Lola and Scott

Picture it! Sicily, 1935….

Wait, it was Shady Oaks, Easter 2016.

It’s your classic tale of boy & girl meet at friends’ Easter party, boy expresses interest in girl to friends but boy lives in Houston, so girl says friends only.

Lola: I was already in the backyard when this tall, handsome guy walked out onto the back porch with a woman in tow. It was obvious they were together, so I thought “hey look, new people” and turned back to the conversation. When introduced later, I learned his name was Scott, the woman was indeed his date, and that was about it. Not much conversation happened, but we were sitting next to each other in the family photo later, so that counts as our first photo together, right?

That’s us, front & center. I’m still not sure why we were all leaning to the left…

Scott: So i walk into the backyard, date in tow, and see this striking lady off talking away from the crowd. We stumble through the day and I ask about her as soon as I’m on my way home to Houston. I take a mutual friend’s advice i sent her a friend request on facebook (it was like a week or two later, you know, gotta maintain the cool) we chat some here and there but my work was about to explode into 3 months of 7 day 12 hour plus work weeks.

Lola: Make that 3 days before the friend request….

She does agree to brunch on July 4th (it was offered up as a birthday treat), but boy still lived in Houston.

Scott: Spent the July 4th weekend in Austin and asked her to brunch, as friends. We met at some new diner I’d heard of. Did I mention that seemingly everyone knew of this new diner? Yeah the wait outside, in the wonderful Austin sunshine seemed to take forever, did I mention the hangover? We ate, we talked, parted ways as friends and that’s where we left it.

Fast forward to September. I had moved to Austin by this point and had an extra ticket to see Junkyard at a dive bar (Lola: Hey wait a minute! That ticket was purchased for me in the first place!!). She reluctantly agreed to join us (Lola: I didn’t freaking feel good, man, and it was cold!), there were 10+ of us so it wasn’t any sort of a date. Also by this point I had come to be ok with the friend zone she put me in. We pick her up and as soon as she walked out the front door, that whole ok with the friend zone thing vanished.

I offered to buy her a cocktail, denied, as were most of my attempts at any type of interaction. Ciest La Vie.

Lola: *cough* bullshit *cough*. You offered me a drink, I said no thank you as I wasn’t drinking (beginning of AIP, y’all), and that was the only time you talked to me all night. In fact, I thought you were avoiding me.

So yeah, not much interaction over the next several months unless you count liking Facebook posts as interaction. In fact, we were in the same place at the same time maybe a handful of times.

Scott: In March of 2017 one of my very best friends, a mutual friend of ours, died suddenly. Her death was the catalyst to get the hell out of my comfort zone, take chances and live rather than just exist.

So i did just that. On April 22nd, I texted Lola to see if she’d like to join me at a Roky Erikson show the next day. She said that she would (WTF?) Arrangements were made to pick her up the following afternoon.

Lola: I was sitting on the couch, waiting to go back to do breakdown for my florist gig when my phone pinged and I was a bit surprised when I looked down to see “Scott: do you like Roky Erikson?”

Scott: We went to the show, she stole my heart and here we are….

The cherries all lined up for the jackpot this time and they were off and running.

After brief discussion, they decided that July 4, 2016 was indeed their first date. For their one year anniversary, they went to Big Bend for July 4th Weekend. After staying in a tiny airstream with a double bed and ending the weekend feeling closer instead of wanting to strangle each other for hogging the bed, they knew they were meant to be together.