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After that date and the wonderful time, we watched Neil Diamond perform, Tammy and I talked on the phone every day after work of course.  Our relationship continued to grow.  Word got out that Tammy was dating this guy.  I had not told anyone of my kids, friends, no one.  Nobody had met me yet, her kids, her mom, her sister, her brother, none of them.  She had told some of her friends, I found out later.  They all wanted to meet me and check me out.  It felt like an inquisition.  Not really, but it was like an important interview.  Being that we were one hundred and twenty plus miles apart from each other the only time to have this “interview” was on the weekend.  In our conversations Tammy would tell me bits and pieces about what she had told others, her mom, her daughter Christina, her associate Cecily at her office.  I don’t remember sending Tammy any pics but there must have been something she got off E Harmony and printed to show any of them.  Apparently, she got positive vibes or reviews about my picture, enough that they all told her which she told me later, “they all wanted to meet me”.  I drove down Friday after leaving work a bit early to surprise her at her massage room office.  Getting there was quite an experience.  Getting down the I5 freeway to near Kelso/Longview I checked off in my mind the Tacoma area, the Olympia area, the mile marker for 27 miles to Castle Rock, the signage to Kelso, then Longview.  I was now in the zone, and I was fine.  It was once I got off the freeway that things began to get interesting.  The GPS said do this but that was like going the wrong way on a one-way street.  I knew better so I would not go that way and it would “recalculate”.  I finally was able to get off the I5 freeway and on to the city streets of Kelso then thru to Longview, had a bit of trouble navigating for the first time my way thru Kelso and Longview but finally arrived at Tammy’s office address on the far end of Longview.  I parked out on the street.  I walked into the clinic entry, door on the left.      I said, “Could you direct me to Tammy’s office”.  I did not tell anyone that I was coming but I got the strange feeling that she had shown whatever picture she got of me to everyone in that office.  “Oh…they said, do you have an appointment”?  I said…No.  The receptionist said bravely, “Is your name Rob”? Guardedly I said, “Yes”.  Oh good”, she said, “I will let her know you are here”.  She directed me to the other entry point, the door on the right.  I walked out the door and into the door on the right, sat down in one of the seats in the waiting area waiting for her to come out.  She came out to meet me ike she was in with a client and said in a rush, “Hey, I didn’t expect you, what are you doing here”?  I said, “That is kinda what a surprise is.  I came down to surprise you and take you to dinner”.  Is that OK or do you have plans?  She said, no that is not a problem, but she acted like it was an issue.  “Do you want me to leave?”.  “Oh no, she said, just wait here I am almost done for the day”.  Somehow, I started thinking in my mind I had made an error, a mistake in coming all the way down here on a Saturday.  We had not talked about any of this.  In my mind that was the best reason for the surprise.  I began speaking under my breath and then out loud. “It was not the right time for a surprise. Too early man, way too early”.  That is when she came back out and said to me, “Too early for what”?  “Too early for me to surprise you”.  Were barely dating and there I go to being spontaneous”.  “I like that about you”, she said.  Don’t change a thing”.  Wow, she was using my language on me.  We left her clinic and went and had a nice dinner.  During dinner she asked, “Where do you plan to stay tonight”?  I replied “You know, I didn’t even think about that at all” I was all into the surprise that I did not plan out anything else.  “I am glad you drove all the way down here; you can stay at my house”.  I have a back bedroom at the opposite end of the house where you can sleep. “We will get up; I will make us some breakfast and then we can take it from there. Sunday morning, you can take me to church, and you can meet everyone there.  Did you have any other plans”?  I replied, “no, just to be with you”.   She said, “Oh, that was nice to say”.  We did just that.  She showed me around town, taking me to the park, the lake, those were the places I remember.  I think we had dinner at the Mexican place in town.  A place called El Compadre.  She had told her daughter Christina to meet us there.  Christina and her daughter Cloie, were already there when we walked in.  Cloie ran to put her arms around her grandma.  The two of them held each other for a great big hug.  It was very nice to see that Cloie really loved her grandma.  We walked up to the table Christina had got for us, Cloie and Tammy hand in hand and I trailed behind.  The two of them sat down, I momentarily stood at the end of the table, reached out my hand to Christina and said,

“Hey, my name is Rob, Rob Wasson”.  She reached out her hand and introduced herself to me.  I sat down and said, “what is really good here”, I am famished. We proceeded to tell Christina all the places we had been that day.  We sat in the booth so the three of them were on one side and I was on the other. I don’t know if that was planned but I think Cloie wanted to be in the middle between her mom and her grandma so as for protection against this stranger.  I know it was NOT that way but, on the outside looking in it could have been.  Cloie never took her eyes off me.  I saw that and started to play with her to give her some assurance that I was not a fire breathing dragon or monster but a big guy in a kid suit.  I fed her chips and salsa they brought us for appetizers.  I said do you like “casa-dillo’s Cloie”?   She said “whaaaat”.  Her mom whispered in her ear, and she said, “Yes” I looked at the waitress who had come up to our table and I went ahead and ordered, “One order of “casa-dillo’s please”.  Cloie laughed.  She continued to never take her eyes off me for the entire meal.  I think I had hooked her heart for life.  I know for sure  she had hooked mine.  We finished eating our dinner and said our good-bye’s.  I followed Tammy to her house by car and we talked about Cloie till it was bedtime.  Just like she promised she got up the next morning and cooked us a great breakfast before going to church.  Going to church in the morning showed that I had not thought the trip down to Tammy’s and subsequently going to her church the next day, along with the the surprise of showing up at her office worked out very well.  To be honest I didn’t know I was walking into a formal dressing Assemblies of God church.  Tammy was in a dress and all I had brought in my backpack was another pair of jeans and a button-down shirt.  I felt very much out of place.  She said not to worry.  “They don’t all dress up like they are going to the prom”.  When I walked in Tammy must have introduced me as her “friend” more times than I can remember.  She knew everyone there…They all knew her as well, doing a up and down on me when they met me for the first time.  This was just the beginning of introductions to her church, her family, her kids and her grandkids.  Even then I was beginning to fall in love with her, however there were many others to be introduced to.  On my end the only family I had around the area was my daughter Jessica, her husband Damien and there at the time two kids Alli and Maddie.  Lilly was not born yet.  Pretty soon I was a regular, better dressed on Sunday at church and invited to all the family gatherings by now.  I was a bit more relaxed each time I would come down to be with Tammy and all the people she knew and loved in the Kelso-Longview area.  Soon Tammy came up to meet my side of the family.  We decided to go to Olive Garden one weekend evening so she could meet all of the family I had in Washington.  Jessica was the only family that was in close proximity to where I lived.  My son Robert was in San Diego and daughter Rebecca was in the Los Angeles area in San Gabriel.   I believed Jessica and her family invited Jessica’s best friends in close proximity to where I lived to this occasion.  I think when I think back on that planned meet and greet there were at least ten to twelve of us in the dinner party.  They got to meet her, and I got to see their reaction to this beautiful blonde that had waltzed into my life in a most un-expected way.  It was like walking out of a long dark tunnel into the light of “Be who you are”.  I was loving it more and more each time we were together.  My one kid just fell in love with her.  At the end of the meal and our evening together Jessica whispered to me something to the affect in my ear as we were walking to our cars from the restaurant that night,  “Oh Abba, she’s a keeper, you really scored.  You better ask her quick”.  I said, knowing what she meant but acting dumb.  “Ask her what?”.  Jessica would use one of my pat phrases on me this time rather than the other way around, “What? Are ya new or something”?  We laughed and that checked another box for me on the list.  I don’t remember the first time my sister Laurie and her husband Brian, my brother Rick and his wife Sharon or my son Robert Jr. and youngest daughter Rebecca met Tammy, but this detail probably is in the “big picture” not an issue.  When each of them did finally meet her, they all loved her.  I was so glad.  I was relieved as well.  Now all the weight of responsibility was on me.  Right where it should be.  What do I do now, Lord?, I believed I prayed a few hundred times.  I always got a thumbs up in my heart of hearts from the father. Now that the Who, What, Where, When and Why hung in the balance the Who, of course, was her, the What, I knew was to ask her to be my wife, the Why, was because I loved her.  Now the only remaining was Where, and When.  I remember talking with my sister about asking her to be my wife.  Laurie had a great suggestion because by now she had met Tammy for the first time and a few times after that we ate dinner together with Brian and Laurie.  She had my father’s wedding band which had a diamond in it.  Laurie offered it to me.  We drove down to Kay Jewelers in Vancouver in the big mall down there to pick out settings and get an idea of the cost and all that.  Laurie brought along the diamond, and I think I saw that for the first time in my life.  It was gorgeous and would be a great centerpiece for the ring I was looking to put on my girls’ finger soon.  Together Laurie and I picked out some settings to try and put the package together.  We came up with it together, a beautiful ring.  We found another plain band that she could wear on her finger while she was working at her office, giving people who came in a massage.  We got Tammy, in addition to the engagement wedding ring and gold band a gold chain so she could take off her ring with all the diamonds on it while she was working.  Everything was now coming together.  I had asked her mom, her sister and all three of her children if I could have their blessing and I received their blessing. I now had the rings and chain in hand, now I just needed to ask her if she would do me the honor of becoming my wife.  We had talked it all out, all our good and bad times, met all the important people to us both, fell in love with each other.  Now it was up to me to put so to speak, “A bowe on it”. 

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