Along came a spider...

Now the framework is in place, it's time to flesh this out with all of the facts.

"Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey,
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away"

Well, yes, in the nursery rhyme that's true, but not in these two, yes that's correct, two incidents.

Let's start from the beginning and rewind the tape a bit. Certainly a number of years, anyway. (I'll make this an abbreviated version ~ after all, the past 3 years are when all the crucial events took place). As a little background, a number of years ago, having been involved in the professional sports industry, I was taking a couple of weeks vacation when a colleague shared with me that he had a rather sizable recall upcoming in the American subsidiary of a large and well known Swiss company. This project involved a quick turn-around and he was calling all available hands to the deck. Having a little free time on mine, I volunteered to help out. A contingent of specialists from Die Schweiz (Switzerland) arrived to orchestrate and direct the project.

Enter Arachnid #1 ~ I'll call him DF.
Having a keen interest in languages (I majored in East Asian languages at University) the lunchtime banter between these Swiss nationals was intriguing for me. I spoke no German, but quickly secured a Wörterbuch to practise some phrases so that I could participate. The first phase of the project took the better part of a month, and DF and I struck up quite a friendship, spending non-working hours touring the sights and getting to know each other. Vacation over, I returned to my sports marketing projects as usual, DF boarded a plane to Europe with a hope to be asked to return later that year for phase two of the project. Letters were exchanged over the ensuing months. Later on that year, as hoped, DF learned that he would indeed be selected to return to the USA in order to provide training expertise for the next roll out. A plan to spend a significant amount of time together was spelled out in our letters and when he returned we did just that. A relationship blossomed.

All good things come to an end. A project completed and successful, yes, but that signalled his need to return to his home in Europe, and to his two children. Communications continued regularly and options for the future were discussed. Having become somewhat proficient in German I offered to move to Europe, but he preferred that we begin our life together in the USA. Having lived in the USA for a number of decades, as a legal permanent resident, I was already eligible to apply for naturalisation, and once a US citizen I would have the privilege to petition the USCIS for a fiancé visa for him.


Fast forward two years. Yes that's right, our love affair would be conducted with a 4,600 mile separation for a period of almost 24 months. Since I had relocated to another state to accept a position running a company in an entirely different industry that placed another 3 month delay on my application for naturalisation. Add to that a backlog at USCIS in processing applications that forestalled its approval until early 2000. During this time, DF was becoming increasingly more anxious and expressed his distress over the protracted petitioning process. A few jaunts by each of us back and forth over the Atlantic kept the relationship on track and before we knew it the homestretch loomed before us. The fiancé visa was finally approved in May 2000 and regulations required a marriage to take place within 90 days of DF's arrival.

A typical British Garden Party wedding was planned. A total of 100 guests from two continents invited, it was to be a lovely affair in the beautifully cultivated gardens of my parents home.


A day before the wedding, the skies emptied what amounted to 4 inches of rain on the region and preparations were hastened to get all in order. The day of our wedding it was still terribly overcast until an hour before the ceremony was to begin. Then, the sun broke through the grey skies just long enough for all of the festivities to get underway.



Escorted by my father we made our way to the area reserved for the ceremony where DF was waiting. "Salva me" by Libera was playing when we exchanged our vows in both English and German (in retrospect, I wonder for what purpose, as only 3 guests attended out of the 40 that were invited from Switzerland) under the arches of the laburnum arbor, when the heavens began, once again, to rumble and roar drowning out the music selection and serving as a most threatening background noise for the celebrations. Not a moment after the ceremony was completed and a couple of photographs taken the heavens let loose a deluge that would send everyone scrambling and scarpering for cover under the marquee.


Mother Nature's violent reaction to this union would prove to be an eery foretelling of the future, as I would come to learn in short order.