Falling in love
Once upon a time, there lived a walrus prince and a princess cat.
The cat lived on top of a hill.
The walrus lived on a barge by a lake.
The cat liked to pick flowers, look for fossils, build forts with her friends, and play flashlight tag.
The walrus liked to draw maps, build lego cities, make movies, and play with his friends on the lake.
They both had unique parents who were their kings and queens. The walrus's parents studied neurons, and the cat's parents sold cowboy clothes, painted signs, and made maps.
Along the way, they decided to learn more about the world and go to college. She went East, and he went North. They wound up in Vermont.
The cat and the walrus shared many talents, and one of them was music. The cat played soaring melodies on the violin, and the walrus played deep harmonies on the cello.
They met when they joined a piano trio. Every day, they practiced Russian folk songs. She was shy, and he was awkward.
The cat decided at some point that she had to tell the walrus how she felt. She wrote him an email that started with, Basically I like you.
The walrus didn't receive the email because he was debugging sorting loops. The cat got anxious. But as soon as he got it, he wrote back and said, I like you, too.
And that is how the cat and the walrus fell in love.
Figuring out love
The cat and the walrus shared many adventures.
He rode his bicycle across the country; she took him four-wheeling.
She flew to Woods Hole and ate lobster. The walrus took her out at low tide to a spindle in the channel. While they talked, the tide came in and they had to swim back.
And then there was the kiss .
For a long time, they only saw each other on trips. The cat was still in school, and the walrus was working. They talked a lot on the phone.
The cat and the walrus had some rough patches. They took a break and called themselves single.
On a whim, the walrus drove to New York City and surprised the cat on Broadway. They watched a musical and parted ways on the Manhattan Bridge.
On a whim, the cat drove to North Carolina and surprised the walrus where he worked. He found her hiding under his desk. When she left, they didn’t know what to call each other. No titles, the cat said.
When the cat graduated, the walrus picked her up and carried her south. They lived in a little white house in Durham. They grew flowers, took walks in the park, and made silly videos.
But the walrus wanted to learn more, so he went west to study music in the Gate City of Greensboro. The cat studied, too. She played violin, and the walrus wrote music. And they started collecting cats of their own.
Along the way, the cat found and applied for a job far far away. The cat was growing up.
The walrus helped her move to a land called Cheyenne River where the land was flat and the sky was big.
Finding love
The cat and the walrus spent two years on Cheyenne River.
The cat worked very hard and grew tough.
While the walrus made movies and wrote computer programs, the cat became a leader. They were happy.
One day, two days before the cat turned 28, the cat and the walrus embarked on a scavenger hunt hosted by the Chamber of Commerce... or was it?
The cat and walrus went all over town—to a sandwich shop, the vendies, the gas station, the grocery store, and finally, her workplace.
When the cat found a picture of Jack and Rose from Titanic in the mechanical room, she twitched her whiskers and got suspicious.
Twenty minutes later, the walrus got down on one flipper and asked her the one simple question she wanted him to ask: Will you marry me?
They were standing in front of a tiny church on the plains, and before he could get up, the cat passionately mewed, Yes!
