulations to all, and remember....everyday is filled with Gay Pride!

Wrong Place...Right Time

I never thought I'd meet my fiance in a girl's bathroom.

My future husband Jai spent his teen years in the resort town of Seaside, Oregon, then moved to Arizona for a decade. In 2002, he decided to move back to the Oregon coast to be near family. One of the things he had missed about living in Seaside was the Kajukenbo martial arts school where he had trained for some time and earned a brown belt. I had begun training at that same dojo two years prior, and attended classes three nights a week.

Once Jai moved back to Oregon, he registered for the class right away so he could resume his martial arts training. On his first night back at the dojo, he stood in the lobby waiting for the men's room to vacate so that he could change into his Karate gi (uniform). The instructor of the class, whom we address as "Sifu (teacher)", asked Jai why he was standing around.

"The men's room is occupied, I'm just waiting for it to open so I can change," he replied.

Happy Anniversary!

Being a collector of romantic "how we met" stories, I have to admit that my own chance meeting with my future husband is one of my favorites:)

We've been through many ups and downs together, but together we are...after 33 years...and he's still my best friend.

During my senior year of college I had an internship working at the State Department of Agriculture in our tiny capital city. I had made one of those last minute housing arrangements and planned to live with my roommate's sister's boyfriend. The situation became more complicated when they broke-up the night before I arrived. The ex was still happy to have me stay,and greeted me with the announcement that we would be attending a very special event.


He and a large group of friends had just returned from a weekend road trip to the Jersey Shore.One of the friends had the brilliant idea of carrying a tape recorder so that the event could forever be preserved for group memory.On this night they were all assembling at the local hangout to hear the tape played back.We arrived to a full house and I squeezed into a booth to listen to a hilarious series of interviews and narrations chronicling this historic odyssey to the shore.I quickly noticed that I was one "middle man" away from a very cute guy.

If I could only lose the guy in the middle, I could make my move.Finally as the tape came to an end, the beer that had been drunk prevailed and "middle man" wanted out.The cute guy was even cuter close up. I decided to make a move. I put my hand on cute guy's leg and said,
"I hope you're a lady's man, because I'm a man's lady." (true...we both actually remember that:)
I fell in love, he did, too and the conversation began that night is still going on.

My Mom and Dad

The first time I posed the question, "So how did you meet anyway?" the subject naturally enough, was my mother. We were in the kitchen and she was ironing a never ending pile of cotton shirts. She put down the iron and with a wry smile on her face told the story of how she met my father.

My mother was a nurse working in Providence, RI during World War II. The war had just ended and her former roommate, Virginia, was in town to show off her blossoming family. As their afternoon visit wound down, Virginia's brother, along with a group of friends, started to head out the door. Never one to waste the still rationed gasoline, my future grandmother added several items to his agenda along with, "Why don't you drop Virginia's friend off while you're out?".

Several blocks later, not wanting to impose on anyone, my shy mother hopped out at the next stop sign and walked home. My father, hoping to get an opportunity to "chat up" my mother, was dismayed to find her gone.

He went to his sister to ask about my mother's dating status and was given the not too truthful reply, "She's practically engaged." Having lost too many years to service in the Pacific, and never one to waste any time, my dad made his move and the rest is family history, our beginning.

Ingrid Michaelson and Greg Laswell

The New York Times did a wonderful interview with Ingrid Michaelson in a Sunday edition. In this interview, Ms. Michaelson admits to loving the "comfy" life.

She and her husband, fellow musician Greg Laswell, like to spend time sleeping in on weekends, hanging out in Starbucks, making late night dinners, and hanging out on their big comfortable couch.

I’ll take comfort over fancy forever: I think that’s what sets me apart from Lady Gaga!

Ingrid Michaelson and Greg Laswell met on tour at a show they were both doing in upstate New York about five years ago. Although both share the same profession, they are careful to keep their home life and work life separate. Laswell recognizes that they may have an overlap in their audience, but their musical skills rarely come together.

 It’s funny because we don’t do music at all when we’re both home. It’s the last thing we ever think of doing. We usually just hang out, go to dinner and watch movies. It’s a very separate thing with us.

The song, "Landline" was the exception to the rule. Riding out a storm, sitting in a church in Maine, Michaelson and Laswell started playing around with the music and lyrics which eventually became the hit song they recorded together.

All I ever needed was a landline, just in case the power lines go down.

Ingrid Michaelson and Greg Laswell were married in Maine in August 2011. Maybe they both found all that they ever needed.

http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?p=107593062

When I See Your Smile

I would say all couples have their own love stories; the story of how they met, how they started liking each other, and how they ended up in the altar. Ours was nothing unusual except that I met my wife when we were 10 years old.

Yup, you read it right. We were only 10 years old when we first met. That was in school.

We were both transferees from different private schools. Our parents both decided to move us to a public school where tuition fees are less. And so we met, on the first day of that school year. We were in fourth grade.

I couldn’t remember much but all I knew was I liked her already. I tried to be close to her so we ended up as very good friends. Our classmates started to tease us, and as a school-aged boy, I would feel embarrassed. But then we remained good friends and would end up sharing school stuff like notebooks and crayons.

The following year, we started a project called “Friends Comics”. I would draw some cartoons on folded A4s, and she would do the same. We stapled our work together, and our “comics” was born. I think we can call this our first “baby”. It was a weekly thing and our classmates (even our teachers) would pass the comics along until everybody has read it. I designated myself as the “editor” and she was the “assistant editor.”

Closed for Renovations

The first time we met, Alvin was recovering from a failed relationship and I was closed for renovations, not exactly the most ideal of beginnings.

Rewind to the year before. We were each in our own long-term relationships. Mine ended abruptly when my boyfriend died of a sudden heart attack one afternoon in April. His ended with a painful but inevitable break-up late the same year.

It was understandable then, that when we met over dinner arranged by a mutual friend, romance was the farthest from everyone’s mind. To be completely honest though, the fact that he was very cute didn’t escape my attention.

Everything seemed to go right that night. The food was good, conversation was great; we were laughing the entire time. Looking back, I still marvel at how easy and comfortable things felt; it was like the whole group just clicked.

For the next few months, we all hung out as a group, which was fun because Alvin and I got to know each other in a very relaxed, no-expectations kind of way. It was a lively blur of movie nights, group dates and long conversations.

5 months after we met, we became a couple. 2 and a half years later we got engaged, and early last year, we were married.

Alvin is an easy person to love. He puts up with my every-other-week mid-life crisis, he watches whatever movie I want to watch, he listens when I rant. Also, he cooks and has saved me from starvation countless times.

Ours has always been an easygoing relationship. We talk, we tease, we laugh.

I think the fact that we've both been in long-term relationships in the past and that we've both known pain, albeit different kinds, play a big part in how we are with each other. Simply put, we have learned to distinguish the essentials from the non-essentials.

Everything else we take one day at a time.

http://thejonastory.wordpress.com/