Cindi and Ted, Chapter Twelve

Our next door neighbors were great people. They were both teachers at our local high school, and had two young daughters and an infant son at the time. I had babysat for them countless times and just adored their children. They were the sweetest things, and even when I came home for the weekends during college, I would babysit for them when they needed me. When they moved in, they didn't have any children, so we were watching these little ones grow up.

So one evening, just about 2 months before our wedding, after I came home from being with Ted my mom said that she had to talk to me about something. By the tone of her voice, I had a very strong feeling that it wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation. I sat down, and she began.

"Sheryl came over tonight while you were gone." (Sheryl was the next door neighbor.)

"And?"

Mom took a deep breath and said, "She wants to host a bridal shower for you."

"WHAT? What did you tell her? You know I don't like showers!"

Mom said, "She wants to do this for you and I told her you would be honored. It's going to be in two weeks."

I knew by the tone of her voice it was a done deal, so I was going to have to put my best foot forward, and with a smile on my face, I would graciously accept this kind offer.

The next day I called Sheryl and told her how much I appreciated her wanting to do this and was looking forward to it. She told me that it would only be for the neighbors because she didn't want to invite friends that would be attending a shower that the bridesmaids would be having for me.

That's when I thought, "SAY WHAT??" but didn't say a word.

And lo and behold, before the shower at Sheryl's, the bridesmaids told me that they were having a shower too. By this time I had already accepted the fact that it was going to happen, so again, I very graciously said that that would be great!

Although my feelings on showers didn't really change, I thoroughly enjoyed both showers and Ted and I received many nice gifts. I truly appreciated everything that these wonderful people did for me AND had fun at both showers!

Who would have ever thought??

Everything with the wedding was falling into place, but we had a slight problem.

The weather was turning warmer and it was getting mighty hot in Ted's upstairs apartment. We talked about getting a room air conditioner, but knew that it would be very expensive. We decided that a few floor fans might be able to get us through the summer.

Then the downstairs tenants were getting louder and louder. It sounded as though they were fighting...a LOT. If I decided to do some tutoring during the summer, how would I be able to do it with all that going on downstairs?

About two weeks before the wedding we decided that Ted's apartment just wasn't going to cut it and we would start the search for a new place immediately. Talk about timing.

There were some townhouses just outside of town, about a mile past my parents' house, that had a vacancy. Through Ted's job he had worked for the guy who owned the apartments and made arrangements for us to go look at the vacant one.

It was a 2 story apartment with a basement too. We could have a washer and dryer down there. It had a living room, dining area, small kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. It was air conditioned too! And to top it off, the townhouses were only a couple of years old. We had two parking spots directly in front of the door. Our apartment was in the first townhouse of the allotment, so that was nice too. We wouldn't have to drive all the way to the end to get "home."

The rent was a little more than he'd been paying at the other place, but that was alright. It was well worth it. We agreed to take the apartment and made arrangements to sign the lease a few days later. In the meantime I was trying to find out all I could about the "old" apartment situation. Apparently since we never actually signed a lease (the owner never did bring the lease by for us to sign) we only had a verbal month-to-month agreement and he would HAVE to give us back the security deposit.

Armed with all this information thanks to my research, Ted called the owner. He tried to get out of returning our deposit, but Ted had enough information to get him to realize that he had no choice. He took his time about it though and didn't return it until after we got back from our honeymoon, but we DID get it back.

So one week before our wedding we enlisted the help of family members and moved into our new apartment. We were SOOOOOO much happier there!

I'd been in contact with Mary, my friend who was the maid of honor. She lived in California and would be arriving in Ohio on the Tuesday morning before the wedding. Barb, one of the bridesmaids, spent the night at my house and we got up around 3:30 am or so to get to the Cleveland airport in time to pick up Mary. Her flight was due to arrive around 6:00 am. We got there in plenty of time and back in 1980, the airport was pretty empty that early in the morning. Now, of course, it's entirely different. But we picked her up, and drove home. Mary was extremely tired as she hadn't slept very much on the plane and she was suffering from jet lag.

Of course things couldn't go too smoothly, or it just wouldn't be right.

Ted was suffering...and soon a trip to the ER would be necessary.

To be continued...