“Good people drink good beer.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

So as many of you know, Lauren was a wine person. However, she did not discriminate. She was always more than happy to drink a beer with me, or a make us some of her amazing mixed drinks. I thought I knew drinking…then I met Lauren. She could take one look at you and know what drink you needed to either match your mood or fix it up.
In my last post I mentioned that we turned a lot of TV shows into drinking games. I went into her phone where she kept them so I could share them with you. So now, whenever you are watching Modern Family or Impractical Jokers, you can play the game we played!

IMPRACTICAL JOKERS DRINKING GAME
Take ONE Drink Every Time…..
Someone looks directly into the camera
Refuse to complete a task
Does something embarrassing in front of a large group of people

SAL
Falls down laughing
Acts feminine
Is grossed out by something
Says “Sorry”
Says “Oh no”, “Oh man”, or “Are you serious?”

JOE
Noses somebody or something
Yells for Larry
Makes up a word
Shows his stomach

MURR
Covers his mouth laughing
Gets called a “Creep” or “Ferret”
Has to touch somebody
Gives someone an evil look

Q
Wears a hat
Wears an American Flag scarf
Calls someone by a physical attribute (“mustache”)
Gets called Rosie O’Donnell
Talks about being single or his cats

Take TWO Drinks Every Time
Someone breaks character to laugh

Modern Family Drinking Game
-Gloria says “JAY”
-Manny is wearing a hat (2 drinks if it’s a fedora)
-Manny says he has a crush on a girl (drink twice if he is going to do something about it!)

-Cam refers to growing up on a farm
-Cam uses his hands when he talks
-Cam freaks out while parenting Lily
-Mitchell rolls his eyes
-Lily is onscreen and being held

-Claire points her finger
-Phil makes a pun
-Luke hurts himself
-Alex insults Haley’s intelligence

She taught me so much in our much too short time together, and not just about drinking. I miss her so much.

When I was going through her phone for the games I also came across something she wrote about me when she was going through treatments. I broke down as I read it. I’m going to share it here, not to toot my own horn or anything like that…just because to me, it means so much to me that she didn’t want to forget these things.

So I never forget what Mike has done for me..
He treats me like a princess, he makes me laugh and he makes me happy.
He doesn’t always like what I like and I love that!
He tries so hard to make me happy and he really does
He gives me my time and space
He says he doesn’t mind my snoring– lets hope that’s actually true
I have fun with him… Always

He also wrote me a wonderful letter telling me how much he loves me
For my birthday he got me a gift everyday for seven days which included
A Game of Throne figurine
A beer game
A beautiful MK watch
A beautiful “karma” necklace
A wonderful arrangement delivered from 1800 flowers
My favorite candy and scratch off tickets– lots of scratch off tickets through out our relationship actually
A desk calendar
A beautiful MK purse
Cards Against Humanity– and a bunch of expansion packs
These cute lids for mason jars that I wanted
A couples massage!
A night in an awesome hotel suite
Tickets to go see Hannibal Buress and dinner
An upgrade to first class on our way back from Michigan
A private flight up and down the coast– I got to fly the plane 🙂
A birthday dinner with all of my friends

On top of all that birthday stuff he also got me:
A Redwings shirt
A car phone charger
A regular phone charger
When he missed me he sent me the pearl of love necklace
For Christmas he sent me an early Christmas present- my 32″ Samsung TV! It’s awesome!

And I can’t forget all the awesome dates we’ve been on and things we have done together

People ask me all the time how I’m doing. I answer the same way every time. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. Some minutes I’m fine, some minutes I feel like the world is crashing down on my chest. Luckily Evan seems to sense when I need a smile or a hug, and he always delivers.

Some things I can do “normally” with no issues. Some things I go to do, but can’t, because I feel a break down coming. And some times something that I did normally yesterday I can’t do today. The other day I couldn’t watch Netflix. Weird, I know.

My grief therapist gave me a sheet of “normal” grieving reactions. Out of the 50 or so items on the list, I think I’ve experienced 30+ of them so far.

People also ask me what they can do for me. Honestly, not much. Mainly please don’t get offended if I don’t answer your call. Or if I take two days to respond to your text. Some days I don’t feel like communicating at all.  Some days I only want to talk to certain people. Or text. Or facebook message.
At the same time, please don’t be afraid to reach out. Even if I don’t answer, it helps getting texts, calls, messages, or even cards in the mail.

This entry has been somewhat of a downer…I promise the next one will have more fun stories and memories 🙂

The happiest, most beautiful woman in the world and the luckiest bald bearded dude

As many of you know, my beautiful wife Lauren passed away after a serious battle against cancer. She had been out of work since December, and I had been home taking care of her. She passed away without life insurance, so all of the funeral costs were out of pocket. We have been blown away by the outpouring of support of donations and love. Thank you all so much. If you have a chance, please visit our GoFundMe fundraiser (https://www.gofundme.com/knmv7f7q) and give it a share. Any funds that we raise over the cost of the funeral and bills received during Lauren’s treatment will be put in a college fund for our son Evan. Thank you all again.

“Make it work.” – Tim Gunn

Today’s post is just going to be a collection of memories, from some of the adventures Lauren & I had the chance to go on, whether it was actually going on an adventure, or it was just sitting in the living room watching TV and turning it into a drinking game.

When Lauren (and technically me I guess) lived at Lindsay’s house, one of our favorite things to do was watch TV. I know what you’re thinking….”What?? That’s not Lauren, she’s a party girl!” You have to let me finish though. We didn’t just watch TV…we turned anything and everything on TV into a drinking game. Project Runway? Drinking game. Always Sunny? Drinking game. Nightly news? Drinking game. It was fantastic. Some nights we drank a few bottles of wine, some nights we drank a fifth of vodka. This happened any day of the week…it didn’t matter that we had to work in the morning, we were just having fun!

One of Lauren’s all time favorite shows was Project Runway, so of course we had to have the ultimate drinking game for that. She spent HOURS one evening coming up with all of the rules we had to follow, and as soon as Tim Gunn and crew came on TV, it was on.

Earlier on in this particular story, I mentioned how we loved doing this when we lived with Lindsay. However Lindsay probably didn’t love it as much as we did. I can’t tell you how many nights we got a text from her,asking us to be quiet. So being the smart-ass drunks that we were, we sent her this picture in return one night:

Somehow  she didn’t kick us out.

One afternoon while I was at work, Lauren sent me a text asking if I’d be interested in going to an Octoberfest event thing going on in Miami with her and a couple of her friends. I checked it out online, and said “Sure! I’ll buy our tickets.” This was early on in the relationship, when I still couldn’t believe that someone as beautiful as Lauren would date someone like me, so I bought VIP tickets to impress her more. (Turns out I didn’t need to…I impressed her enough by just being me! But that’s another story). Lindsay and Giselle, the two friends that we went with, just had regular tickets.

When we arrived to the Marlin’s Stadium, the location of the event, you could tell right away how awesome our VIP tickets were…they handed Lauren and I a couple of cheap plastic hats to wear…plus a ton of free drink tickets!

I could go on for hours about that night, but I’ll try to sum it up quickly. Lauren and I had access to a VIP tent with free booze, Lindsay and Giselle did not. We laughed, we did shots, we danced, we had a great time. I also schooled Lauren in rap music that night, the one and only time I knew more about it than she did. Haha…I miss her.

Back before I smiled in pictures apparently 

One last story for the night…

Lauren and I found out that she was pregnant in early December, but we weren’t ready to tell people yet. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, seems to be an easy thing to hid. For us though we had a weekend full of parties that everyone would fully expect Lauren to be drinking at, and drinking a lot. My timeframe for these may be a little off, and I apologize if they are. You’ll see why that may be in a moment.

Part 1: Santa Pub Crawl

That December we had already RSVP’d for a Santa Pub crawl. All the girls had matching outfits, and the guys wore whatever. (In theory, something “Santa’y”) We obviously had to go, since skipping it would be suspicious. This ended up being the easiest one to get away with fake drinking for Lauren; her work party was later that day, so she was letting me drink at the pub crawl and she would drive to the party and drink there. Mission: Success.

Part 2: The Work Party
Lauren’s office had their annual holiday party at a restaurant in Delray Beach. They rented out the entire inside, including the bar. Normally an open bar excites me…this time I had to ask my liver for forgiveness ahead of time. So many people kept coming up to us and ordering shots for Lauren and I to take with them! But it was still a good night, from what I’ve been told. Mission: Success. I think.

Part 3: Giselle’s Annual Christmas Party

Lauren and I plotted for awhile on how we were going to pull this off. This wasn’t going to be easy. I made my amazing brie dish to the party, in hopes to distract some people with food. I made the announcement to Lauren as soon as we walked in that I was the bartender for her and I that night, and I was going to get her drunk! Every 20 minutes or so I’d grab her glass of diet coke and “rum” and top it back off again. Whenever anyone yelled “Shots!” I’d run up and take one before they realized Lauren wasn’t doing them. It was going great! No one suspected a thing…until the other Lauren, Shulman, called my Lauren out for not doing shots with her. We looked at each other, debating on how to answer, when Shulman took all the pressure off of us by saying something like “No I get it, he won’t let you do shots. Now that you’re in a relationship you can’t do them. Michael, you get over here and do one for her!” (now at this point I was drunk, so I’m guessing at her words. Pretty sure that those were close to what she said.) In any case, I did more shots, and Evan stayed a secret for a little longer! Mission: Success.

I hope you enjoy my stories. I haven’t slept much lately, so I apologize for the format and whatnot. At this point I’ll just call it my style of writing. Thank you for continuing to read Our Tale.

I miss her, more and more everyday. Writing these stories gives me another chance to reconnect with her, while also sharing stories with everyone that you might not know. She is an amazing person, and she’ll be with us always.

As many of you know, my beautiful wife Lauren passed away after a serious battle against cancer. She had been out of work since December, and I had been home taking care of her. She passed away without life insurance, so all of the funeral costs were out of pocket. We have been blown away by the outpouring of support of donations and love. Thank you all so much. If you have a chance, please visit our GoFundMe fundraiser (https://www.gofundme.com/knmv7f7q) and give it a share. Any funds that we raise over the cost of the funeral and bills received during Lauren’s treatment will be put in a college fund for our son Evan. Thank you all again.

As long as I’ve known Lauren, she had a little tile with the phrase “She believed she could so she did” on it. When she lived at Lindsay’s house, it was in her window next to the bed, so she could see it every morning. When we moved into our place together, we tried to put it in our window, but we didn’t have the right type of blinds. (Side note, Lauren HATES vertical blinds. We were going to change all of the blinds in our house because of this, but decided it wasn’t worth the cost in the end. And now you know) We ended up putting it on her nightstand, so she could still see it, as long as our room was clean.

She lived her life to that saying. When the doctors told her there was no way she would be able to keep the baby while fighting cancer originally, she turned to that saying. She believed she could, so she did.

When the doctor told her in February that she only had a week or two left to live, she refused to believe that. She believed she could fight and last longer, so she did.

I am so thankful for everything Lauren has given me and this world. She is (yes is) a wonderful person, a happy spirit, a caring individual, and the love of my life. I miss her so much. I can feel her everywhere though, which is awesome.

Please do me a favor. Go to the doctor. Get a checkup. Men, women, doesn’t matter. Just go. Go to all of the recommended appointments. I don’t care if you hate doctors, if you’re scared of doctors, just go. Hopefully they’ll just send you home with a clean bill of health. And when they do, make an appointment for next year. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

This past weekend a group of Lauren’s friends went on a previously planned Girls Trip to Austin, TX. Before Lauren got sick again, she was going to go with them. Before they left, they told me about how they were going to do some sort of balloon tribute to Lauren while they were there. So after a few drinks, I decided that I was going to join them, so I used my last remaining flight vouchers and met them in Texas.

We did the tribute at one of my favorite spots in Austin, on a cliff overlooking the Colorado River. When Lauren and I were planning our many trips we were going to take in our lifetime together, this was one of the spots. As her friends said after hiking up to the spot “Lauren would have hated that hike, but she would have been blown away at the top.”

We all wrote a message to Lauren on a (biodegradable) balloon, did a champagne toast in her honor, then sent the balloons off to meet her. Below is a short video showing the release…I imagine a fancy video will be put out by one of her friends shortly.

I love her, and I miss her. Here’s a picture of her getting ready for our wedding, 3/20/2016. One of my favorite pictures of her.

I’m going to do my best to keep my Facebook “happy”, and will post my emotional stuff in blog form here. That way you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to 🙂

When I lay awake at night, thinking about Lauren, life, and the fact that even though the tv is on how quiet it is, this song plays in my head. Every night. It does alternate between this version and the Simon & Garfunkel version, so there’s that.

As many of you know, my beautiful wife Lauren passed away after a serious battle against cancer. She had been out of work since December, and I had been home taking care of her. She passed away without life insurance, so all of the funeral costs were out of pocket. We have been blown away by the outpouring of support of donations and love. Thank you all so much. If you have a chance, please visit our GoFundMe fundraiser (https://www.gofundme.com/knmv7f7q) and give it a share. Any funds that we raise over the cost of the funeral and bills received during Lauren’s treatment will be put in a college fund for our son Evan. Thank you all again.

Whoa…that title is deep. But the quote is very accurate. If you’re not familiar with it, it is actually from a Disney movie, “Ratatouille” spoken by the character Remy. If you’ve never seen that movie, I recommend it. For being a movie about a rat, it’s pretty good! Fun fact: Every Valentine’s Day Lauren and I watch “Ratatouille”. We continued this tradition this year, even though we were in the hospital!

I’m going to skip around a bit in our story, but I promise that eventually everything will be covered. Today I want to talk about one of the craziest days of my life, which as I look back at it now, I realize that it is also one of the greatest days of my life.

I traveled a lot for work back then. Sometimes I’d be on the road for a few days, sometimes I’ll be gone for months. This particular trip in December was a Sunday – Friday trip in one of my favorite cities, (because of the awesome people there!) Minneapolis. It was the annual “End of Season” meetings for my work group, which meant long days in conference rooms and fun nights at the Vodka Bar.

On Sunday morning before Lauren dropped me off at the airport, we decided to go to brunch at The Wine Dive in downtown WPB. You can’t go wrong with delicious food and bottomless mimosas before a flight! We met up with several friends of Lauren’s (and mine, as I adopted them as my friends too 🙂 ) and had a great time! I got dropped off at the airport, and headed off to Minnesota.

Lauren and I enjoying Sunday Funday!

Lauren, Lindsay, and I at Wine Dive

Monday morning started off like any other day at the corporate office. Scott, Britt, and I met up at the coffee shop for our much needed pick me up for the day and caught up on all the office gossip. After making the rounds to see people I hadn’t seen in awhile, we headed up to our first meeting. During this time, I knew Lauren had a doctor’s appointment to check up on some things that she was concerned about. I told Scott that I had to keep my phone on me, in case something was wrong and she needed someone to talk to. Little did I know what concern was coming!!!

Around 11AM I received a text from Lauren asking when would be a good time to call. I excused myself from the meeting, and told her she could call me right away. Of course I was fearing the worst…the news she gave me caught me completely off guard.

I wish I recorded exactly how it went down, but from my memory it went something like this:

Me: “Hey, how was the doctors?”
Lauren: “Well, they did the exam, and she decided that she wanted me to get an ultrasound to check for cysts, because that may have been what was causing my issues.”
M: “Okay, did you go?”
L: “Yes.”
M: “Did they find any cysts?”
L: “…”
M: “???”
L: “They found a baby.”
M: “Say what?”
L: “I’m pregnant.”

I was speechless. I think I had her repeat herself 3 or 4 times before it finally sank in. We talked for about 30 more minutes, before she had to hang up to go back for a followup appointment. From that moment on, my life would never be the same…and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

I had Lauren send me the ultrasound picture of the baby, soon to be known as “Fig”, and is now known as Evan. I instantly fell in love. A love that grows daily, for him, and for his mother.

As many of you know, Lauren is fighting a serious battle against cancer. She has been out of work since December, and I have been home taking care of her while she fights. If you have a chance, please visit our GoFundMe fundraiser (https://www.gofundme.com/knmv7f7q) and give it a share. The money raised will go to help pay our bills as we continue this fight. We thank you for all of the assistance, love, and prayers you have already given us. 

“Now I’ll be bold
As well as strong
And use my head alongside my heart”

“I Will Wait”-Mumford & Sons

Our hearts were ringing
In the key that our souls were singing.
As we danced in the night,
Remember how the stars stole the night away
-“September” by Earth, Wind, & Fire

There’s several reasons I’m starting this post off with some of the lyrics from the great Earth, Wind, & Fire song, “September”:

1. It’s one of Lauren’s favorite songs
2. Lauren and I started talking on September 21st
3. The lyrics I picked out described the feelings we felt on our first date(s)

Depending on who you are, and if we’d been drinking when you’ve asked us, you may have heard different stories about how Lauren and I met. We told some people we met at the bar, some people may have heard that we met out volunteering, others that we met at the library! Truth be told, we met on the dating app “Tinder”. I traveled a lot for my job, so whenever I was in a new town I’d use the app to meet new people to show me around town. South Florida was no different at first…I logged into the app and started swiping!

One profile that caught my eye was this pretty girl who had taken a picture next to a very ugly bridge troll. I had to know more about it! Luckily we both swiped for each other, and we were matched. On the twenty-first day of September, I message Lauren for the first time. My smooth pickup line you ask? “Hi! Is that a bridge troll in your picture??”

We talked for a couple of days, first in the app, then via text. After several days of fun conversations, we decided that the time had come to meet up in person!  Being that I was new to the area, I had Lauren pick the place of our first date. She decided on a nice little restaurant in Delray Beach called “3rd and 3rd”.

We arrived to the restaurant within minutes of each other. When we got out of the car and I saw her in person for the first time, I lost my breath. She was even more beautiful in person than she was in pictures! How did I get so lucky?? We hugged, I made some corny joke, then we entered the restaurant. As soon as we sat, I snuck a text to my friend Scott saying “holy shit…she’s way out of my league!!”

I’ll spare you the long details about what we ate (amazing steak and fish) what we drank (wine and beer) and what we talked about (anything and everything). But when the bill was paid and it was time to go, neither of us wanted the night to end. So we decided it didn’t have to! During our texting conversations Lauren talked about a wine bar in Delray Beach that was “self serve”. Basically you get a card and wine glasses from the hostess then walk around to all the different wine machines and pick what you want! Very, very dangerous….but delicious as well. We arrived at N2 WineBar about 30 minutes before it closed for the night. We enjoyed several different types of wine, and even more great conversation about everything we could think of.

After last call at N2, we still couldn’t bring ourselves to end the night. Luckily, just a couple of short blocks away was Dada’s…a place known for amazing mojitos and their bacon-wrapped dates…at least that is what Lauren knows them for. We take a nice walk to the bar, where once we arrive we see that they also have a live band playing that night.

On the way over, Lauren tells me about their “backroom” where they have a few tables set up with a projector screen in front of them. If you’re lucky you get to choose what movie plays. Luck was in our favor again that night, as that room was available and it was just us in it! We ordered our dates and mojitos and continued our talk.

The entire night I couldn’t believe my luck. I have met someone amazing, someone beautiful, someone funny, and someone who thinks that I was funny too! As the night grew to its inevitable end, I knew I had to kiss her. We moved from the backroom up to the main bar area so we could watch the band play its last set. Dada’s has these cool chalkboard tables and they provide chalk for you to draw if you wanted to. We wanted to. So we continued to talk, draw, and enjoy the music. When the band announced that the next song was their last, I made my move.

Now, what happened next changes depending on who you ask. I know it was me who leaned in first for the kiss, Lauren insists that it was her. Either way, it was magical.

We ended the night by running back to her car in the rain (because of course it had to start raining while we were in Dada’s…don’t most fairy tail stories involve rain?) We kissed outside again, just to get that Rom-com “kiss in the rain” checkmark on our date, then sat in her car for another hour listening to Kings of Leon and singing along.

September 25th is a day I think about a lot these days. Our first date, which was really three dates. It is a memory I hope never fades.

The chalkboard table with our amazing drawings

One of our first pictures together, from our second or third date

As many of you know, Lauren is fighting a serious battle against cancer.  If you have a chance, please visit our GoFundMe fundraiser (https://www.gofundme.com/knmv7f7q) and give it a share. The money raised will go to help pay our bills as we continue this fight. We thank you for all of the assistance, love, and prayers you have already given us.