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Portrait from our commitment ceremony on
an RSVP cruise in 1991.

Portrait from our wedding in Montreal
September 22, 2005.
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We met on an RSVP Cruise on February 18,
1989, while standing on the dock in New Orleans. Word
spread through the line that if you didn't select your
own dinner-table partners, they'd seat with you with
just anyone! So I, David, turned around to the
sweet young thing behind me and invited him to join my
table.
I (David again!) chased Randy around the
ship, having fallen in love at first site. Randy, on
the other hand, was looking for Tom Selick and, as you
can see, I don't fit that description. Nonetheless, I
somehow wormed my way into his heart by the end of the
cruise.
Have you ever been on a cruise? On the
evening before the final day, the attitude of every crew
member changes from "How may I serve you?" to "Get the
heck off our boat. Put your luggage in the hall by
midnight and, in the morning, sit quietly in the lounge
and await Customs inspection." As we sat in the lounge,
waiting to be released, we both realized that we'd miss
one another terribly.
We began a long distance love affair, first by phone
(until my then business partner complained about the
$500 monthly phone bills on the company tab) and later
by flying back and forth between Chicago, where Randy
lived, and Philadelphia, where I lived. By Labor Day,
Randy got a transfer to Philadelphia and he moved into
the tiny row-house that I had rehabbed in South Philly.
Two years after the first cruise, we went
back to the same ship (a really sad old tub) and were
married somewhere in international waters. And to make sure it really "took," we
did it a second time on yet another cruise, some years
later.
We traded-up to a
townhouse in the
heart of the city a few years after Randy moved from
Chicago, sold it and moved to the burbs in 1996, where
we continue to live happily ever after in our
ever-so-typical mass-developed McMansion, which of
course is better maintained and decorated than any other
house in the neighborhood. (We couldn't disappoint
our brothers and sisters now, could we?)
We have two
dogs. Silk is our firstborn, a 60-pound AKC-registered
Boxer. She's undergoing chemotherapy for a
lymphatic cancer. We're sad to say we will
probably lose her in the Fall of 2008. Buster, affectionately known as "Bubby,"
is a
Boxer/Dane combo we got through Boxer rescue. He tips
the scales at 123 pounds and is currently registered in
the "Biggest Loser" contest at our vet's office.
On September 22, 2005, we were legally married in
Montreal after a 16-year honeymoon.
Randy is a Realtor®
and I'm a work-at-home consultant. Visit our Web sites
at
www.theGayGuys.com,
www.thePRuy.com and
www.ListWithRandy.com.
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