Friday, February 9, 2007
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/weekend/index.html
Friday, February 9, 2007
(Mark Finkenstaedt For The Washington Post)
Light My Fire
Nine Lives
Stories of Romantic Happenstance
By Ellen McCarthy
Friday, February 9, 2007; WE27
Out of the Ordinary
Jill Fisher, snake charmer, was never going to find the one.
"I was saying to a really good friend of mine: 'Come on. Where am I ever gonna meet my guy? It's obvious I'm not gonna end up getting married,' " Fisher recalls, ticking off her list of soul-mate requirements. He had to be "a carny, who used to not get along with his parents but does now, super handsome."
"I go through this ridiculous, long list of things that it's impossible to fill, and then a couple months later . . . it's like, wow."
"Wow," came in the person of Tyler Fleet, a sword-swallowing, fire-eating son of a preacher man whose talents include a prodigious ability to lodge multiple eating utensils up his nose. ("Waffle house silverware is my favorite," he explains.)
It was 12 months ago on Valentine's Day that Fisher -- officially on duty as a talent scout for Palace of Wonders, the H Street NE sideshow bar -- caught Fleet's act at the Birchmere Burlesque-A-Pades.
"I told him we'd love to have him perform there, or whatever, and then we just sat down and started talking," Fisher remembers. The conversation lasted two days and two nights and continued from afar when Fleet returned to his life in New York.
"Any day I had free in any capacity I was spending with Jill," says Fleet, 30. "I kept going back for more. And every time I was with her, I was more sure."
And so their lives and acts began to intertwine. She introduced him to her little brothers in November. He gave up his lease and moved to Washington last month. For a Thanksgiving show, he used a chain saw to carve a turkey on her stomach as she lay atop a bed of nails.
"You start looking at life differently. When you start feeling that way about somebody -- everything changes," says 26-year-old Fisher, who also works at the Jinx Proof Tattoo parlor in Georgetown.
Another change is scheduled for this Valentine's Day, when the two will fly to Las Vegas, stand before an Elvis impersonator and make their duo legal. (A development the couple's friends and family learned about with the completion of that last sentence -- but don't worry, Mom, you can catch the ceremony via webcam.)
Here's the link to the archived video of the wedding!
www.vivalasvegasweddings.com/internetweddingsfeb.htm
Click on T. Fleet wedding
"Our initial plan was just to go to Vegas. But then we were like, 'Well, let's not think about this too much,' " Fisher explains. " 'Let's not analyze our good years away.' "
Rendezvous Points
Friday, February 9, 2007; Page WE30
Washington never gets much credit for being a romantic town. Majestic, yes. Romantic, not so much. In the end, though, maybe there's not much difference between the two.
We asked our couples for spots around Washington that have, on occasion, taken their breath away.
The terrace of the Kennedy Center . Emil de Cou would know. He practically lives in the building whenever he's in Washington. "If you come here at night, a night when you can sit outside or walk outside, with a glass of champagne looking at the monuments, it's very beautiful, it really is," he says. "And very few people know about it, so there's hardly anybody up there."
Old Rag Mountain and the Inn at Little Washington . Every year on their anniversary, Denise and Jeff Austin hike the mountain near Sperryville, Va., before heading to the Inn at Little Washington to relax with an indulgent meal. "It's our gift to each other," she says. "And we get exercise and food."
The Lincoln Memorial. Two couples mentioned this particular piece of marble. The Wynns ended their first date with a walk and a long talk on the steps of the monument. The Armstrongs brought a couple of friends they were setting up on a blind date to a twilight picnic there. There was good champagne, cheap 7-Eleven snacks and a fantastic view.
The streets of Georgetown . Whenever there's a few hours of free time, Sandy and Miriam Ain spend it walking. Just holding hands, window-shopping and watching people go by.
The Shenandoah Mountains . When the Barahonas were young and poor, they spent almost every weekend camping along Skyline Drive. They picked apples and slept in hammocks. "My kids can never believe we went camping," Kathy Barahona says. "But it was very romantic, very quiet."
The Exorcist Steps. Whatever. Jill Fisher and Tyler Fleet made out there once.
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www.TylerFyre.com
www.LuckyDevilSideshow.com