Here's my response to #16 of my "25 things about me" where I wrote:

16.  The 2nd time I met my husband, he asked if I had a dress & makeup he could borrow.  Long story :) 

Before we address the 2nd time, I'll backtrack to the first time I met the man I'd marry almost 5 years later.  This strange fact is that this technically wasn't even the first time, but that one didn't count because neither of us had any memory of it.  Besides,  it'll have to be a post of it's own since it's based on my #12 response.  Moving on...

In January 2004, my then-boyfriend Joe and I popped in to our friend's apartment to hang out for the evening.  They lived in a 2nd floor apartment just 13 houses down the street from us, so stopping in periodically was a pretty casual thing.  That evening, they introduced us to their new downstairs flat neighbour, Brent.  "Nice enough guy", I remember thinking to myself, but absolutely not my type.  He was this cadaverously thin computer geek, with long Jesus hair-- but a huge and engaging grin.  The only other thing I remember about that evening was watching some " Star Trek - TNG" and being appalled by the strange concoction on his plate that he called dinner.  I was 24, he was 25, and there was no connection or chemistry whatsoever.

The next time I met him was perhaps 2 months later, when I had popped back over to their house to visit my friend Brigitte.  Joe and I had since split, he having moved out of our apartment (although we still had the hell of working together in the same store post-breakup).  Brent must have heard us chatting in the hallway, since he opened up his door, took a quick look at us both and asked the fateful question:

"Do either of you have a dress and some makeup you could loan me?"

He later commented that I didn't blink an eye when I said sure, and dragged ^{(pun intended)} him back to my place.  He had only been living on his own for a few months at this time, and hearing friendly female voices outside his door prompted him to brave asking his request.

As he rifled through my wardrobe, I learned the story behind it all.  Turned out that he was the team leader at a Toronto-based software company, and he had been looking for a way to incentivize a hundred-odd folks to come in on a weekend to help them clear out some massive backlog of something or another.  He kept upping the ante of what he would do depending on the amount of faxes they cleared, with the grande finale being him coming in to work in full drag (including shaving the beard).  The backlog was completely cleared and voila, there was Brent in a jam.

I remember us choosing a long turquoise dress that ended up being a bit more of a mini-dress on his lanky 6'2" frame.  Thank goodness he was so freaking skinny!  We spent a very easy hour just chatting about our respective tastes in books, movies, books, movies, music, books.  He sat on my toilet lid as I curled his hair, while we discussed makeup options and chest augmenting techniques. 

I don't know... it was all just very relaxing and fun, and I sent him on his way pleased with my handiwork.  There was still no chemistry beyond a vague "what a nice guy, it will be  good to have a fun neighbour to hang with for the next few months". 

You see, I had decided that I was fed up with Toronto life and was going to  give my notice at work & for my apartment.  My plan was to pack it all in and move to Montreal in the fall, and start all over again in a new city for my quarter-century birthday.  Buh bye TO, bonjour la belle province.

Little did I know that a friendly neighbourly BBQ date for July 15th would change the course of my life....

Niagara-On-The-Lake, September 2004,
a few months after we hooked up permanently.