Browsing “LOVE Series”

Holly can’t stop laughing with Roger around.  I get the sense she’s been laughing since they met almost 10 years ago.  You can tell by how they interact that they had an immediate connection: Roger will start talking and Holly will finish his sentence and their banter is the perfect blend of humor and affection.  When they talk of travel and photography, you can tell they share the same love for life and it’s infectious.  They’ve turned this passion into a wedding photography business, Union Photographers, where their differing styles come together.  We met at the Prophouse Café, just blocks from their house, where we laughed and we laughed.

How long ago and how did you meet?

H: We met nine years ago…

R: At Luvaffair night club.

H: British nights!

R: Which is not there anymore. Thursday nights?

H: Yeah, Thursday nights.

R: I always worked weekends, so Thursday was the night to go out and get drunk. Pick up chicks.

H: But usually there weren’t that many good looking guys there that night, but that night there were a bunch of good looking guys, and then my girlfriend said “Oh look at that guy!” and I looked up and it was Roger going towards the bar. And then she got off the dance floor to have a cigarette, and I was dancing by myself and I looked up and he was dancing in front of me, and smiled down at me. Just yesterday I was just saying “Did we actually even say anything before we started making out?” I don’t think we did (turning to Roger).

R: No we didn’t.

H: I always say it’s our one night stand that has been going on for 9 years.

R: We weren’t really hammered or anything. We had a few drinks and then we went home and started drinking tea.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

With Greg providing a steady bassline and Kim, a lilting melody, these two definitely have a rhythmic connection.    Greg Michalski, age 36, paramedic, and Kim Urhahn-Michalski, hairstylist, (Colourbox Hairdressing, 305 west Cordova street, www.facebook.com/colourboxvancouver, www.colourboxhair.com) age 33 met in 2005 playing music.  That connection still exists in it’s latest incarnation as Significant Insect  http://www.facebook.com/significantinsect (new album to be released in next month.) How do they manage to be so sweet without ever approaching syrupy?

How did you meet?

Kim:  I played drums, Greg played bass.

Greg: We were rehearsing and I hadn’t met Kim.  She walks in and it was one of those weird things because I thought, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.” Before that I never really cared, I thought maybe I’ll get married, maybe I won’t.   To this day, I have no idea what it was.

Kim:  And it only took you two years.  I was living with a boyfriend, and he had a girlfriend.

Greg:  For some reason that didn’t matter, I thought that’s fine, I’ll marry her anyway.  And I think that’s why it worked out was because we never pushed for it, it just sort of happened.

Kim:  When you’re in a band and you’re trying to make it, I couldn’t date anyone in my band.   It was off-limits, I didn’t even really think about him.  I fought it when Greg first sent me a cute email.  (I’ve still got it somewhere.)  Greg is very awkward about women.

Greg:  I sent her an email, something ridiculous like, if we were in England, I guess you could say I fancy you.

Kim: It took a few more emails of convincing.  (laughs)  We played in two bands and would commute together.  We were in the studio from 11pm – 5am and there was plenty of time to talk.  Then we started dating and we hid it from the other guys in the bands for a month.

Greg:  See you think it’s going to be this awesome story and then when you say it out loud, you’re like oh god, we’re twelve.

Kim:  When we told the band, they called up their wives who said, “I knew it.”

What drew you to him/her when you first met? 

Greg: I found her very soothing, I just found I didn’t have to put on an act.   I don’t want to say I didn’t have to try, but there was something honest.  You know when you’re dating some one, and you try to be funny and the girl tries to be what she tries to be? But with Kim it was just really relaxed.

Kim:  We were pretty good friends for two years.  I had a really awkward moment about a year before we started dating.  I got out of my car and I saw this guy walking down the street and I thought “Damn, who is that?” Really he knew all of my horrible tour stories and didn’t judge me.

I find Greg is very honest; he doesn’t put on airs for anybody.  (turns to him) You’re always exactly who you are.  And I think he’s very caring, which sounds really cheesy, but I mean it in the way that he always wants to do more for other people if he can.  He’s always talking about going away to Honduras and helping to bring medical supplies to kids, and working in clinics and I like that.

Greg:  It’s not just because she’s beautiful, she’s very genuine. There’s no BS, she just who she is, very goodhearted and very – nice.  She’s got such an incredible generosity and good heart.  She’s never really in a bad mood.  She’s got the odd… headache…

Kim:  I never really use my head as an excuse.  (laughs)

Greg:  Sore throat, sprained wrist, whatever….

What are some special moments or memories that you still talk about? 

Greg: There’s a lot of on stage moments in my head.   It’s cool to be rocking out to a song and look over and see your wife playing drums.

Kim:  I play in other projects without Greg but Greg has never played in other projects without me, so I’ve never been able to go to his show and just be his groupie, which would just be so cool.  I would love to be your groupie.

Greg:  A lot of it centres around music. There’s moments that I’m not so proud of.  There’s the usual sort of man jealousy stuff, I admit it.

Kim:  We backpacked across Cambodia for a month, so there’s moments like, oh hey remember when that douchebag tried to scam us at the border at Cambodia.

Greg: The trip that we took to Cambodia happened a couple of months after we got married.  It was a real test of teamwork.  We got to Bangkok airport and we couldn’t leave.  Rebels had taken over the airport and shut it down, so we had to back pack, back through Thailand, across Cambodia, into Vietnam.  We weren’t even sure if we had flights, and it was like 4 in the morning in the back of a pick up truck.

Kim:  We took a video camera and we have video of us like “So it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and we’re waiting for the border to open at 7am. “

Greg:   The teamwork machine never broke down, well except one time in the 6 weeks.  We got lost in Bangkok.

Kim:  This was after the bus ride from the Cambodian border, which was supposed to be an air-conditioned bus.  We had to share one seat in the back of a mini van for 4 hours.

Greg:  So then the cab driver was screwing us around and I will admit, we were at each other’s throats.

Kim:  Then we took the most fun tuk-tuk ride – a motorbike with a cart on the back.  The guy thought that we were brand new, with the packs on our back.  But we’d been riding tuk-tuks for the last 5 weeks.  He took us thru the streets of Bangkok as fast as he could go, weaving thru the traffic, and it was like he expected us to be like “oh no, oh no.”  But instead we were like “woooooo!!!!”  Just letting it all go.

Do you still date?

Greg:  Kim’s got some limited dietary stuff going on so we have a …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Danielle Ciavarro , age 26, Design Assistant, Plum Clothing and Chad Ciavarro, age 34, Application Developer, RCMP have known each other since 2005 and met online before it was the norm, although not on a dating site.  They proudly boast their stereotypical Italian characteristics. The wine and pasta flowed, and so did the conversation.

How did you meet?

Danielle:  There was a group of bloggers centered on Matt Good. (Danielle still has a blog, check it out at http://www.smellydanielly.com/  !!!)Matt had a list of his favourite bloggers, and that’s where I first saw Chad’s stories. They were hilarious guy stories.  We chatted on line and Matt was having a concert in November 2005.

I was walking down Granville Street, and saw him drunkenly stumbling toward the Commodore and I said “Oh my god, it’s Ciavarro” and it was like meeting a celebrity because I’d read his blog and he had this whole persona. I had a boyfriend, he had a girlfriend, and we didn’t really know anything about each other.  So then 2006, April, I went to Australia for a month.  After that, it was coming up to World Cup, so we talked a lot about Italian Soccer.  We planned to see every Italian soccer game on Commercial Drive.

Our first family meeting was Thanksgiving.  I’m super awkward sometimes so Chad walks in and I started laughing and didn’t know what to do; so I ran and hid.

Chad:  Ran and hid – this is my introduction.  There I am in front of fifteen people …

Danielle:  Not that many…

Chad:  It seemed like 15 people and they just stared….

Danielle:  There were six of them.  It was an awkward meeting.

(The story is interrupted by Chad pouring us a glass of some home brewed wine.)

Chad:  Lots more where this came from – actually 500 Litres of it.  (Glasses clink.)  Much better.  She ran and hid – the pressure was immense.  It’s this big master entrance; all eyes on the new guy.

What drew you to him/her when you first met? 

Danielle:  He was like an asshole.  That was his whole thing.  He would tell these stories about getting wasted and driving his mom’s baby blue Ford Taurus and destroying it.  He was this whole persona, I’m Ciavarro, I get the ladies.  I get drunk every day.

Chad:  Shenanigans of a mid –twenties male with too much love for alcohol.

Danielle: He was larger than life.  And he is larger than life.  And he’s not an asshole in real life, so that worked positively.

Chad:  I thought she was attractive obviously. But the attraction on the more commitment level sort of just grew.  It wasn’t like a smack on the head.  If anything I was pushing the relationship away, trying to slow down.  I was telling her, go have fun, go travel if you need to, whatever it is, just kept kind of pushing away, but it kept coming back. I had been around the block a couple of times, she was still pretty young, I wanted to make sure she was a hundred percent happy.

Danielle:  He came over to my parent’s house to watch a movie. I went to get a snack and pulled out cold cuts and cheese. He said, “This is the coolest thing any girl has ever done. “ I said “I’m not trying to impress you, it’s just this what I eat and this is what I have. So I have some sliced cured meats for you. “

Chad:  That was it; she was …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

When I met with Brice Ferre, freelance photographer in Vancouver, and Melanie Zaffran who works in film production, there was an instant feeling of familiarity.   The couple met eleven years ago in Film School, in France, as restless 19 year olds, Brice from Bretagne, Melanie from Le Mans. They easily interrupt each other and finish each other’s sentences; so please excuse my overuse of the ellipsis (…).  They seamlessly move between teasing each other and being serious.  It’s their European charm; and I understand how Brice is able to make his clients comfortable in his focus on authenticity in his work.  We hung out on Granville Island to find out what makes them tick.

What drew you to him/her when you first met?

Melanie: I thought we had the same sense of humour, plus he was really cute.  Maybe he was just being nice…

Brice: (smiling)…of course I was

Melanie:  You know how you always think you have your own little humour and no one really gets it, and then he laughed, so I thought ok cool. He still laughs…

Brice: of course…

Melanie: …at my jokes eleven years later so I guess that’s a good sign right?

And you?

Brice:  She’s tall, thin and very good-looking (my kryptonite!). I remember very clearly the first time I saw her. When I discovered how smart and funny she was. That was it…

What are some special moments or memories that you still talk about? 

 Brice:  All the travel we’ve done together, we’ve travelled quite a bit…

Melanie:  Our very first conversation was about traveling.  I had spent a year in the US as an exchange student and he’d gone to the US on a work and travel visa for the summer. He said I’m planning on going back this summer and I’m like well, I’ll come with you. Ten months later, we planned the trip and we went together back to Virginia…

Brice:  …we were nineteen at the time. The idea was basically to get away from France and work in the US, no matter how, no matter where…

Brice:  We spent 24/7 together…

Melanie: …we didn’t kill each other.

Do you still date?

Melanie: We don’t really go out much, we enjoy spending evenings at home, cooking diner. It’s just the two of us, so every night is pretty much a date.

Brice: I started cooking about six months ago.  Before that, I hated it. At some point, when Melanie was freelancing on movies and tv shows, twelve to fifteen hours a day. I thought if she has to come home and she has to cook, I’m gonna be single pretty soon. I wanted to have dinner ready when she got home every night. Then we started cooking together, the two of us and now I kind of like it actually…

Melanie: …I think for a while he was afraid I would always tell him how to do it.  But then he started doing it on his own and he didn’t have to worry about me being on his back; now I say how do you want to do this?

Brice:  We put some music on, we start cooking, if we have wine, we drink wine. 

What is the secret to your relationship?

Melanie:  We talk a lot about every thing.

Brice: (smirking, under his breath) She does, I …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

With its kitschy cozy vibe, The Rumpus Room on Main Street kept us busy with Jenga, puzzles, and other old games, perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon. It was here we met Lindsay Glauser, age 28 from Duncan who is bubbly verging on giddy, and Carm Kwan, age 29 from Prince George who is more matter-of-fact and even-keeled with a subtle dead-pan humour.  They seem extremely comfortable with these differences, which also show themselves in their opinions and interests.  We got together to hear about the scrabble proposal and rare sightings in Tofino.

How long ago and how did you meet?

Lindsay:  We met 9 years ago when we worked together at Patisserie Lebeau [on second] in Kitsilano.  He got a job in the back and I worked in the front so I’d make him lattes.  One day after work we decided to go to Granville Island Brew Pub.  We did the taster rounds and then went out dancing.

Carm: (deadpan) We were drunk though, she left that part out. Really hammered.

What drew you to him/her when you first met?

Lindsay: We had chemistry; we grew up in similar environments.   In Prince George they did a lot of the same things that we did on the island.  It was like coming back to my roots or something.  Things like hacky sack (laughing), drinking at the mountain.

Carm:  Lindsay was actually doing writing at the time, and I was a writing major in University, so it was always good to converse with fellow writers.

Lindsay:  And then we went out a lot, I think that’s one thing we had in common.

Carm:  I was new to town, and she had been here a few years already.  It was a way to get to know the city.  We went out a lot – to places we don’t go anymore.  Remember the Stone Temple?  Who goes there?  No one goes there.

Lindsay:  We didn’t really want to go there.

What’s the last thing he/she did to make you smile?

Carm:  On our way here, we were saying, are we going to be that boring couple?  She was like “no, are we boring?” We go through waves.  We’ll fight and then we’ll make each other laugh.  We’re a normal couple.

Lindsay: We’re pretty much always laughing.

What are some special moments or memories that you still talk about? 

Lindsay:  The week after we met in the park, we ended up planning a road trip to Tofino and we tried to get other people involved, but …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Western Living’s “Furniture Designers of the Year”, mth woodworks’ furniture is organic yet still stylish, natural yet sleek.  Exactly like the designers themselves.   Tables, cabinets and accessories are made of salvaged Western Red Cedar tree stumps and birch branches with organic resin. At this weekend’s IDSWest, I caught up with the designers, 34 year old, native Vancouverite Michael Thomas Host, and 30 year old Swiss, Tanja Hinder, who are so down-to-earth, but still manage to be really really cool.  In this first edition of Love is a Four Letter Word, we chatted (and laughed a lot) about cycling, surfing and time machines.

What do each of you bring to your work?

Tanja: He’s a crazy perfectionist.  I’m a bit more of the organized businessperson.  And what else do I do? I sand.

Michael:  She does it all.

Tanja:  I sand a lot.

Michael: She’s my cheap labourer.  And I do most of the big heavy lifting.  When we go out salvaging for stumps, I’ll be the one trying to throw my back out, although she’s right there with me.  Then, around the workshop I do most of the construction with Tanja’s help as well.

Tanja:  The design is collaborative.  Two is better than one.  You have an idea and he says – well what about doing that and you say ok.  That way you get better.  Sometimes I have an idea and he says well, how the hell should I build that?

Michael:  Yeah, that won’t work, or oh my god that’s an awesome idea.

Tanja: He’s got the expertise in construction.  I want to go really big and tangly and he’ll say you’d better stop somewhere.  In a good way though, it would break otherwise.

Are your designs in any way a reflection of your relationship?

Michael:  They’re a perfect reflection of our …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>