Kahomono

Hi, I'm Kahomono.  Nice to meet you.

Yeah, it's a funny nickname.  Americans say, "you lucky dog!" to the guy with the woman who's just too amazing for him.  In Japan they call that guy, Kahomono.

We met at an on-line poker site in June of 1997. Yes, there were on-line poker sites in 1997.  Only play-money, and crude graphics by today's standards, but, it was on-line poker.  That's what I was there for, to play poker.

For weeks, I thought that was a guy.  Played poker well!  Latin screen name!  Those things didn't click with "female" for 1997 me.  One day I emailed a spreadsheet about some odds we'd been discussing.  Email addresses on Prodigy were just random strings.  The thank-you note came back from "Jill."  I stared at that email for a long time.

Knowing her city, I looked up her phone number.  The number I found was her fax & modem line.  I asked her if that was her real number; she LOL'ed and gave me a voice number I could call.  We paid for long distance (1200 miles) by the minute in 1997.  For August we got his & hers four-digit phone bills.

She said, Don't fall in love with me.  I said, Too late.

We met in-person in September, and we moved in together in November.  We got married a few Novembers later.  And the next fall, I got this tattoo.

Kahomono

I met her at a poker table, of all places.  I certainly never expected to meet anyone at a poker table.