Blue Roses: We meet!

You must be thinking..."Silly girl, roses are red, or white, or yellow, or pink even, I don't know. But it is a scientific FACT that they are definitely not blue." And I am going to have to agree with you...to a point. They can be blue, artificially. And a little wikibird tells me that they have recently created genetically engineered blue roses! What's the POINT? The point is...blue roses, whether they be genetic monsters or simply dyed white roses, are my favorite flowers! This is where Patrick (heroically) steps in.


Over two and a half years ago, I was called one night by a director looking to cast me in a summer musical. Realistically, I should not have said yes. I was scheduled for a semester abroad in England the following school year and I needed all the work hours I could get that summer. I whined a little, but something in my gut told me that I needed to participate in this show, and as an aspiring actress, I should always take work. So I said, "Sure, I'm in."


Patrick on the other hand, (way on the other hand), had just spent some time with one of his friends and his family in NEPAL! (No big deal!) He had just come home, literally two days before and was severely jet lagged and kind of sick. The same director, who happened to be a professor at Patrick's Alma Mater, Trinity College in Hartford, CT, gave him a call roping him into this same project. (Which was being done in RI, and did I mention Patrick was at the time living with his parents in CT over an hour away?).


Needless to say, both of us had absolutely no reason to accept roles in this random show (Birds of Paradise) that summer. Neither of us knew the show, or how it was going to play but for some strange reason, we agreed. He was playing Andy the mechanic and volunteer fireman, unhappy and bored with his life, while I played Julia, the starstruck, lovesick waitress/actress who fell in love with her best friend's estranged father (ew). Want to know something else? Our characters never spoke to one another. Not once. But for us, we were simply drawn to each other.

Patrick started up conversation by asking me about my theatre program at school, and from there, it became a ridiculous game of tag with both of us trying different tactics to get the other to stay late and chat, or message each other on Facebook. Our first date was to Applebees, where the waitress had to come back to us four times before taking our order (we hadn't looked at the menus because we were talking). And from there, we kept falling.

On July 4th, in 2008, it was raining. Patrick had made up his mind, and he asked me to be his girlfriend by giving me a beautiful bright blue rose, along with a framed piece of music I loved that he wrote. He took a joker card (I'm obsessed with Batman) and taped a single question: Will you be my girlfriend? As the rain fell, I said yes.


So now you know. Our humble beginnings and the legend of the blue rose!

Best,

Micah