"When my sugar walks down the street...

...all the little birdies go 'tweet tweet tweet.'
And in the ev'ning when the sun goes down, it's never dark when he's around."

I love Ella Fitzgerald. She sings the kind of songs I want to sing lazily in the kitchen while stirring risotto as the sun sets. I put her music on when I want to really enjoy whatever it is I'm working on: making a meal, wrapping presents, planning a party, covering a lampshade. She makes me calm, centered and focused. And she makes me wish I could really sing, especially a song as sweet as When My Sugar Walks Down The Street.

I hadn't heard that song until a couple weeks before our wedding, and happened upon it accidentally. We wanted to make, and had always planned on making, a wedding CD as one of the favors for our guests. Music is such a big part of our story and lives, we wanted to reflect that and create a Soundtrack of Us, if you will.

Most of the songs had been selected long before our wedding day - heck, we met at a Journey revival concert where we couldn't escape Don't Stop Believin! Our first dance together was at a birthday party where a quartet plated Ain't That A Kick In The Head - the Barenaked Ladies song Easy would pop on the radio far too often when we first started dating. It seemed the music was choosing us, and not the other way around. And when it didn't, we were happy to dig through piles and files of tunes to find the perfect little ditty.

When it came time to burn the mix, I couldn't find my CD containing Ella singing Sunny Side Of The Street. A minor hiccup, I searched for a replacement. We needed a song that represented our time spent walking - we needed a song that represented our love of walking.

You see - Dique and I are professional pedestrians.

Yes, we're homebodies. Yes, we're totally happy watching three movies back-to-back-to-back on the couch. Yes, we'll eat whenever food is available. But we like going outside, getting some ocean-infused air and checking out the city on foot.

In the early stages of dating, we would make pancakes on a Saturday morning, and then set out on a long meandering walk. One of my favorite memories is walking down through Golden Gate Park, along the Pacific, through the Presidio and then? Having a fatty feast of carbohydrates and cheese (Monte Cristo sandwich and a Shirley Temple, yes please!) at Liverpool Lil's. It was heaven. We walked up the staircase on Lyon Street and back home through Alamo Square, the Panhandle and eventually wound up on the couch in front of three movies, which we happily watched back-to-back-to-back.

The thing is, to us, walking is not only a mode of transportation or a good way to get some exercise and Vitamin D. It's how and when we talk the most. Tough discussions about mortgages, budgets and credit scores are a lot easier when you're holding hands. Maybe the magic that San Francisco shares on a sunny day also helps grease tricky wheels. Whatever it is, walking = talking and it works for us.

These days Dique and I walk to work together two days a week, normally Wednesdays and Thursdays. He often will walk to and from work independently of me - these are the days that I have a morning run, or an evening workout planned. When we walk together we have to leave the house around 6:45am, so that we can both be at work on time. The route is more or less the same: walk up to 19th Avenue, enter the park, cross in-front of or behind the de Young Museum, pass the rose garden and into the Richmond District. Sometime we go up California, sometimes we go up Lake. We've stopped going up Clement Street after a pigeon episode that rendered my pink fleece jacket dirty and smelly (lots of telephone poles = lots of birds on wires = Tuni yelling "I've been shat on! I've been shat on!" at 7:15am on a Thursday morning).

(Did I just digress into a tale of poop? I did. I apologize.)

We drop each other off on Broadway and Webster around 8:00am, Dique goes down the hill to his office, and I go up and over the Broadway Tunnel, through Chinatown to mine.

We get to see the city in the rising sun and lifting fog. We try to remind ourselves of how lucky we are. And then we settle in at our respective desks and enjoy a nice big breakfast that's NOT a Monte Cristo sandwich. Because they're bad for you (but very, very delicious).

Meet Dique & Tuni

You know you know us, otherwise how (or, more to the point - WHY) would you have found this blog? Admit it, it's my fault.

Hi. I'm Tuni, of "Dique & Tuni" -- how's it going?

'Dique' and 'Tuni' are nicknames we've had almost as long as our real names, and we're lucky to still be great friends with those who bestowed the stupid names upon us. For the record, 'Dique' is pronounced 'DEEK' and 'Tuni' is short for 'Petunia' and no I won't divulge from whence the names came. Frankly, the details make up a wonderful "you had to be there" kind of a story so I'll spare you and let you imagine something far more interesting than the truth.

We're a couple of kids that were born and bred in Northern California - Dique is a San Francisco native, and my hometown is Half Moon Bay (just 30 miles south of SF on the coastside).

"Engaged Goofballs" photo courtesy of ourselves, taken Monday May 12, 2008

The short story is that we met through a mutual friend (we'll call her Dirty E) a couple of years ago.

The longer story is that we met on August 26, 2006 on a private party bus headed to a Def Leppard and Journey concert. We clicked instantly and by the end of the night we had each other's phone numbers and hopeful expectations. One date a week quickly turned into 5 dates a week, and soon we were deemed one of the more shmoopy couples around. Dique proposed to me on top of Twin Peaks on May 10, 2008. It was the best day of my life. That is, the best day until we got married on February 21, 2009 - just over a month ago here in San Francisco.

"He's Mine!" picture taken by red-hair Molly @ our wedding 02.21.09

We now live in the Sunset District of San Francisco, which puts us two blocks from Golden Gate Park, 25 blocks from the Pacific Ocean and a $20 cab ride from most restaurants we love.

We ride the bus a lot. And cook at home a lot. We also walk a lot, all over the city - talking about the kind of home we want to own someday, meals to make, parties to have, vacations to take, everything. Now that wedding planning is over and we can just be a married couple with hobbies, we're reveling in the free time with family, friends and each other.

I'll be popping online to document the fun times married life will bring, so unless otherwise noted all entries will be from The Tuni Perspective. Please feel free to comment/call me out/email me to ask why in the world I chose to publish such mundane goings-on/etc. at your leisure.

I'm hoping this blog will be a good way for us to stay connected with all of our loved ones - and I do promise to not use your real names. At least not without your permission. :-)

Happy reading.

Tuni
xx