Happy 3rd Anniversary Laura: I love you, always have.

Three years ago today I married the love of my life, Laura Jean Guiglotto

I’m generally a lucky guy, but marrying Laura has turned out to be the maraschino cherry on the proverbial “banana split” of my life. Not sure what the banana would be in this analogy, but since this is a family blog, I digress…us1

I first met Laura back in 1980 visa-vie my cousin Trish.  Unfortunately our love was off to a rocky start. Not exclusively because of our tender age, but because my priorities back then in no particular order included:

  1. Transformers
  2. GI Joe
  3. Atari
  4. He-Man
  5. Making fart noises
  6. Catching frogs
  7. Pizza
  8. Baseball cards
  9. Pac-man
  10. Rubiks Cube

Hehe…..fart noises

While our love was destined to blossom, the 80’ and 90’s were strictly off limits.  I should add that I’m younger than my lovely wife, and while not a big deal now, growing up in the same home town it forced us into the “friend zone” and we remained “acquaintances” for years. As teenagers Laura and her friends hung out with my brother and his friends (they were older, and in “teenager land” that automatically means cooler).  Oh yeah, and “acquaintance” may be a generous term…..if you can imagine any one of the socially awkward characters in any John Hughes film trying to talk to the object of their desire in the High School hallway you can imagine what our interactions consisted of (in our case it was Mahopac High School Circa 1990)….

Me (eagerly): “hi, Laura”…

Laura (confused, yet hot)“uhm….yeah, hi…..little Dessi…Chris, right?”laura

Our relationship went on like this for years.  In the 90’s I went away to college, lived in Europe for a brief period, and was back  living in New York city having a blast (read: finally getting some much needed attention from women), when Laura came back into my life.  My mother ran into Laura at the super market the day before they were planning on coming into the city to surprise me for my 27th birthday.  Mom invited Laura to join, and since we were long time friends Laura agreed (mind you, I hadn’t seen her in years at this point).  Yowsa…she looked..AMAZING.  This was gonna be a cake walk. I was 27, had a good job, and finally felt like I had a chance…so I slipped her my number and waited for the magic to happen…..

NOTHING.            NADA.             NIENTE.

Not a call, not a “sorry not interested”, NOTHING.  I struck out in majestic fashion. All of my friends watched me hand her my number, and they loved that she didn’t call.

After this little episode I jumped on a plane to London to live and work for a year. My life as a bachelor while fun, was starting to get old (you can only tolerate so many “nail technicians” in one lifetime) and by the time I returned home to New York (a year and half after I had given Laura my number and been turned down), I made a passing comment to my mother regarding Laura’s status.  If you know anything about Sicilian Mothers you know that this automatically means that Laura was about to show up on my front doorstep in gift wrapping, or if she refused she’d end up sleeping with the fishes….Thankfully, she turned up alive and well the next Sunday for dinner. Sicilian Mothers; if nothing else can be highly effective in these situations, and when I say situations I mean “setting up their pathetic sons with perfect Italian future daughter-in-laws…

That afternoon I tried to kiss her. She leaned away, and said “I’m dating someone”…

STRIKE TWO…

I leaned back in said “you have two weeks to break up with him”

She called me the next day and asked me to come over, and the rest – as they say is history.

Laura Guiglotto, now Laura Dessi is the most generous, loving, amazing woman I’ve ever met.  She’s given me a gorgeous little girl, and she loves me almost as much as I love her.   Three years ago today we exchanged vows, and it’s been amazing ever since.  I love the way we laugh together all the time, I love what a phenomenal mother she is, I love how she cried when I first put up a blog post about her “An Open Love Letter to My Wife” I love that she has made me a better man.  She has supported me, loved me, and been there for me.  I love her so much, and I’m the luckiest man on the planet to be able to call her my wife.  Oh yeah, and as I stated in my first post about her: she looks super hot in a bikini…so that’s a plus too.

I Love you LJ;  always have.us2