Summer, 2015, I was invited to a party at the home of my friend Rich and his wife, Thea. It was a bacon-themed party and everyone was expected to bring something bacon-related. It was mostly food, but Kevin Bacon memorabilia was equally acceptable.
Tina and I were spending the weekend together in the little top-floor apartment of the Buffalo Hotel, so I asked her to come along with me.
We concocted a recipe for bacon-wrapped Parmesan and bacon meatballs and had a great time testing our cooperation in the small kitchen. We worked well together, joked around, kissed between steps and I was completely swept away by how perfect we were together. It was bliss.
We'd not been dating more than a month or two by that point, but I was fast falling in love.
Tina knew how close I was to Rich and Thea and had heard many tales of our adventures together in Ireland, but she had yet to meet them. She was nervous about it. She said she'd had a dream that my friends had thrown her into a river, which I guessed was influenced by Scott's initial warning to her about dating me. Upon learning I was from "dangerous" Minneapolis, he'd told her that if she went out with me she'd end up cut into pieces and dumped in the Mississippi. That seemed a bit extreme to me. In retrospect, I wonder if he just didn't like the idea of her dating anyone.
I assured her that everyone who would be over at Rich and Thea's was super-cool, friendly and absolutely no one was of the river-dumping sort.
I ran through a mental list of likely attendees and when Chris came to mind, I thought a disclaimer might be in order. I'd known Chris for years. I liked him and he was Rich's number-one pal. He was smart and often hilarious, but his choice of words, subjects of conversation and sense of humor were sometimes not well-taken by people new to his acquaintance. I called him "Crass Chris."
Read the rest at the new Adventures of Dan and Tina.
