*SERIES* “Love & A Photo”: Connie and Hansel

MEL:  Names

Connita de los Angeles: Connie..but Hansel always calls me Connita de los Angeles!

Sparky:  Hansel…but Connie calls me Sparky…or Hot Stuff.

MEL:  Ages

Connita de los Angeles: 33

Sparky: 28

Connita de los Angeles:  That’s right…you can call me a COUGAAAAR!!

MEL:  Life’s Work

Connita de los Angeles:  Artist, Art Teacher–to inspire creativity & spread the power of Art through my blog Dirty Footprints!!

Sparky:  I work in an Organic Farmer’s Market here in Phoenix.  But my real passion is for photography and Art.  I also love to make jewelry.

MEL:  What city do you live in?

Connita de los Angeles:  We have been living in Phoenix, Arizona for 3 years now.  Before this we lived in Cleveland, Ohio.  I was born there.

Sparky:  I’m originally from Costa Rica.  I moved to the states almost 7 years ago.

MEL:  How long have you been together?

Connita de los Angeles:  A little over 6 years.  We’ve lived together now for 5.

MEL:  How & where did you meet?

Sparky:  I was working in a Spanish restaurant in Cleveland when Connie came in and was sitting at a table with the owner.  He asked me to make her a salad, and I wanted to really impress her, but I was too shy to talk to her, so I made her the biggest, best salad I ever made in my life!

Connita de los Angeles:  Yeah, I remember that salad.  It was good!….Tasty…. Real fresh!

Sparky:  You had on those tight jeans with that big metal belt.  What happened to that belt?

Connita de los Angeles:  I don’t know.  That was a pretty cool belt!  I remember after you made the salad you stood around the room…and I kept looking at you.  I had this overwhelming feeling.  I told my friend at the table that you were the guy I was going to be with!  When I left I went up to you and thanked you for making such a great salad!  You were very sweet.

MEL:  What was your first impression?

Sparky:  I thought right away that Connie was very friendly and funny.  Everyone at the restaurant knew her and she was always making everyone laugh. And I liked her big fluffy hair!

Connita de los Angeles:  I thought he was a hottie!  Yep.  Super cute!  I also really liked his accent and thought he was quite charming.  But, like I said, I right away had this feeling about him.  Like I already knew him.  That’s how I knew we would be together someday.

MEL: Describe your first date:

Sparky:  We went to the Spy Bar in downtown Cleveland and we hung out and danced until it closed.  Then we went down to  Lake Erie.  We sat on the broken pier that overlooked the city and watched the sunrise and spent the whole time talking.

Connita de los Angeles:  Yeah, that was a really cool night/morning!

MEL:  Tell me about the most funny thing your partner ever did to “impress” you?

Connita de los Angeles:  Hansel is a bit of a showboat let me say!! Plus, he is the absolute funniest guy I know!!  So he is always doing silly stuff to amuse me.  On my 30th birthday we had a huge party at our favorite Mexican restaurant…and you know how they bring the hat out and the fried ice cream and sing Happy Birthday?  Well, after they did that for me, Hansel joined the servers and started going around to other people’s tables and singing to them.  It was hilarious!!!

Sparky:  One time Connie entered a mechanical bull contest at a bar to impress me.

Connita de los Angeles:  Were you impressed?

Sparky:  Yeah, I guess.  It was hilarious!

Connita de los Angeles:  I made 3rd place, even though I never rode or saw a mechanical bull before in my life!  The coolest thing I remember too is that you got on top of the bar and were cheering for me all crazy!! But it was my thunder thighs you were probably most impressed with!!

Sparky:  Exactly.

MEL:  When did you know it was love?

Connita de los Angeles: We are the exception to the rule.

Sparky:  Yeah.  We did things opposite.  Most people meet and things are really good then they go bad and they break up.  We started off a little rocky then things got really good!

Connita de los Angeles:  We are far from a normal love story.  Nothing about us is  typical!  Our love started off like a Mexican soap opera.

Sparky: Nooooo, not that bad!!

Connita de los Angeles:  Ok, I guess you’re right.  Maybe more like a Costa Rican soap opera!!

Sparky:  But seriously, at first I was kind of young and had to figure some things out about what I wanted in life.

Connita de los Angeles: Yes, and I was kind of confused myself about relationships and what I wanted.  This sometimes caused issues for us at the beginning, so we broke up a couple times.  But I always knew that we were meant to be together.  You know, being a cougar, you have to be the wise one!!

Sparky:  Connie was always very understanding and compassionate to me, and once I saw that, I knew that I loved her and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

Connita de los Angeles:  This is going to sound weird, but I really realized what a gift Hansel was to me and how much I loved him during an argument we had early on.  The argument was over something ridiculous on the surface, but out of nowhere I had this instant revelation that what Hansel was really trying to show me is a part of myself that I wasn’t willing to accept or examine yet..and the argument was happening because of my resistance.  This revelation was huge for me.  It changed our relationship, and it changed me.  I realized at that very moment (and we were driving in the car on West 14th street in Cleveland) that Hansel was trying to help me grow and that a good partner in life holds a mirror to our beauties as well as our blemishes….but all in love.  That’s the real deal,baby!!  No candy coated cupcake lover!

Sparky:  I agree. I completely agree.  We’re the real deal.

MEL: Are you guys more of ‘perfect twins’ or ‘opposite attracts’?

Sparky: Perfect twins.  Yes.  We like to do the same things like hiking, art, and traveling.  We both really like music.

Connita de los Angeles:  I agree.  We even finish each other’s sentences or will say something then the other will say “I was just gonna say that”.  Or during the day we call each other and the other will say that they were just about ready to call!! It’s a little freaky sometimes–how we can read each other’s mind!

MEL:  Retell the coolest travel adventure that you have taken together.

Connita de los Angeles: For me it was the first time I went to Costa Rica with Hansel to meet his family.  I learned so much more about Hansel by seeing where he grew up and it made me love him even more.  But, after we spent time with his family Hansel and I  hitch-hiked our way around the Pacific Coast part of Costa Rica.  That was so fun, and beautiful, and freaking exciting!!!  I remember one night we hitch-hiked in the back of some old man’s pick-up truck, and he drove us through the jungle.  It was about a half hour drive, just laying there in silence on our backs staring at the stars!!  I’ll never forget that sky, or how the air felt.  Then there was the day we rented an ATV and drove for miles and miles along white sand beaches with nobody there!  We found a tiny little soda (what they call little stands where families will sell you something to eat or drink) that was made out of palms and we drank coconut water and Coca Cola!  Hansel would take me to the coolest little secluded waterfalls or he would stop, and then say “look up” and there above us was a family of monkeys playing on the trees!! Everything about that trip seemed magical.  My heart felt so incredibly at home, with Hansel, and in Costa Rica.

Sparky:  That was also a great trip for me too.  But my favorite trip war our crazy road trip from Cleveland, Ohio to Phoenix, Arizona we took to move here.  The weekend before we left, Connie and I sold almost every belonging we owned for travel money…and then we packed our 2 cats, 1 dog, bikes, 1 suitcase, and our art supplies into our jeep (that already had 165 thousand miles on it!!) and drove across the USA in the middle of July with NO AIR CONDITIONING!! Yes, if you can survive that with someone..then you can survive anything!

Connita de los Angeles:  As well as a bit crazy, it was lots of fun to see how the landscape evolves across the county.

Sparky:  Yeah, I loved it!  We took some awesome photographs and went to some really cool little cities!

MEL:  How do you share your creativity/gifts with the world?

Connita de los Angeles:  I teach Art in a K-8 school in Phoenix.  I also try to share the magic of creativity with others through my blog Dirty Footprints Studio.

Sparky:  When I lived in Costa Rica I used to sell a lot of my Art, mostly mobiles and jewelry.  Since I moved to the States, its funny, I seem to give more of my Art away then sell it.  Connie promises she is going to help me get an Etsy shop started.  I’m working on some pieces to have for that.

MEL:  What was your first disagreement about?

Sparky:  Our first disagreement was about the cats and dog.  I hate to admit it, because now I love them more then ever.  They’re my kids!

Connita de los Angeles:  When we were first together Hansel did not like how my long haired cats and dog got hair on his clothes!

Sparky:  It was a bit of an adjustment at first.  In Costa Rica, pets are always kept outside.  I had to get used to the fact that Americans treat their animals like a part of the family.  But they won me over.  We are all one happy hairy family now!

MEL:  What do you do after a fight?

Connita de los Angeles: We don’t fight very often at all.  We’ll have disagreements sometimes, but they’re not really fights–they end up being kind of goofy after awhile.

Sparky:  But if we do have a fight we learned that it really helps afterwards that one of us takes a walk for awhile, so we can cool down.

Connita de los Angeles:  Then when we’re more clear, we always talk about things and apologize.

Sparky:  Then we have sex!

MEL:  Have you faced any adversity?  If so, and you care to share-what…

Connita de los Angeles:  I think moving across the country together to a place where neither one of us knew anybody and both of us were uncertain if we’d have a job and we had next to nothing in belongings and money was a very stressful time for both of us.

Sparky:  It was hard.

Connita de los Angeles:  Especially when we got here it was summer, which in Phoenix means the snowbirds go home and there is very little tourism–meaning businesses and hiring slow down.  So it was a tough time for Hansel to find a job.  And, also, our car died a week later when we got here, then a couple months later our beloved cat Vinnie died too. And we had an apartment but nothing in it.  We literally slept on the floor for awhile and ate dinner by the ambience of a cardboard box!!!  But when one of us would start to freak out a bit, the other would remind us that this was all temporary and part of the adventure that we actually set out to have.

Sparky: That’s the great thing about us.  We help each other.  We’re always strong for the other person, when they’re having a rough time.  We pick each other up.

MEL:  Describe your love journey in 3 words.

Sparky:  Growth, compassion, kindness.

Connita de los Angeles:  Growth, trust, understanding.  And we both agree that we would like to add a bonus fourth one that we agree on: Laughter.  We laugh alot!

MEL: What is your favorite beverage?

Connita de los Angeles:  SMOOTHIES!!!

Sparky:  A bottle of Blue Moon beer!