LOVE STORY CHAPTER 2

 

It was a Saturday that the ex and I had broken up, and by Monday morning, though I was by NO means “over” the breakup, I was feeling ever so slightly hopeful; or at least looking forward to a fun breakfast with a friend.



One of my male coworkers was (is) like a brother to me; we were hired on at the restaurant around the same time, and over the six and a half years until this point in the story, he and I had become close and occasionally planned a breakfast outing to catch up on the events of each other’s lives. A week prior to this aforementioned Monday, he and I had planned to meet for breakfast at the restaurant where we worked – only I got called into work when another waitress went home sick. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a game-changing move. One of those moments where the Universe intervenes because that particular event wasn’t in keeping with the greater plan.


Truth be told, if I had met my friend for breakfast on that previously planned date, or if I had shown up to the restaurant even a single moment later on the day we DID end up meeting, Matthew and I would have never met. My life would be drastically different right now. Funny how the smallest little decisions and changes of course can alter the entire plot of your life.


So on that Monday morning, January 19 of 2009, I woke up, got showered and dressed, and headed out to a 9:00 AM breakfast with my friend. Like usual, I was running a couple minutes late.


Once I arrived, I parked my car and walked across the lot and into the little diner where my friend Chris was already waiting in the line to be seated. We chatted for maybe thirty seconds before the outside door of the restaurant swung open and, to my surprise, there was Mrs. D! She seemed excited to see me and exclaimed, “Jenni! I know this might seem strange, and I know you have a boyfriend, but my son is here in town—we were just leaving, and I saw you walking up—I’d love for you to come out and meet him!”


I gave her a hug and laughed, saying, “Well, actually, me and my boyfriend just broke up, so it’s ok.”


I thought I’d humor her. Many proud mamas had bragged on their sons to me before, and if or when I ever did end up meeting these “handsome” princes, things were usually awkward and anything but a match made in heaven.


Mrs. D led me just outside the little foyer where we’d been waiting. Her car was a few feet away, and the driver’s side door was still open where she had gotten out. I peered into the car and there he was: the infamous son.


I’d be lying if I said I heard a choir of angels singing, or if I said a bright light shone upon him like some supernatural vision from God, but there truly was instant attraction. He reached over from the passenger side seat to shake my hand and said, “Hey! Nice to finally meet you!”


He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, and from then on I was in somewhat of a stupor, which is not unusual for me when faced with awkward social situations (especially involving shockingly attractive members of the opposite sex).


I said something along the lines of, “It’s really nice to meet you too! I’ve heard a lot of good things about you, and I just love your Mom!”


Mrs. D mentioned then that Matthew was going home to California the next morning but would be back in a couple weeks. I replied saying maybe we would see each other again when he returned, and the conversation wrapped up.


But in typical Jenni fashion, I had to say at least one ridiculous thing before going along my merry way, so just as I turned around to walk back into the diner, I decided to poke my head in the car one more time and say, “oh, excuse me SIR? What did you say your name was again? I already forgot!” Yes, I called him SIR. And as soon as that word flew off my tongue I was mortified with myself. Why the !@#$ did I just call him “sir?” What an idiot!


He just laughed and said “Matthew.”


“Ok, thanks!” I replied. “Maybe I’ll see you again soon!”


They left, and I went back into the restaurant where my friend was waiting.


And just a couple moments later we were inside and seated at our table near the back of the little one room diner.


We ordered our breakfast and, after a few more minutes, the hostess walked up to our table and slipped me a little note. “That guy just came back in and told me to give this to you. He saw you sitting with Chris and didn’t want to be rude and interrupt,” she told me.


My heart skipped a beat. I unfolded the little note. Matthew had written his name and phone number and the message: Be back in two weeks. Would be great to hear from you!



































I was shaking. I can’t explain it, but I felt like I was dreaming. My mind was racing with thoughts of how completely serendipitous this encounter was, but how completely awful it felt to be entertaining thoughts of another relationship so soon after my last one ended.


One of the waitresses at the restaurant, a good friend and mother-type figure to me, stopped by our table and read the note. She had seen the whole thing unfold, and the way Matthew had come back in and stared back at me as I chatted obliviously with my friend. With a knowing look on her face, she said “Jenni, it’s a God thing.”


And she turned out to be very, very right.


Mrs. D and Matthew both corroborate the story that, when they had left the restaurant after our initial meeting, Matthew matter of factly told his mother that I was the one. That he knew it. And she said she had always known it. She told him what I said about my boyfriend and I breaking up, and Matthew demanded she turn around. They came back, he scribbled his note on that little piece of paper, and he went back in to find me.


And I COULD just say “the rest is history,” but that really wouldn’t be doing the story justice. The part that comes next is half the fun! I suppose that sometimes fate might whisper, but in our case, it screamed

LOVE STORY

 

Our love story started long before Matthew and I ever actually met.

And when you think about it, most love stories start that way. Every moment leading up to the one in which you meet your future husband or wife somehow shapes you and prepares you for that person you were fated for. Any previous heartbreaks or dark days or lonely nights can be crucially important in the grand scheme of things—sometimes we need to know what something feels like when it’s wrong before we can ever really know it when another thing is RIGHT.


So that’s why I need to start the story with a little bit of background. The whole “girl meets boy, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl get married” model is a little too simplistic for my needs. You people want details, don't you? Of course you do.


When I was 18 years old and working as a waitress at a little family restaurant, I met a guy who was 10 years older than me. He was the one who came before Matthew. We dated for three and half years, and even lived together during the last year and half of that relationship. We moved into a tiny little house and owned Gracie and Cooper together and our relationship was never a terrible one. He was a good guy, I was a good girl, and we really did love each other.


But for every moment of those three and a half years, I had a nagging, itching, aching feeling that he would never be the right one for me. Despite his great heart, he lacked ambition and drive and handled his finances very poorly and, at the heart of it all, was very insecure despite being a bright and attractive guy. I understood him, though. I understood that his family had never prepared him for LIFE, and the poor decisions he had made as a younger man had him caught in a sticky web and a hole he just couldn’t seem to dig himself out of.


As the years went by, he could give me less and less of what I needed. Things became strained between us. I was a terrible nag, and I see that now. But the problem was that there were just too many things about him that I wanted to change. And as I began to realize that I could never change him and shouldn’t have to, I struggled SO much with what the right thing to do was. It ate away at me day and night, because I honestly couldn’t imagine my life without him. And being alone TERRIFIED me.


Somewhere during all this, I read the book The Secret which is all about the law of attraction. I really, really believed in what it said. It inspired me. I realized that I had not arranged my life in a way that allowed for all the things I so desired. I hate to skim over this because it’s so important, but let’s just say that I KNEW I had to decide what I wanted my future to look like and start taking active steps towards attracting that future. And staying in my current relationship at the time was a major roadblock. I knew in my heart that if I stayed where I was, life would always be a struggle.


So one day the breakup finally happened. We talked and cried for hours and finally decided that we could never truly work. He decided to move out and let me stay in the house and keep the dogs because, on his income alone, he couldn’t afford to live there (I made enough waiting tables to cover the bills if pennies were tightly pinched).


I can honestly say that the 48 hours after that break up were the toughest of all my life. I ugly-cried those kind of tears that come from somewhere inside you didn’t even know existed—a place of fear and sudden awareness that you are completely alone.


And that’s the place I was in when I met Matthew. We met a mere 48 hours after the ex and I called it quits, which could either be considered really terrible timing or really great timing. I choose to believe the timing was perfect.


But let’s back up again for just a minute.


Remember how I was working at that little restaurant? Well, for a couple of years I’d been waiting on my future in-laws without even knowing it. We’ll just call them Mr. and Mrs. D for our purposes here today.


They were an odd couple. Mrs. D was a beautiful blonde and friendly as can be, and Mr. D was quiet, reserved, and hard to read. I really enjoyed waiting on them, though, and I found it amusing when Mrs. D would occasionally mention their son in California and how perfect he and I would be for each other. She mentioned this to me on at least two or three occasions, but I always laughed and just politely reminded her that I had a boyfriend. I came to find out later that, in actuality, Mrs. D talked a whole lot more about Matthew and I one day meeting than I ever knew at the time; Mr. D now says he had to hear about it every single time they came to the restaurant, and Matthew, when he was in town, would always go to eat there and would hear about me then, too. But for some reason, I was never working when Matthew happened to stop in with his parents, and our paths never crossed.


But then one day, on January 19, 2009, our paths DID cross. And to make it all the more strange, I wasn’t even working that day—the encounter was, TRULY, by chance.


Little did I know when I woke up that morning, Martin Luther King Day and a university holiday, that my life was about to be turned upside down.
 

Six Baltimore officers charged in death of Freddie Gray

BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Baltimore's chief prosecutor charged one police officer with murder on Friday and five others with lesser crimes in the death of a young black man who suffered a critical neck injury in the back of a police van, a case that fueled new anger over police conduct in black communities.

The swift decision by Marilyn Mosby, who has been in the position only since January, to charge the six officers in the death of Freddie Gray caught many by surprise in a city that experienced its worst civil unrest in decades on Monday night.

Mosby made her announcement hours after the Maryland state medical examiner had ruled the death a homicide and a day after police handed her office the findings of its internal review of Gray's April 12 arrest.

Caesar R. Goodson Jr., a black officer who drove the police van, was charged with second-degree murder, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.

All six officers - three black and three white, five men and one woman - posted bond after their arrest Friday and were released from custody. Their union rose to their defense.

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A police line blocks Guilford Avenue near City Hall in Baltimore, May 1, 2015. REUTERS/Sait Serkan  …

"We are disappointed in the apparent rush to judgment given the fact the investigation into this matter has not been concluded," said Gene Ryan, president of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police.

Mosby, a 35-year-old African American, whose family includes generations of law enforcement officers, rejected the union's call for a special prosecutor.

After a convulsive week, thousands of demonstrators marched through the majority black city on Friday evening, with many believing their mostly peaceful protests over two weeks had prompted Mosby's decision.

"It was the people, it was the people out in the streets that made this happen," said Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, a civil rights activist.

Rioters burned buildings and looted stores in Baltimore on Monday night after Gray's funeral, and protests spread to other major cities in a reprise of demonstrations set off by police killings last year of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, New York and elsewhere.

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Baltimore Police officers clear the intersection of W North and Pennsylvania Avenues following demon …

Gray, 25, sustained his fatal injury while riding in a police van, the prosecutor said, citing the autopsy report. Gray succumbed to his spinal injuries in a hospital on April 19.

"To the people of Baltimore and the demonstrators across America, I heard your call for 'no justice, no peace.' Your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of this young man," Mosby said at a news conference that quickly changed the tone in the city.

Gray's family was shocked, said attorney William H. "Billy" Murphy, noting "it was a good shock that justice had been approached in this forthright and courageous manner by this prosecutor."

CURFEW REMAINS IN FORCE

Officers cuffed Gray's hands behind his back and shackled his legs but did not secure him with a seatbelt while the van was moving, a violation of police department policy, Mosby said. Then, with "depraved indifference," officers ignored Gray's repeated pleas for medical attention, she said.

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Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., Officer Edward M. Nero, Officer Garrett E Miller (top L-R), Officer W …

While the charges brought joy and relief to the city of 620,000, residents cautioned that they needed to see justice served, not only in Baltimore but in other poor communities where young black men believe they are targeted by police.

While touring the city to assess the impact of the unrest, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said he does not recommend the city lift its curfew just yet.

"We're still expecting quite a bit of activity tonight and tomorrow," Hogan told Reuters. "Hopefully, we'll get back to normal in a couple of days."

Police arrested at least several protesters who defied the curfew.

In Ferguson and New York last year, grand juries decided against charging officers who were involved in the deaths of two unarmed black men. The news triggered rioting in the St. Louis suburb and days of protest marches in New York and other cities.

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A police unit blocks the intersection of Guilford Avenue and Fayette Street near City Hall in Baltim …

Apart from the one murder charge, the officers faced charges ranging from manslaughter to assault and misconduct in office, which carry potential prison terms of between three and 10 years.

Goodson also faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter, as do three others: Sgt. Alicia D. White, Officer William G. Porter and Lt. Brian Rice. All six, including Officer Edward M. Nero and Officer Garrett E. Miller, face lesser charges.

President Barack Obama took the unusual step of commenting on charges in an open case, highlighting the importance that the issue of police conduct toward minority groups has assumed over the past year.

"It is absolutely vital that the truth comes out in what happened to Freddie Gray," Obama said. "I think what the people in Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth. That’s what people in our country expect."
The incident that has commanded national attention began on April 12, when officers on bicycles made eye contact with Gray in a high-crime neighborhood, police said. The man immediately fled with the officers in pursuit.

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A protester is detained by New York City police officers (NYPD) during a demonstration calling for s …

When they caught up to him, Gray was handcuffed behind his back and dragged by the arms, screaming, into a waiting van, a bystander's video footage shows.
The prosecutor said Gray's arrest was illegal. Officers had said that he was carrying a switchblade knife in violation of the law, but she said it was in fact a folding knife that was legal to carry.
Mosby said the fatal injury occurred after the van stopped to allow officers to shackle Gray's legs and put him back inside. Officers failed to secure Gray in seat restraints at every stage of the ride, she said.

"Mr. Gray suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained inside of the BPD wagon," said Mosby.

Gray was no longer breathing when he was finally removed from the van, Mosby said.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney and Barbara Goldberg in New York, Colleen Jenkins in North Carolina, and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles

Clashes erupt in U.S. west coast cities during May Day marches

SEATTLE/OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Crowds clashed with police during May Day marches in several U.S. west coast cities late on Friday, as officers responded with stun grenades and pepper spray, police and media said.

Anti-capitalist protesters hurled wrenches and rocks at officers in Seattle, police said. Demonstrators in Oakland, California, and several other cities, rallied against a series of police killings of unarmed black, local media reported.

Footage on social media showed protesters smashing shop windows in Seattle and crowds scattering as police clad in riot gear threw in "flashbang" grenades. Demonstrators set fire to garbage and damaged at least two dozen vehicles, police said.

"This is no longer demonstration management, this has turned into a riot," Seattle Police Captain Chris Fowler said in a statement.

At least three officers were injured, two seriously, and at least 16 people were arrested, Seattle's police department said on its Twitter account.

Several hundred protesters snaked through the streets of Oakland for hours on Friday night after a day of peaceful protests.

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Police detain a demonstrator during an anti-capitalist protest in Seattle, Washington May 1, 2015.  …

More than 100 windows at businesses, restaurants and banks along the route were smashed, and several people were taken into custody overnight. At least one vehicle was burned and others damaged on the lot of a local car dealership.

Oakland police did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Pepper spray and flashbangs were also used in Portland after some protesters threw objects at officers and tried to force their way onto a bridge, the city police department said on its Twitter account. One officer was injured, it said.

Protesters annually assemble on May 1 as a day to focus attention on labor and immigration issues. Demonstrators in cities across the country also used the occasion to rally against police violence.

Many rallies proceeded largely without major incident.

In Baltimore, demonstrations were peaceful and even celebratory after prosecutors brought charges against all six officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man who died of spinal injuries suffered while in police custody earlier this month.

Gray's death has become the latest flashpoint in a national outcry over excessive force used against African-Americans and other minority groups by the white-dominated U.S. law enforcement establishment. It set off riots in Baltimore on Monday.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, Victoria Cavaliere in Seattle, and Emmett Berg and Noah Berger in Oakland, California; Editing by Paul Tait and Sim

iOS 7 jailbreak developed

A jailbreak has been developed for Apple's latest mobile operating system, but there are a few issues that need ironing out 

Hackers have released a jailbreak for Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 7, allowing iPhone and iPad users to download apps, extensions and themes that are not available through the official Apple App Store.

The evasi0n7 jailbreak, developed by a group known as evad3rs, claims to work on an iPhone, iPad or iPod running iOS 7.0 through to 7.0.4. It takes 5 minutes to install via a USB cable connecting the user's device to a computer running Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.

However, the software has already struck some hurdles, including incompatibility with some software offered in Cydia, the preferred app store for jailbroken phones.

"Please always backup your phone before installing new tweaks from Cydia as your iPhone could be stuck in the boot process," warned evad3rs. "The situation will improve as developers will update their software."

The evad3rs have also been criticised for entering into a commercial partnership with the Chinese app store Taig. As part of the agreement, Taig comes bundled with the evasi0n7 jailbreak software for people who download it in China – in a similar way that Cydia is bundled with the jailbreak elsewhere in the world.

 

Five things Britney Spears wants you to know about herself

Just who is Britney Spears? She's the pop superstar whose shiny, sexy image cracked and fell away before our very eyes and was replaced with a disheveled tabloid casualty. But then she pieced herself back together as a devoted mother of two, just as fabulous as ever.
New eighth studio album Britney Jean, which aimed to show fans her personal side, has underperformed with critics and in sales. Perhaps her two-hour E! documentary, I Am Britney Jean, which began airing Sunday night and covers the months leading up to her two-year Las Vegas residency, will heat things back up. Her Piece of Me gig kicks off Friday at Planet Hollywood.
Here are five things Britney wants you to know about Britney Jean.

1. Watermelon is her favorite bubblegum flavor. So when you see Britney smacking away in the documentary, that's what she's most likely got in her mouth.
2. She's actually a very shy person. Don't let the revealing attire fool you. "I'm not built for this industry because I am so shy."
3. In her home in Louisiana, she has a plaque on the wall that says "Go beyond reason to love for it's the only safety there is." Loose translation: Love is why we're here.
4. Her sister, Jamie Lynn, can kick her butt. "Jamie Lynn's surprisingly strong. She nails me to the ground every time."
5. Britney and her father, Jamie, are a lot alike. When they're nervous, they both make corny jokes and press their hands together in the same teepee shape. "We've got the same mannerisms when we've got something on the brain." Her father also says they don't travel anywhere without duct tape, in case something needs fixing. A wise precaution, it turns out. When shooting the Work Bitch video in Las Vegas, there was no air conditioning in her makeup trailer. So her father "rednecked it" by taping a tube that blew cold air to the vent, turning the swampy digs into a cool one.

BONUS: She loves sex. "I think it's great. But I feel a little bit differently about it now than I used to. Sometimes I feel like I'm 20 and sometimes I feel like I'm 50," says the 32-year-old.

'Walking Dead' Creator Amputates The Season Premiere

Two legs are better than one, but one leg is better than becoming a zombie. At least, that's the logic Rick Grimes is hoping Hershel Greene will accept if — not when — he wakes up on next week's episode of "Walking Dead" and realizes that he's missing a limb.
During the "Walking Dead" season premiere, Rick and his group of survivors battled their way into an all-but-abandoned maximum security prison, securing one section of the facility after another in order to carve out a new home for themselves. But during their episode-closing mission, poor Hershel was the unwitting recipient of a zombie-bite to the leg, necessitating an on-the-spot amputation from a hatchet-wielding Rick.
Hershel's impromptu leg loss marks yet another change between the "Walking Dead" comics and the television series; in the books, the old farmer's feet stay firmly planted on the ground. But savvy comic book readers will recall that a similar leg-chopping does take place in Robert Kirkman's source material — just to a different character.
"It happened in the same way that it happened to Allen in the comics, with him being bitten unexpectedly, and Rick frantically chopping his leg off to the shock of everyone else. But Allen doesn't exist on the television show," Kirkman told MTV News about the premiere's biggest shock. "It's a call back to the comics, another one of those things that fans of the comic book series will recognize, but it comes in an unexpected, cool, and shocking way. It is, to me, yet another sign that the adaptation is going to continue in a way that calls back to the comic respectfully, but still has its own shocks and surprises along the way. I think that's important."
Also familiar to longtime "Walking Dead" readers: the fact that Rick and his friends are not alone in this prison, and we don't just mean the zombies. As in the comics, the premiere sees the Grimes gang encountering a group of prisoners who survived the undead uprising, albeit differently from the way these parties meet in the books. It's not all different, however, as Kirkman revealed that one prisoner in particular comes directly from comic book land.
"Axel's there. He's the guy who says 'Holy s---!' He's a character from the comics and we'll be seeing a lot more of him," promised Kirkman. He also promised that Axel's signature line -- "You follow me?" -- will be uttered at least "a few times" in the coming episodes.
Axel aside, Kirkman cautioned that there would be more significant differences between the comics' prisoners and the show's prisoners to come, yet another move to keep reader-viewers on their toes.
"There are analogues from the comics who do many of the things you saw from the comics, but there are also big changes to the storyline," he teased. "There are moments from the comics that won't make it onto the TV show. Those prisoners borrow a lot from the comic books, but there's new elements added as well."