Welcome to our first blog post! Let me introduce myself. My name is Sarah, owner/seamstress/packager/all the things behind Komi Keiki. We’ll call my husband “Mr. KK”, as in Mr. Komi Keiki. We have two children, who we’ll call K and M.
I am a registered nurse and have worked in the public school setting in both California and here in Hawaii for the last 10+ years. Mr. KK also works in the school setting, at a local high school. After 12+ years of having different schedules, I am so relieved to finally both be working Monday through Friday and “normal” hours. Having nights and weekends together is something I don’t think I could ever give up.
Since it’s February and Valentine’s Day just passed, I’m gonna get a little lovey dovey on you and tell you about how Mr. KK and I met. We both grew up in Southern California, about 30 minutes from each other, but didn’t meet until January 2011. I was finishing up nursing school and spent way too much money at my local Starbucks. Guess who worked at said Starbucks? That’s right, Mr. KK. He played it smooth, making small talk as he poured my drinks. He’d tell me about local eateries that I should try and asked how nursing school was going. I’d spend my hours not in class “studying” at a table within his line of vision while he worked.
I had semi-recently gotten out of a long-term relationship, so I was hesitant; scared to let my guard down, but something inside of me was telling me that Mr. KK was into me. One night after a few weeks of what he calls “stalking him” (side note - it’s not stalking if someone tells you their schedule), I stayed at Starbucks studying until they closed. Mr. KK walked me out. “This is it”, I told myself, “he’s going to ask me out.” But then, to my disappointment, he said, “ok, bye” with a wave and turned to walk to his car which was the opposite direction of mine. “Um, excuse me, WHAT?!” I thought to myself, “did I really judge this situation THAT wrong??” In that moment, I gave up hope, sure that I was misreading the signs.
Then, the very next night, I went through the drive-thru on my way home from dance class, and Mr. KK was working the window. Early on in the small talk days, he had mentioned a fish taco place near the site I was doing my clinical rotation at, that was voted best fish tacos in Los Angeles. As he processed my payment and waited for my drink to be made by a fellow barista, he asked if I had tried the restaurant yet. “No” I responded, thinking he was just doing the small talk thing again. “We should go together” he said as he wrote his number on the back of the receipt. “Sounds good” I replied calmly even though I was screaming on the inside. He handed me my drink and told me to text him.
No longer able to contain my excitement, I texted him two hours later. He hadn’t even left the store yet. We scheduled our first date to go get the fish tacos he told me about. That date happened to land on February 13, 2011. The day before Valentine’s Day. No pressure! Well, Cupid apparently got it right, because here we are, exactly 12 years later, still laughing about “ok, bye” and disagreeing about the definition of “stalking”.
How’d you meet your significant other? Love at first sight? Was there Starbucks involved?
P.S. - the image for this blog post are the Valentines I made for K and M to give their friends with a heart shaped silly straw and snacks. Felt on theme for a Starbucks romance. Last year, they gave little bags of cereal with those straw/bowl things with a tag that read "You're cereal-sly awesome". I'm all about the puns!