Twelve days after my birthday came Sim’s birthday.
We met 11 years ago in Leavenworth, WA. I was working at a Bavarian hotel and trying to resist my boss’ prodding to wear a dirndl at work. And Sim was launching a small pizza place he created himself. He was truly a one man show. My first glimpses of him were when he would pull up to the hotel in his VW rabbit (which lacked a muffler, so you could literally hear him coming from a mile away), come to a screeching halt, and proceed to run up the stairs and down the hall like a contestant on the biggest loser struggling for every bit of their dignity as some mean skinny coach yells expletives at them. Only later did I learn the reason for Sim’s haste. As he would leave the shop with a delivery pizza in hand, he would throw another pizza in the conveyer belt oven and then scurry to the front door and lock it, so as to resume the one man show shortly. He had exactly 8 minutes to deliver a pizza and return to the conveyer belt as the next pie emerged. His business operations still make me laugh, but they worked and his business flourished. This is also due, in part, to the fact that he finally learned how to properly make dough after a year of operation. But Sim’s “ah ha” moment of letting dough rise is another story.
I promised I’d steer away from the romanticized bullshit of so many bloggers who feel the need to tout their “wonderful” spouses and children, but I should really take a moment to acknowledge my life partner. Sim is an incredible person. Rather than babble on about how special he is, I thought you might enjoy learning a few things about him:
(1) If he could be reincarnated to return during any time period, it would be during the Wild West. And he would be a mountain man. I’m completely serious. Like Jeremiah Johnson starring Robert Redford. The movie actually stems from a book titled “Mountain Man” by Vardis Fisher, which has become one of my favorite reads.
(2) In 5th grade, Sim’s class played a sort of Monopoly game. Each student played a townsperson and they worked together to govern their town. Sim invented a chair towing business, which made it’s money (their fake class money) from fees students paid to get their chairs out of the impound. This, after their chairs had been towed for not being pushed in. By the end of the school year he had made more money than anyone else in class.
(3) Sim loves 1970’s Broncos. I’m sure he has a favorite year, etc., which I should really know.
(4) One of the best trips we’ve taken together was to Mexico in 1999. We got the brilliant idea during my college winter break to go on vacation. And how did we decide where? We drove to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, 3 hours from Leavenworth, and stared at the reader board for the cheapest flights. And thus it was decided: Viva Mexico! From there Sim rented us a Jeep Wrangler and spoke Spanish to me for the next week. That was it. I was hopeless.
(5) If a celebrity were to ever play Sim in a movie, it would be Alec Baldwin. Sim is a total Baldwin.
Pax Attack 