Ten years ago today…when I had basically given up on the idea I was ever going to meet ‘the right girl’ and was becoming resigned to the reality that I was going to be an Irish bachelor (and a pretty pathetic one) for the rest of my life, I met my wife in a movie theater.
It was this theatre. They were showing this movie, which was okay, as far as the Edwardian style movies go. I spent most of it thinking about the blonde sitting next to me. My sister introduced us. They had met as bridesmaids at the wedding of a mutual friend of theirs a couple of months before…and my sister kept saying ‘we should all go out’ and I kept saying, ‘yeah, whatever,’ because, as I mentioned, I was turning into a pathetic Irish bachelor.
In fact, just before we went to the theatre where my future wife was waiting to meet me and my sister, I was hanging out here, and thinking I really didn’t want to go to the movies. I just wanted to hang out at the bar with some friends who were there. That’s always the way, it seems, just before your life changes forever, you’re really thinking you’d rather being doing the same old shi…. um, thing. (See above, and Irish Bacheloritis.)
After the movie the three of us had dinner at the Blue Room. I’m happy to say both institutions–the theatre and the restaurant–are still in existence. Too many other old Boston and Cambridge haunts are long gone.
A week or so later, I called the blonde for a date.
Haven’t been back to the Hill since. Now I’m thinking the two of us should maybe make a little pilgrimage.