Rainbow Connection

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June 16, 1998

We were always teasing, playing with each other's hair, strangling each other and messing around. At times I'd put my arm around her and felt very close...so close...so far. I'd wake up in the morning and watch her sleep across the room. No romance, but at times we seemed very close. One night we were lying in our beds, leaning over the night stand, staring in each others' eyes, discussing facial features. Always an air of curiosity. I could've easily kissed her but...a promise was a promise. She told me she wasn't a "touchy feely" person.

June 15 we went to Old Town Alexandria for another movie. We put the moose in the drink holders and took flash pictures of him in the theater, and then, another Italian restaurant with the moose on the table. It rained all day but I loved it. She wore my dayglow yellow cycling jacket in the rain.

 Don't take a picture, don't take a picture, don't take a picture, don't...cheese!>>>

My brother, Darrel, was vacationing in Arlington, Virginia so we drove there and surprised him and his wife Wendi. We introduced him to the moose and the four of us sat in the motel lobby for hours. While Darrel and I talked the way we always do about our parents, Ha laughed so hard she couldn't breathe. Afterwards she said, "I love to hear you and your brother crack on your parents! I gotta meet your mother, she sounds like a wacky old lady!" No theater that night. We laid on top Ha's bed in the motel and watched "Men in Black" but that night I fell asleep before it was over. By June 17 the party was over. After another Vietnamese restaurant and jewelry window shopping we had to drive back to my house to grab some stuff and then return her to Fayetteville, North Carolina. While waiting for my wife to leave the house Ha and I went to my old apartment complex and sat silently watching two ducks make love. I wasn't fast enough to get a picture but we were both fascinated by it. When Ha got on Miimii's computer to check her email she found Brent had left for a few days. She hadn't left him a message the whole time (seven days) even though we extended five days. No one in the world knew where we were. We called it "running away from home". That same day when we'd been driving, Ha told me about a

double rainbow she'd seen only once in her life and she said it was perfect. As we were leaving to head back to Fayetteville and part ways, over my neighborhood, it happened again for both of us.

With my portable stereo we played tapes and sang (obnoxiously) the entire drive back. Another one of those really memorable times. We had a blast driving back. Ha was really loud so if I couldn't put my hand over her mouth I'd play with her power window. We arrived late and the next morning I awoke on the ant-infested couch, packed and loaded the car. Somehow we'd lost the moose. This upset me because he was our bud.

Ha was absorbed into her computer all night while I slept on the 'ant' couch and when I got ready to leave she didn't even look back. She said,"Okay, bye!" She really got absorbed in her work. I asked, "Don't I get a hug?" and she said,"No, you get a head butt" and she gave me a head butt in the middle of my chest. I grabbed her, hugged her, and then painfully, slowly got into my blue Honda Civic and drove out of Fayetteville.

 Somewhere over the rainbow >>>