(Scroll down to see newspaper clips as text only.)
Paging Dr. Big Laughs, Healthypet, Fall 2007
I hustle down a Denver street alongside Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald, of Animal Planet's Emergency Vets fame. It's late. It's cold. He's carrying a crockpot.
We've just left the Comedy Works, where Fitzgerald did nearly an hour of stand-up. Abuzz over having his first DVD filmed, he's spent an hour seeking assurances the performance went well. Wearing holey green tights he revealed for his tap-dancing finale, Fitzgerald asks repeatedly, "It was OK? It was good?"
We head to his cousin's Irish pub two blocks away. Inside, Fitzgerald navigates his way past well-wishers and heads straight for the back room.
A woman rushes up to me, visibly concerned, and asks, "Does he have a turtle in that box?"
Without missing a beat, I say, "No, it's a crockpot."
As Fitzgerald sometimes quips on stage, "It's not a joke yet, but it's a good story."
Danielle and Gavin Craig of Lansing, Michigan, found an affordable first home but didn't want bank-breaking utility bills. So, they got an energy-efficiency mortgage, which helped them upgrade the furnace, add attic insulation and seal leaky windows. The result? Their utility bills are about one-third less than those of their neighbors.
"No one expects people to make home-buying choices to benefit the environment alone," says Kim Calomino, director of Built Green Colorado, "So we hope homebuyers recognize the direct benefits to themselves: reduced costs to operate and maintain the house, high quality indoor air and improved comfort."
Sound good? Here's how you too can be a smart home shopper.
Help for the Spatially Inept, Clean Run, September 2007
The first time I attempted a front cross I did a blind cross instead. It took me several tried before I could see the difference. Learning to work my dog from both sides also posed a challenge. And, frankly, reading course maps makes my head hurt. My name is Roxanne, and I am spatially inept.
Agility requires more than a good memory and cardio fitness. It also demands excellent vision skills and brain connections to process the spatial input your eyes provide. If you cannot truly see the course, if you consistently mess up crosses, if you feel befuddled by maps, it may be your eyes and your brain that fail you, not your body.
The good news is that you can train and improve your spatial cognition.
A Recipe for Pooch Party Pandemonium, Modern Dog, Summer 2007
Ahh, summer. They don't call them dog days for nothing. Ancients believed Sirius, the Dog Star, overheated the Earth in July and August. Why not make the "dog day" designation official and throw a pup-themed fete for your furry bud and his friends at a time we moderns enjoy a little laid-back living?
When the family cat slips into a kitchen cabinet, Deena -- a middle-aged mother of three with a nest well on its way to being empty -- reaches in to retrieve him and winds up wedged against the lazy Susan. "How did I end up here?" Deena wonders. "Not here in the cupboard, but here as the owner of a cat, much less a fat, white Persian cat. I'm a dog person." Soon after this revelation, she decided to raise a guide dog as a distraction from a daily life of motherhood, marital strife and menopause.
Unable to find clothes for her cinderblock-size pet, she started her own store.
The Denver Post, March 25, 2007
By Roxanne Hawn
Tinkerbull transformed Doc and Pamela Pingree's empty nest.
He'd always wanted a bulldog. She'd sworn never to have one. Then, she spent just a few days with a sick, rescued bulldog (who passed away) and changed her mind. Soon after, tiny Tinkerbull came home and Pamela was converted.
"Now, I don't think I would ever, ever have another (kind of) dog," Pingree says of her young charge. "There's a lot of upkeep. You have to have that instinct, that motherly instinct to take care of them. They are like children with a really funny face."
Pingree cannot resist the urge to dress Tinkerbull, but clothes off the rack don't fit. An extra-large holds Tinkerbull's girth, but the excess length cascades past her stumpy legs and stubby tail. Pingree spent 8 months searching the Internet for bulldog clothiers with no luck.
So, the daughter of professional tailors began sewing her own at her kitchen table. Just before Christmas 2006, BullyBoutique.com launched.
The online store dedicated to the haberdashery needs of bulldogs sells hoodies, jackets, T-shirts, holiday togs, costumes, gowns and turtleneck-like jerseys sold under the Tink's Togs label. Monograms are optional.
Yes, they look funny in clothes, but with very short, single-coated fur, bulldogs get chilly in the winter. And with stubby noses, they can overheat in summer and require cooling material around their neck and chest.
Pingree finds the tailoring work a challenge since bulldogs are "built like a cinderblock." Their wide shoulders, short necks, broad chests and small waists make for design challenges.
In just a few months, Bully Boutique has found a loyal, local following among people who love their bullies and are willing to pay $15-$125 to keep them looking cool.
According to the American Kennel Club, Colorado bucks the national trend with bulldog popularity ranking fifth in the state for two years running, compared to 12th in the country.
Thanks to friends at the Bulldog Club of Denver and various local events, word about Bully Boutique is getting out. The University of Georgia bulldog folks and the handler for the Marine Corps bulldog already have contacted Pingree about designing uniforms for their mascots.
Tinkerbull appears to love the spotlight. "When I make a new outfit, I call her over and say, 'Come on, let's try this on.' That's all I say, and she'll walk over to the sewing table, and I'll put it on," Pingree says. "She'll immediately go into our office, where we do photography, and she'll jump up on the stool so that she can get up on the photography table and have her picture taken."
Before "I do," do it yourself
The Denver Post, March 4, 2007 By Roxanne Hawn
Thanks to her talent with clothes, Gabrielle Johnson became a home economics star in school.
With entrepreneurial family roots, she grew into a self-sufficient gal. She studied apparel design and production at ColoradoStateUniversity and co-founded Bloom Maternity (createbellyenvy.com), maker of luxury T-shirts for moms-to-be featuring flower motifs.
So, when she got stuck with 500 yards of white jersey fabric after a Canadian supplier's mistake, she turned into the mother of all DIY brides and created gowns for her entire wedding party. That's nine dresses, all told.
She started sewing in November for the Jan. 13 wedding to her high school sweetheart, Paul Johnson. They dated for 12 years, before throwing together a quick wedding for early 2007.
Sure, the lemons into lemonade thing played a part. But, at 4 feet 10 and 95 pounds, she knew finding a wedding gown would be tough. Her attendants were also petite. "It would have been a nightmare to find dresses for everyone," says Johnson, 26.
The inspiration part took time, with the bride spending nights awake, working out each detail. She pondered the fabric's nature - its drape, its stretch, its grain, the fact it does not fray and therefore needed no hems.
The circle skirts and individual bodices she envisioned, gave the illusion of one-piece gowns. To prevent posh from going peek-a-boo, Johnson doubled up the knit. "Lord knows I had plenty of fabric," she says with a laugh.
Once she began sewing, each dress took just an hour to make.
More than tapping into personal talent, the process gave Johnson peace. "By doing the dresses myself," she says, "it took the focus away from agonizing over the details that were better left alone. I had to make decisions quickly because all I really wanted to work on was the dresses."
This DIY mind-set taps into two key trends, says Leah Ingram, author of "Tie the Knot on a Shoestring: Save Big $$While Celebrating Your Big Day in Style," (Alpha, $14.95).
"There has been a huge trend in the last five, maybe 10 years, of how my wedding has to be all about me," she says. "I don't mean that in a stuck-up, snotty way. It has to reflect who I am. I believe DIY is totally tied into this trend."
Plus, Ingram adds, the rising age of first-time brides and grooms means more couples pay wedding costs. "Once you're footing the bill, man," she says, "you want to know where your money is going."
Ingram recommends bridal triage, where you put your time, energy and money toward what matters most. Skip the rest, she says, or find inexpensive ways to do it yourself. "You don't have to tap into your inner Martha," Ingram says. "You really don't. Keep it simple."
"It's so easy to get sucked into thinking, 'I need that, and I need that, and I need that,"' Ingram says. "You have to take a step back and say, 'Well maybe I don't."'
Elizabeth Lindsay, 43, couldn't agree more. Her first wedding, a full-blown affair aboard a boat that circled Manhattan, was all about the bridal machine.
The second time around, she and Barry Alles staged the ultimate DIY wedding: no minister, no guests, no reception, just love and really great rings.
Lindsay, a jewelry designer with a shop in Cherry Creek North (3033 E. Third Ave., elizabethlindsay.com), made solid gold bands for her wedding. Known for her baroque style with the one-of-a-kind rings she makes for other brides, Lindsay's own heavy bands resemble museum pieces - like jewelry found in ancient tombs.
Come wedding day, Oct. 14, 2006, Lindsay and Alles tossed on some favorite casual clothes, grabbed their digital camera and married atop a rock in Garden of the Gods. They self-sanctified their marriage, which is legal in Colorado, by simply signing and returning the marriage license.
After the batteries in her camera died, a passerby put her memory card in his much nicer camera and shot pictures. "We could not have paid someone to do better," Lindsay says.
Friends and family fussed about the private wedding, telling the bride she had to do this or that. Her answer? "I don't have to do anything but marry him."
Author's tips help cut costs and anxiety
Leah Ingram, author of "Tie the Knot on a Shoestring: Save big $$While Celebrating Your Big Day in Style" (Alpha, $14.95), offered some ideas for the DIY bride, with a caveat: Don't take on more than you can handle. "You'll end up paying through the nose, if you have to hire somebody to fix what you finally figure out you cannot do yourself." invitations, programs and other paperwork.Crafty brides, with paper from office-supply stores, can easily make wedding-related paperwork. Even if you pay someone to print your invitations, you still have to assemble them, Ingram points out, "So, you might not be adding that much time to do them yourself."
reception table centerpieces. If flowers aren't important to you, then consider easy centerpieces that you can make yourself with candles and charger plates from a discount store. Or, Ingram suggests candy. "I've been to weddings where the centerpiece was a bowl of M&Ms or Hershey Kisses, and between courses we were munching the hell out of them. It was great," she says.
hair and makeup.Ingram calls this an all-or-nothing thing. If you hire someone for yourself, then you need the stylist to glam up your attendants, as well, which can get expensive.
music. "A huge trend in DIY is the MP3 or iPod DJ," Ingram says. "Get rid of your entertainment costs or DJ costs altogether, and hook up that little bugger with four hours of music, and you're done." This option, she adds, is great for those with no grand visions of a live band or those who'd prefer not to see their family forced to chicken dance.
underthings. Ingram is confident that most brides already have the bras, underwear and hosiery they need. "As long as it doesn't give you panty lines or show through, you'll be just fine," says Ingram, adding that you don't need those costly crinoline petticoats either.
** The New York Times**
Lady Luck as Bridesmaid..., Field Notes The New York Times, June 10, 2007
By Roxanne Hawn
WHAT’S luck got to do with it? For many it starts with selecting the perfect month, perfect day and sometimes even perfect hour to marry. Those of Chinese descent may consult a fortuneteller or an honored aunt or grandmother. Indian-Americans may ask their parents or Hindu priest to choose their wedding moment.
Others turn to numerologists.
Next month, for instance, wedding planners and venues have reported a startling rise in the number of couples who have booked weddings — especially in Las Vegas — on July 7, 2007, many of them having done so in the belief that 7-7-07 is a date with luck written all over it. But according to Glynis McCants, a numerologist and the author of “Glynis Has Your Number” (Hyperion, 2005), for some people, it will be anything but lucky.
Pythagorean numerologists, like Ms. McCants, break their calculations into numerals one through nine, by adding numbers again and again until a single digit remains. Some numbers mix; others don’t, she explained. Three, six and nine naturally match — as do one, five and seven or two, four and eight.
But because 7-7-2007 reduces to a five (7+7+2+0+0+7=23, then 2+3=5) and because fives, she explained, are chaotic, with things never going as planned, it is a bit of a wild-card date. “The average bride wants to be in control of her wedding,” Ms. McCants said.
But Indian-American couples have been advised that 7-7-07 is perfectly auspicious. In Indian culture, good dates, O.K. dates and bad dates to marry are based on the Hindu calendar. Sonal Shah of Save the Date Event Consultants in New York, said “99.9 percent of Indian couples that get married follow this system.”
Not many dates qualify, however, which makes for some significant competition among couples. She joined a crowd of others on her own wedding date —Nov. 27, 2004 — which she said “was the most auspicious date on the Hindu calendar in seven years.”
Amida Mehta, 32, of Richmond, Va., faced a similar problem with her wedding, and found after sorting through a list of auspicious dates that only two were viable for everyone to attend. “Picking an auspicious date is all in the spirit of family togetherness,” she said. After conferring with all parties they chose July 7, 2007, which, she noted, not only is the seventh day of the seventh month on a Western calendar, but is also the seventh day of the seventh month on the Hindu lunar calendar as well. “That’s not very common,” Ms. Mehta said.
Fernley Phillips, screenwriter of the film “The Number 23,” feels a serious affinity for that numeral. “My own relationship with 23 is much more of an intuitive thing,” he said. “It shows up a lot, and even when its presence is ‘disguised,’ I take a lot of fun in discovering it.”
Mr. Phillips met his wife, Alissa Ferguson, while peddling the script. That matchup resulted in marriage in 2004 — at 5 p.m. on Dec. 18 (figuring 18 plus 5 equaled 23). And what of the film, in which Jim Carrey played the lead? It opened, naturally, on Feb. 23 this year.
For anyone raised in Chinese culture, old habits die hard, said Shu Shu Costa, a first-generation Chinese-American and the author of “Wild Geese and Tea: An Asian-American Wedding Planner” (Riverhead Books, 1997). Chinese astrology and other beliefs come into play in weddings. “Most young couples say they don’t put any stock in superstitions,” she writes. “Astrological calendars and fortunetellers are as outdated as their grandmothers’ fairy tales and fables. But in the end, weddings are about tradition.”
When she was planning her own wedding, Mrs. Costa said in an interview, “I wanted to marry in July.” But she and her fiancé ultimately picked a date in early August. “Because July apparently is the month of the spirits — when spirits that have passed on roam around,” she said. “And my mom didn’t think that was an appropriate time to get married.
“When family is important to you, you make these considerations. One could say we bowed to the spirits.”
Tanya Duncan, 37, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., thought differently. She went against wedding date suggestions from her father, who is a professional numerologist, simply because the judge was available on a different day.
Her dad “wasn’t crushed by any means, but he was a little disappointed,” she said, adding “Life is unpredictable sometimes.”
Frank Monahan is a life coach in Mountain View, Calif., who uses numerology. He said it’s that unsettled nature of human relationships that makes numerology so important. He explained that “vibrational frequencies” are set into motion at birth. “It’s not a belief,” he said. “It’s not a religion. You literally have a bar code when you are born.” Yet Mr. Monahan worries about couples who focus only on the wedding date, calling it “almost insignificant,” compared with overall numeric compatibility. “If you don’t have that,” he said, “you’re in trouble.”
Elizabeth Ann Joyce, a Pythagorean numerologist in Chalfont, Pa., said she once counseled a man in France whose wife-to-be panicked when she learned their wedding date did not bode well for longevity. “My answer was ‘Change the day,’ ” Ms. Joyce said.
With These Rings ..., Field Notes The New York Times, July 9. 2006
By Roxanne Hawn
At the altar of the Faithful Hearts Wedding Chapel, Hannah Smith waited, her hand extended, as Jerimy Bloomer slipped a delicate gold band onto her finger. And then Brittney Bloomer, who like Hannah is 6 years old, grinned broadly as Kim Smith, her father's new bride, slipped a band, very much like Kim's, on her tiny hand.
"We want them to feel like they are marrying us as well as we're marrying each other," said Mr. Bloomer, 29, of the May 6 ceremony in Terre Haute, Ind., that not only bonded Mr. Bloomer and Ms. Smith in marriage (his third, her second) but also each new parent to their new stepchild. "They can look at this as, 'This was the day we became a family.'"
Wedding rings are not just for brides and bridegrooms anymore. When parents remarry -- sometimes more than once -- they find themselves looking for meaningful new ways to include the offspring of their earlier relationships. Some of those couples choose to give children wedding bands or other jewelry that they view as being symbolic of the union, not just of couple, but of their combined families.
"You know, the circle is supposed to be never-ending love and commitment -- something that last forever, weathers all storms," said Margaret Hallinan, who surprised her two children from her previous marriage with rings when she was wed to Kevin Hallinan in August 2005 at the Tarrytown House hotel in Tarrytown, N.Y. "Sometrimes it gets misshapen on the finger, but it's still there, and that's kind of what life is about."
Mrs. Hallinan, who had been a seamstress making custom wedding gowns before her divorce, and Mr. Hallinan, a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York and a widower, bought a signet ring for her then 12-year-old son and heart-shaped ring with a small diamond for her 9-year-old daughter.
"We're kind of into the ring thing," said Mrs. Hallinan, who received a simple gold band to match the one she gave Mr. Hallinan. They also bought a diamond, right-hand ring for Mr. Hallinan's 21-year-old daughter, who did not attend the wedding.
Diane Warner, the author of 23 wedding books, said giving jewelry to children is catching on. "Thirty percent of weddings are encore weddings -- second, third, fourth," she said. "And 61 percent of those involve children from previous marriages who need to be incorporated into this new family unit."
Parents often find kid-sized rings at local jewelers or even at big-box discount stores for less than $300.
While leading countless remarriage ceremonies in Missouri, the Rev. Roger Coleman, a United Methodist minister in Kansas City, Mo., noticed the need, and came up with the idea of family medalion necklaces in the mid-1980's to fill it. "It began to dawn on me that these kids are coming in, knowing something important is going on, but not actually being involved in any significant way," he said.
His own line of jewelry evolved into rings and more. The inexpensive rings, which are available online, range from $40 to $70.
Kathryn Alice, a wedding officiant in Venice, Calif., and spiritual counselor with the Church of Religious Science, is less than enthusiastic about giving rings to kids. "I still think the marriage should be about the union of the couple," said Ms. Alice, who recommends that if you must present children with a gift of jewelry, pocket watches for boys or necklaces for girls are more appropriate. "There is a fine line between including then, and it getting weird because the marriage of the grown-ups is not the marriage of the children, and you want to avoid it appearing or feeling that way," she added.
Maria Isbell, a stepparent advocate in Austin, Tex., and a founder of KidsnCommon, an online service that provided support for divorced parents, warns that couples must work hard on their relationships with the children of their would-be spouses long before even considering marching to the altar or giving them rings. "Including them in the ceremony is a wonderful thing but include them in your life first," said Ms. Isbell, a stepmother herself.
When Felcia Howshar and Charles Howshar married in Denver in December 2005, they gave right-hand diamond rings to Mr. Howshar's daughters, 14 and 16, from his first marriage, and Mrs. Howshar vowed to each of them: "I will care for you, love you and honor you as if you were my own. Take this ring as a symbol of our new family and our love for you."
Laurie Olson and Judy Padilla, of Everett, Wash., gave a ring to Ms. Olson's then 9-year-old son, Dillon Olson, at their May 2005 commitment ceremony at their home there. Dillon warmly accepted the gesture, Ms. Padilla said.
"We've been talking about what we're going to do on our anniversary," Ms. Padilla said, "And Dillon will say, 'Yeah, what are we going to do on our anniversary.'"
Amanda Gillam and Michael Lovato, Vows The New York Times, January 9, 2005
By Roxanne Hawn
Athletes are a devoted lot, according to Amanda Gillam, a triathlete — devoted to training and competing, that is. This focus can seem selfish and tends to leave athletes' significant others pondering their own significance. “It is a little overwhelming for someone who isn’t as athletic,” Ms. Gillam said. “They just don’t seem to understand it as much. It really is a full-time job.”
Her attraction to swimmers “with pretty nice bodies” produced a string of relationships that typically ended after three years. “They didn’t make what’s important to me important to them,” she explained.
Five years ago, Ms. Gillam was in Montreal, preparing for an Ironman race (2.4 miles in the water, 112 miles on a bike and a 26.2-mile run), when she noticed a cute face in the crowd. It was another triathlete, Michael Lovato, and she introduced herself.
“She had an exciting sprint finish,” he said of her fourth-place showing. He added, “I think she was impressed that I had come to watch her.” Though triathletes “hook up here and there” at race after-parties, he noted, such romances rarely last. But soon they were trading visits, competing at the same events and cheering each other on.
“Amanda totally understands,” Mr. Lovato, 31, said. “She has the same appreciation for the sport and the lifestyle.”
He had set aside the plans he had of becoming a Spanish teacher to take a sales job at a sports equipment store in Austin, Tex., because it would give him more flexibility. “If you want to succeed, you have to make yourself and your sport a priority,” he said. “Most of my experience was with nonathletes,” he said. “They all thought I was a bit of a freak.”
Mr. Lovato, who grew up in Albuquerque, is known for his laid-back ways and wicked sense of humor. He is also known for being chronically late. “I’ve spent more time waiting for him, than I have with him,” said Ryan Chreist, a childhood friend.
Ms. Gillam, 32, is intense, with a steely grace. “She had to be the leader of the gang,” said her younger brother, Jarrod, an Army Ranger.
Over the next two years these opposites forged a long-distance relationship, she in Baltimore, her hometown, and he in Austin. “We understand each other,” Ms. Gillam said. “We mesh.”
But neither wanted to move to the other’s turf for fear of being overshadowed, she said. Still they continued to find much in common. Mr. Lovato noted that before meeting her he thought primarily about himself. “She made me want to take care of her,” he said. “I hadn’t experienced that before. That’s when I knew this was something special.”
In 2001 they found neutral ground: Boulder, Colo., where both could train with Dave Scott, an Ironman world champion.
Along the way, Mr. Lovato survived Ms. Gillam’s three-year benchmark, though their life wasn’t simple. At first they lived off Mr. Lovato’s prize winnings and sponsorships and Ms. Gillam’s meager earnings as a store clerk. The financial pain eased as each advanced to sponsored pro status, enabling her to give up her job. Still, he drives a 1987 Subaru, which he describes as “not safe at highway speeds,” and food for these high performers, who prefer to fuel up organically, runs at least $800 a month. He recalled saying, “If we're not making progress, then we’ll make a change.”
When training they are up early every day, including weekends. He runs. She bikes. Then they hit the gym: laps in the pool and sometimes weights. After lunch, she runs, and he bikes. She’s home in time for “Oprah” (it’s how she unwinds). He’s back for dinner. Fridays they go to the movies, where they splurge on candy bars and buttered popcorn.
“My biggest goal in life is to be happy and make Amanda happy,” Mr. Lovato said. Ms. Gillam added, “It’s easy to find time for someone who makes your life better.”
Mr. Lovato, who continues to pay more attention to stopwatches than clocks, arrived 40 minutes late to his wedding rehearsal. “He did call me at one point to tell me he’d be late,” Ms. Gillam said forgivingly.
But Mr. Lovato was right on time for the wedding. He and Ms. Gillam married on New Year's Eve at the Alps Boulder Canyon Inn in Boulder.
It was a short, raucous ceremony during which the couple’s two dogs served as ring bearers and the bridegroom brandished a handkerchief in jest. Then, as he read his vows, he wept in earnest, stopping to ask, “Where’s that tissue?”
The wedding, led by the Rev. Dr. Forrest Whitman, a nondenominational minister, wrapped up the triathletes’ short off-season, giving the couple and their 95 guests an opportunity to blow off steam.
For those with body fat in the single digits, it was a chance to drink martinis and eat cake. Soon, it would be time to train.
Judy Ray and Jeff Hard, Vows The New York Times, February 20, 2005
By Roxanne Hawn
Judy Ray rarely saw other people around when she moved to Calhan, Colo., population 896, in 2000, after her 20-year marriage ended. “I thought I lived in a witness protection neighborhood,” Ms. Ray, now 49, said jokingly. “You never see anyone out.’’
Ms. Ray, who grew up in New Jersey and now lives on a seven-acre plot on a dirt road, is a self-reliant sort, having once run five miles for help on a 14-degree day, when her fully loaded truck and horse trailer broke down. She had grown accustomed to waking to see the blue-gray Rocky Mountains off in the distance, and nearer by, her five dogs, three cats, three horses, four chickens and two goats, who roamed her pasture.
Sometimes while counting heads, Ms. Ray, who by day works as the tennis pro at the Pinery Country Club in Parker, Colo., discovered surplus goats grazing in the field. She has found stray sheep wandering along the rutted dirt road in front of her house. Once she even awoke to an errant emu, its long neck an amusing surprise.
One morning in 2001, she recalled, “I looked out my bedroom window, and there were two mules right there.” Her daughter, Vanessa Ray, then a high school student, called from the yard: “Mom, there is a really nice guy outside. He wants to get his mules. You should come out and meet him.’’
She did. The man was Jeff Hard, who seemed “discombobulated, very upset,” she recalled. He told them that a third mule, Festus, had just been killed by a car on a nearby highway. He said Festus and the two other mules, Red and Blondie, got loose when an electric fence stopped working. Mr. Hard and the elder Ms. Ray soon realized that they lived on opposite ends of the same looping dirt road, but had never met. They exchanged phone numbers.
“I told him, ‘If you ever need anybody to feed your animals, let me know,’’’ she said.
“Neither one of us were looking for a relationship,” she added.
Mr. Hard, now 43, grew up in the rural San Luis Valley in southwestern Colorado. He learned to drive at 10, and shuttled friends to school starting at 13. There were just seven people in his graduating class.
Ms. Ray fondly remembers toting a tennis racket as a toddler and watching her parents play, and occasionally argue, on the three clay courts at the Manasquan River Yacht Club in Manasquan, N.J.
She said tennis taught her tenacity, fairness and the power of positive thinking. “Everything I learned on the court applies to life,” she said. “At that club, you swam, you sailed or you played tennis,” she recalled. “I did all three, but swimming was stressful. In swimming, you won or lost a race in seconds. In tennis, you had time to figure it out.”
Ms. Ray called Mr. Hard a couple of weeks later to see how he was dealing with the loss of Festus. “I would have been devastated,” she said. “At the end of the conversation, he asked me if I wanted to go to dinner.”
For a time their dinners out, once or twice a month, were neighborly. “It was nice to have someone to go to dinner with and hang around with,” Mr. Hard said. “She kind of grew on me. She’s just happy-go-lucky all the time, always busy doing something.”
A few months later, while playing pool and drinking beer at Curly’s Place, a bar in Calhan, Ms. Ray said they realized they “really did like each other.”
Things got more serious when a tornado ripped through the area in May 2001. Ms. Ray’s goats, babies at the time, were wet, cold, hungry and scared. That night, Mr. Hard and Ms. Ray sat together on the couch, caring for the goats. “That’s when I fell in love with Jeff,” she said. He soon moved into her place. It was an arrangement that suited Mr. Hard just fine, but in time Ms. Ray began asking for change. “I either want to be married or I want to be single,” she told him.
“We’d been living together for years, and Judy started trying to nail down future plans,’’ Mr. Hard said. “I wasn’t ready to completely commit. The pressure went on for a few months.”
One key roadblock was over the prospect of having children together. “She’s already raised her kids,’’ Mr. Hard said. “I might still like to have some.”
But Ms. Ray, almost 50, wasn’t sure that she would or even could consider having more children. “He did labor over the children decision for months,” she said.
By early 2004, with their relationship stalled, Ms. Ray gave Mr. Hard an ultimatum and began packing up his belongings. But amid the boxes, they decided to marry. They loved each other and that “was the bottom line,” Ms. Ray said. “It was not so much a proposal as an agreement,” Mr. Hard recalled.
They wound up leaving the question of children open to future discussion. “We’re not going to go to any extreme measures,’’ Ms. Ray said, but adoption is not off the table.
They were married Feb. 12 before 120 guests at the Pinery Country Club, in a room that was lighted only by candles and firelight. It was so dark that the nondenominational minister, the Rev. Carrie MaKenna, struggled to read from her text, which included both Apache and Irish blessings.
Mr. Hard is “probably the most stubborn person on the face of the earth,” said the bridegroom’s brother, Glenn Hard.
“That’s probably why he gets along so well with Red,’’ he added. “That stubbornness also translates into dedication. Once Jeff sets his mind to something — once he buys into something — he gives his whole heart. He gives it 100 percent.”
Mr. and Mrs. BothofUs, Field Notes The New York Times, March 13, 2005
By Roxanne Hawn
It is a rite of passage for a newly engaged woman: as friends and relatives learn of her impending wedding, they pepper her with questions about whether she will keep her name, take her fiancé's or hyphenate the two.
Some couples are choosing a different route and creating a new name for themselves. “We needed to name this entity that was a combination of us,” said Jenny Providence of Tucson. She gave up her maiden name, Meyers, when she married Frank Berry, and the couple took a new surname — Providence — together. “It felt right to come up with something that was both of us together and neither of us separately.”
A century and a half after the suffragist Lucy Stone kept her surname when she married Henry B. Blackwell in 1855, less than 5 percent of American women keep or hyphenate their name after marrying, said Laurie Scheuble, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University who studies marital naming trends. Taking new names is even less common, she said, but the practice is starting to take hold. While making presentations at conferences, she said, “Invariably, we get at least one person or couple who has or is thinking about taking on a new last name when they marry.”
Marcela Solari kept her maiden name, Rosemblun, for eight years after she married Oscar Paul Garcia, partly because in Argentina, where she was born, it is common for women to keep their names. But eventually, the couple, who live in Broomfield, Colo., decided to take Solari, which means sunshine or light, as their surname. “I couldn't imagine changing it back,” Mr. Solari said. “This feels comfortable.”
When Robyn Griggs and Matt Klak married, they kept their own names at first. But they decided to take Lawrence, Mr. Klak’s late father's first name, as a common surname after their second child was born. First, the couple, who live in Boulder, Colo., had a son, Stacey Klak, but then came a daughter, who they named Lucretia, or Cree for short. “I thought, ‘Cree Klak is an awful name,’” Ms. Lawrence recalled.
She wanted the baby to be Cree Griggs, but her husband insisted on the children sharing a last name, and he refused to have the whole family take Griggs. When she came up with Lawrence, “It was easy to say yes to that,” Mr. Lawrence said. “She honored my family by picking that name.”
Couples who take a new name can regret their choice if they divorce, and even happily married couples who take a new surname can alienate parents and other relatives. That is particularly true on the bridegroom’s side of the family, said Howard Markman, a director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver. “From an evolutionary perspective, we would predict that fathers of the groom not only want their genes to continue but their name as well,” he said.
Roger Putnam Batchelor III, who grew up in what he called a very conventional family in Shaker Heights, Ohio, said his parents’ reactions were “well within reasonable range” when he married Kate Lee and they took Lore, a shortened version of his name, as their married surname.
Mr. Lore, who now lives in West Linn, Ore., said the family no longer feels the need to discuss the change. But Ms. Lore said it took nearly three years and the birth of their son, Nathan Orion Lore, for her in-laws to use the new name.
Still, several couples with new names said their families have embraced the idea or adjusted to it. When Mandy Jacobson married Rob Cavenaugh in October 2003, they combined their middle names — Keith and Ann — to become the Keithans. Now, said Mr. Keithan, a resident of Washington, their friends and relatives like to play “The Keithan Game,” creating name combinations. The winner so far is a combination of Lyvon and David: Lyvid.
