WE HAVE A WINNER!

Oh, love. Love, love, love. It is such an evasive thing: it teases and temps, it makes us laugh, and cry, desire and fear. Love hurts and surprises, delights and inspires, love angers... and love, well, love is fleeting...But to find that true, lasting love, now that's not easy to come by. Thus, it's with great pleasure to present the winner and runner-up of our first annual Kismet Love Story contest! So, without further ado:


Kismet Love Story
By Heather Dodson

As a senior in college, my final semester brought the joy and anticipation of all that was to come. A career and place of my own incited enthusiasm and hope. Before light even had a chance to peer in my bedroom window, the morning of February 19, 2000, my phone rang. Hearing the news of Dacia's death brought me to sobs and screams; I surrendered to the burber carpet beneath me as my father held me like a baby. All the years I had taken for granted as best friends, kindred spirits as we called it, were gone. No more parties, family get togethers, or cherry pie on Thanksgiving.

Within minutes, I telephoned Pam, Dacia's roommate. Her voice mirrored my angst. Pam and I had met several times and shared cookie dough during a Friday night movie and dinner event. Her younger brother, Eric, had just moved from Maryland, to become part of the Dacia and Pam clan. We had never made one another's acquaintance, as he had only been rooming with Pam and Dacia for just three short weeks. Pam and Eric hadn't had close ties with Dacia's family as I had over the many years of our friendship. I immediately invited them to join the sorrowful group to begin our healing process by inviting them to Dacia's folks' home.

The ride to her parent's house was silent, as we all somehow shared the same thoughts, the same tears. We spent several hours with her family discussing the manner in which her life ended. The details surrounding the case left police disturbed and concerned that the young man she was with at the time of her death purposely ended her life due to her refusal to return to his home with him after their short date.

Several days later, Pam, Eric and I again caravanned to the church where seven hundred people awaited a funeral service to remember our friend, daughter, sister. I spoke my rememberances of her as I stared at her casket with my main goal to hold my tears in until I could grieve privately.

Due to the intensity of the situation, Eric and Pam decided to return home to Maryland permanently so they could also grieve with their family. Her funeral was just one day after my birthday, which was the same night that Eric and Pam planned to leave the state and leave the death behind them. I sat in their empty living room starring at the last few lonely boxes crying over the memories that would never be made there again. It poured hard outside, and the sky was marbled with crooked clouds. Pam and Eric began to load into the van as we said our goodbyes. Although I really didn't know them very well, except for the broken heart we all held a piece of, I begged them not to forget me. Eric looked at me and told me that he could never forget me and he would never leave me.

They say in love, you just know. I just knew. At that moment, I knew he would be my husband, the father of my children, my friend for life. They slowly muddled through the rain and were gone. We emailed for months. Each email saved into a large stack. Little did I know that Eric was also saving his, marked in a binder with all the cards and letters I sent in addition to the emails. Six months later, I paid Pam and Eric a visit in their Maryland home. As I stepped off the noisy plane I knew that I would be moving there someday to marry Eric. During my visit, we were able to share our thoughts and plans, and I relocated within just six weeks of that visit. Less than three years later, surrounded by family and friends, we were married. What began as grief and sorrow is what stitched our hearts together. Since that time, Pam and I have become not only sisters, but the best of friends. Marked on Dacia's grave is the phrase, "God works ALL things for our good." I suppose that it literally was a match made in heaven.


1st Runner up:
Growing up and Growing Old
By Victoria Chavez


As a girl I often played on the 45th block of Alcott. My aunt, uncle and their two children, who were close to my age, lived on that block. It was my home away from home. I made many friends on that block who, surprisingly, still live there. My husband and I also live there now, having bought the house across the street from my aunt and uncle.

Some believe that life is a series of random events. I believe these events are pre-destined, preparing us for what is to come. At the age of 16 I lost my mom suddenly to a brain aneurism. Looking back, I can see that the events leading up to my mother's death provided me with everything I would need to survive this traumatic experience, including the support of my husband. I believe the person I am married to today is the person I was pre-destined to spend my life with. We grew up together and we plan to grow old together.

When I was nine, we often played tag on the 45th block of Alcott. In grade school, I had heard that if a boy always chased you, he usually liked you. In my case, the boy was Daniel. As we got older he found other, more direct ways to tell me he liked me. Like the time I walked out in my brand new pin-striped suit that I saved a few months of allowance for. I felt good in that suit and the looks from Daniel made me feel better. It wasn't long before I received a handwritten note, you know the one......

Do you like ____? If so check __Yes ___No

Of course, I checked yes. I couldn't resist one of the most popular boys in the neighborhood. About a month or so passed and not long before the summer was over, I received another note, this time it read:

I really like you and if you like me, meet me behind the bush. I want to kiss you. Do you want to kiss me? ____Yes ____No I hope to see you there.

Well I knew two things 1) yes I liked him, 2) I knew what bush he was talking about.....the bush located exactly one block from his house and right, smack in my aunt and uncle's front yard! However, I wasn't too sure about the kiss part. I was, after all, only 11 and I had never kissed anyone besides my mom. A couple of days later we met behind that bush and kissed. Lucky for me, I only have to simply step foot onto my front patio and look across the street to that very same bush to once again fall back into the moment when I experienced my 1st kiss.

After that we became good friends . We often joked and teased one another in the awkward way that boys and girls just discovering each other do. It seemed that I was always at my cousins' visiting and I would always see him playing basketball, or hanging out. We rarely saw each other through our middle school years. In fact, for about a year, we didn't speak much at all. And then, one summer afternoon, at the age of 13, I was once again visiting my aunt . As I approached the front porch, my eyes immediately spotted him across the street in the drive way - the same driveway I now park my car in everyday. I wasn't sure if he saw me but I noticed he was every bit as cute as I remembered. He was taller and I'll never forget his long hair that curled ever so loosely. Even my mom commented, "he's cute, I love his hair." I look back now and am at ease knowing, that even back then, I had my mom's approval. Over the next 2 years, Daniel would experience the opportunity to show my mom what an easy going, good spited young man he was. We still celebrate our anniversary the day that we started going steady, August 14, 1994. I was set to enter my freshman year at Holy Family Catholic High School. When we became boyfriend and girlfriend, he and I thought up a plan to convince my mom to let me go to North High School. My mom was pretty easy to convince and a couple of weeks later it was out with the uniforms and hello North High. Daniel and I enrolled in many classes together and hung out at lunch and in the halls. We held hands from class to class. I was happy, taking our daily walks across the street to Subway. Yes, we had occasional disagreements but we seemed to have a strong connection, the type of connection that I would need to help pull me through my life's toughest obstacle, the passing of my mother.

That was really a trying time. I had many family members that were consistently there for me for support. I also had a very young man named Daniel that consistently supported me. Just think, how difficult it would be to spend your teen years with a 16-18 year old girl who has lost her mom and is an emotional mess. I still, to this day, don't know how he managed to put up with my mood swings and never break up with me.

A few months after my mom died and despite much of my family's disapproval, he moved into my mom's house with me. I was, and am, a strong willed individual and he is too. At the time, I just wanted to stay in the home my mom had recently purchased and was so proud of and I wanted to be with Daniel. I felt that if we wanted to be together and we handled the bills and acted responsibly, we should be left alone. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but that's the way it happened. For the next 3 years, we lived in a four bedroom, 2 bath house, we both went to school, worked part-time, and used part of the life insurance and retirement money my mom had left me to make ends meet. It was hard, we were teenagers doing what was viewed by many people as "playing house". After all, we were only 16, and we sometimes felt that way too, but we pushed on and learned to deal with many situations, personal and financial. We had some family and friends waiting for us to fall flat on our face and others that provided us with emotional support.

We've grown since then. After high school, we stayed together and started a family as I attended college and received my teaching certificate. We're now successful, educated adults with 2 bright young daughters and 2 houses, including the one with the driveway where I saw a cute, 13 year old Daniel standing. We also have each other and I have one of my most valued possessions, my unconditional love for the boy I played tag with when I was nine.

Happy Holidays!

Today is Christmas and, as I write, snow is falling outside: I haven't seen a car roll by all day. Kismet is resting; it's had a lot of activity in the last month or so. Among all the madness of just plain ole holiday shopping, we had our second annual Christy Lea Payne trunk show, complete with champagne and Chris Vasquez playing flamenco guitar. We also had some lovely private parties: girls getting together to toast the holidays, catch up, and, of course, do a little holiday shopping. On the last third Thursday of the month we celebrated our first annual 11th hour shopping night where most of the stores got together and stayed open until eleven. Both with the trunk show and the eleventh hour event, we raised money for kids in need. Actually, it sounds too casual when I say "kids in need". What I meant to write was kids who have been SEVERELY abused and neglected. We donated to two organizations, The Family Crisis Center and The Tennyson Center and they both are in our own backyard. Every year, it is our goal to support local schools and/or organizations that help others. It always feels great to give; however, the people work at these places, who care for others day in and day out, personify selflessness.

It give me great pride to provide a landscape for someone to find a treat for themselves or a special gift for someone else. Even though I hope you can find many at Kismet, the perfect gift is hard to come by. That's why I'm highlighting this article I found in the NY times last Sunday. It's worth the read!

Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and thank you so much for your support this year! We look forward to seeing you in 2008!

With gratitude,
Shana Colbin Dunn

The Sweater Only a Mom (and Analyst) Could Love
By MATTHEW WEINER
New York Time, December 23, 2007

Take It in the Spirit Intended I LOVE giving gifts, but let's not pretend: I prefer to receive them. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who is never satisfied and mostly disappointed. It could be because I am an ungrateful jerk with a childish temperament who places too much emphasis on what is essentially a symbolic ritual. Or it could be the media's fault.
As I see it, I am the victim of years of conditioning from movies and commercials. They prepared me for the gaudily wrapped package with its golden bow, the moment of intense expectation charged with mystery climaxing as the tissue crinkles and the prize is revealed. You are overwhelmed, and there are hugs and kisses and sometimes tears.

But the reality is that getting a gift is like being set up on a blind date. Like it or not, your friend or family member is sending you a message telling you in a coded way what they think you want, what you deserve and, on some level, who they think you are.

I'm not talking about business gifts. They are formal and often unexpected. A bottle of wine, a certificate for a massage, and those wonderful electronic trinkets: they are part of a different language. Everyone gets the same thing.

Family is where it breaks down. And my family is big on gifts. Everyone refuses to stop exchanging them, even though we have all declared them a waste of time and money.
A few years ago my parents gave me a crimson suede Nascar jacket. It was covered with sewn-on patches with emblems of Skoal chewing tobacco and Drakkar Noir cologne. On the back was a huge Budweiser insignia. I stared at it in awe, a fake smile pasted on my face, trying to determine if it was a joke.

As I slowly realized this was not an attempt at kitsch, I tried to avoid eye contact with my wife, who was astounded by its redness.

I hated myself for my feelings. It was just some stupid present. But I couldn't quiet the voice in my head screaming, "You have no idea who I am!" Then it dawned on me that almost 20 years before, I had briefly been given the nickname of "Budweiser" by my sister. That explained the gigantic word "Bud" on the back in gold script. The gift had come from a sentimental place.
I felt so deeply awful, so guilty, that each Halloween, with the addition of a mullet wig and some hillbilly teeth, I try to become the person for whom the jacket was intended.

My brother thought I was being oversensitive. That was before he received a Ralph Lauren crew-neck sweater in a ritzy box from Nordstrom. It was Day-Glo orange, which may be some people's favorite color, but my brother is a big guy and he thought it made him look like a prehistoric Creamsicle. O.K., maybe I said that.

Anyway, he decided that he would return it. "That's what adults do," he said. "They don't take it as a measure of their self-worth."

Hanukkah had come late that year, and now it was right after the New Year. He and I were headed to the San Fernando Valley to go golfing, so we stopped at the Fashion Square mall and went into Nordstrom to take advantage of its courteous and liberal return policy. But we were told that, despite the box, the sweater was not Nordstrom merchandise. Perhaps we should try Bloomingdale's right across the food court.

Bloomingdale's was also courteous, but unfortunately the orange crew-neck sweater was not part of its Chaps collection.

I figured that it was probably from Marshalls and had been placed in that Nordstrom box to hide the bargain. We went to Marshalls. Not theirs. Marshalls suggested we try T. J. Maxx right across the parking lot. We did. Not theirs.

We drove toward the golf course and it hit me that it was probably from Ross. It was the only place left and, as a Ross enthusiast, I knew there was one nearby. We went to the sales counter where the overwhelmed clerk grabbed the sweater and appraised it.

"Not your merchandise?" I asked in a leading way.

"No," he said, "It's ours. Just a minute." He disappeared and came back with a tag gun and shot a price through the sweater. He handed it back and leaned on the cash register. "It's $1."
I explained to him that it had been bought before Christmas and that whatever price it was now reduced to should be recalibrated. He explained to my brother, who was now looking at the sweater with some kind of awe, that this was last year's merchandise and that it had been at that price for some time. We stood there in silence. The clerk then asked, "Would you like the dollar?"

"Just give me the sweater," my brother said, angrily grabbing it back.

We walked out to the car and started driving. I turned to him and quietly said, "Mom spent $1 on you."

We did not go golfing.

The problem with gifts is the expectation - the truth is that one good experience can ruin you for life. For me it was two years into my marriage. I had graduated from film school and was living without a job, writing every day (or at least saying I was) and being supported by my wife's starting architect salary and a small stipend from her mom.

My birthday came, and the gift I wanted was to be shot in the back of the head while I slept - to be mercifully put out of my misery before I gained any more weight or finished the extremely depressing movie I was writing.

My wife handed me a large, very heavy flat box. Inside was a silver Zero Halliburton briefcase.
Now, if you missed the '80s, let me explain what this was. It was the ultimate briefcase. It was the one you saw in the movies, carried by Feds, moguls, guys in sports cars, drug dealers. It was the kind that was filled with rows of hundreds and then handcuffed to somebody's wrist. I had admired one in a window at the mall. My wife had clocked that and delivered. It cost $300. Our rent was $800 a month.

It was so extravagant, so ridiculous, so desired. I was speechless. My wife knew what I wanted. I wanted to feel successful. I wanted to go somewhere everyday with my papers in that gleaming hand-held Learjet.

When I saw that gift, I knew that no matter what I felt like, she somehow saw me as the kind of person who carried that thing. She somehow saw me as a success. And yes, there were hugs and kisses and tears.


Matthew Weiner is the creator and the executive producer of the AMC television series "Mad Men," and was an executive producer on "The Sopranos."