Winks and Get Well Cards: Courting Kharla pt. 3

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Kharla posing with a large picture of a girl eating soup.  Kansas City, 2007

Within a week of getting my tonsils removed, I was ready to resume work and regular daily activities.

We were pretty heavy into seeing each other at this point. We saw tons of movies at the theater. Like almost every weekend. Two to three times a month we'd go out and enjoy an evening at one of the local cinemas. Within about a year some of the movies we saw were: The Departed, The Protector, The Prestige, Saw 3, Borat, Casino Royale, Blood Diamond, Pan's Labyrinth, Zodiac, Smokin' Aces, Reno: Miami, 300, Bridge to Tarabathia, TMNT, Meet the Robinsons, Hot Fuzz, Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, 1408, Invasion, Ratatouille, and Michael Clayton. And who knows what else that I've lost ticket stubs to?

There was one movie theater that we went to so often that this guy that worked there gave us free movie passes. Early on he had a name tag that said something like Chad or Kip or Shon or some other hipster name. One day we noticed his tag changed to Vin. We asked about it and he told us Vin is actually his real name and “Curt” or whatever was a made up name. He smiled about us noticing and refunded us the price of admission and told us he'd let us in for free. We were always friendly with the guy and he reciprocated. It's just real cool that he did that for us. Maybe he didn't have many friends or family in the area? You don't have unlimited free passes to hand out.

We went to a couple events in this year long period as well. We saw Alice in Chains at the legendary Cain's Ballroom. Kharla picked me up at my apartment and I was so excited I rushed down the steps and actually fell down and skinned both me knees. Fortunately for me I was wearing shorts and didn't tear holes in a pair of pants. But my knees were on fire. Kharla asked if I wanted to go back upstairs and clean and dress the wounds. She had picked me up late of course so we were behind. I told her “No, we gotta go!” and we were off. My knees were raw and sticky. But I powered through the pain. I mean, it was Alice in Chains for crying out loud! It would have been amazing to see AIC with Layne Staley but he passed away a few years before. Their new singer, William DuVall was more than competent though.

We saw Yo La Tengo in April at the same venue. I wasn't real familiar with them, but they were one of Kharla's favorite bands and were pretty good live. If you like Pavement, R.E.M. or Stereolab you may like them.  Before the show Ira Kaplin, the singer and guitarist, was hanging out in the venue and Kharla spotted him and chatted it up.  They posed for a picture and I took it with Kharla's mid 2000's flip phone that took horrible pictures, let alone in a dark ballroom.  Tragically, some time ago we lost the picture.

We hit the road in August 2007 for Kansas City and attended “Beach Ball” at the City Market. Some band called Life in Jersey opened. Plain White T's were supposed to perform but had some kind of flight delay. They had a huge “panty dropper” hit called “Hey there Delilah”. I didn't care. Them missing their flight turned into a blessing. The next band in the lineup was some group called Satellite Party. Never heard of them? It was fronted by Perry Ferrell. They played their planned set list and then Perry announced they were going to step up and fill the void left by the absence of Plain White T's. This mean they performed Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyro's songs. Hell yeah! The show was general admission so we were pretty close to the stage. Kharla swears up and down that Perry Farrell winked and waved at her. Who am I to argue? The headlining act was The Used. We weren't into them so we jetted to beat traffic.

We saw the Smashing Pumpkins on November 18. This was a bit of an ordeal. Kharla bought the tickets for us (and one for my brother) for my birthday. It was supposed to be on November 3. The day after my birthday. A conflict arose though. John, my good friend from Burger King and college invited me to his wedding on the same day. Rotten luck! I told him we'd attend the ceremony but would not be able to attend the reception. Another road block came though. Jimmy Chamberlain, the drummer, had some heart problems about a week before the show and had to go to the hospital. They had to reschedule the show. This has never happened to me before. We got to keep the tickets and use them on the new date, the aforementioned November 18.

We drove down the nearly four hours to attend John's wedding ceremony in Bonham. I felt guilty and did not want to attend the reception for which I didn't RSVP. I took a few minutes following the ceremony to chat with John in the parking lot and drove to the reception just to drop off the wedding gift. We drove to my parent's house and hung out there before driving right back home to Tulsa 200 miles away.

Us in the car following John's wedding. 2007.

Two weeks later it was back to Texas to see the Pumpkins for real this time. We swung by my folks' house to pick up my little brother and head to Grand Prairie, a Dallas suburb. We stopped on the way to the show at a Walgreen's because Kharla had a bright idea. She went in and came back out. She got a get well card and wrote a note and on the envelope addressed it to Jimmy. After the opening band What Made Milwaukee Famous exited the stage and the Pumpkins entered she threw the note up there and it kinda landed perfectly in the middle of the stage. The band went into a couple of the better songs from their “okay” new album and hit the big classics. Pretty tight set. They went off the stage. And amazingly maybe 20 percent of the people left, had they never been to a concert? Then they came back on and played a couple encores. When the band left for real, Billy Corgan picked up the card! Wow, sweet!

If you squint a little you can see Kharla's card in Billy Corgan's hand. 2007.

We did things like go to Oktoberfest where Kharla also volunteered, and the Tulsa State Fair. Took each other to the emergency room, and then to a different one when we found out the first one was out of network. She won tickets to a Texas Rangers game (more on this in a future post). She talked me into taking in a cat as a pet (also in that same future post). We went to the zoo in Fort Worth. While we were in Kansas City we attended the World War I museum. It was very solemn and there is a huge tower with a great view of the City of Fountains. I can't recommend the city enough.

Also in Kansas City, we went to a Mystery Train dinner theater. The food was decent, but that's not really why you go to dinner theater. I used to pride myself in being a thespian, but it was Kharla who walked away with a best actor “Oscar”. I got an award too. But not for acting. They announced that “Jeremy has gotten an award, he gets the award for,” and they all yelled together, “The dumbesst answer!” and I got a round of applause and laughter. I'm not sure if I'm a worse actor or detective.

Kharla showing off her Oscar.

The Thanksgiving of 2006 saw me meeting Kharla's family for the first time at her brother Joe's house. They are awesome people. I met her parents, her brother Joe and his wife and kids. We talked about my job and chowed down. I didn't have much time. I had maybe 45 minutes to spend there. I work in TV and TV never takes the day off. I had to get back to work. I think I hit it off okay. I may not be charming but I can exhibit an alright sense of humor that can salvage myself from time to time. Kharla would meet my family not too long after that and I felt that went great.

Kharla had a part time job working for a national department store chain at a mall in midtown Tulsa. Nearly every Saturday I would meet her for lunch at a TexMex restaurant in the mall called El Chico. Of course I'd end up ordering a chicken chimichanga for her because she'd always be late. Just a little quirk that I would get used to. I never liked it but lived with it. By the time the food was brought to us we'd have about half an hour to eat and talk about whatever it is we wanted to talk about.

One weekday I was invited to join Kharla and Jeremy (the one whose identity Kharla mixed up for me on MySpace) for lunch at a Marie Calender's. Things went okay. We talked about their job and whatever. Quickly though, before we had to leave, Jeremy said he had one question for me before he gave his blessing for our relationship. All he asked, with no further explanation or context was, “Who drives the boat?” Who drives the boat? What? Fortunately for me the day before Jaws aired on TNT and it's a drop the remote movie. I saw the movie all the way through abandoning whatever plan I had for Friday afternoon (at this time I had Friday's and Saturday's off at work). “Hooper drives the boat”. I earned his approval. I'm in.

Kharla and I met her friend Jessie in Oklahoma City. We saw the movie Zodiac at a movie theater in the Bricktown District. I thought the movie was excellent but didn't have the opportunity to explain that because immediately following the film Jessie exclaimed, “That movie sucked!” I wasn't going to rock the boat and argue so I let it slide. Some people just have terrible taste in movies. The movie didn't do well at the box office from what I remember so I guess I'm probably in the minority here, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. We went to some restaurant in OKC and had dinner. Jessie looked at me and asked why my tags on my car were from Texas still. Why haven't I changed them to Oklahoma tags? She was looking out for her friend here, didn't want her falling for a guy that didn't plan on staying in Oklahoma. And I didn't plan on staying here. My plan was two years in and back to Texas. I didn't tell her that though. I gave a very unsatisfactory “I just haven't gotten around to registering in Oklahoma yet.” She let that pass and let me get back to my entree.

Though we lived on different sides of the city and had conflicting work hours, we spent so much time together. And yet to me, it wasn't enough time. I wanted to spend all my time with Kharla. I was greedy and determined to get my way. 

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