{"id":1074,"date":"2011-03-31T23:00:13","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T04:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.verastic.com\/?p=1074"},"modified":"2013-04-02T09:04:37","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T13:04:37","slug":"mr-shoes-and-i-our-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/vl\/mr-shoes-and-i-our-story.html","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Shoes And I: Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been asked several times about how Mr. Shoes and I met. Until now, I have concealed that information, and by the time you’re done reading, you’ll understand why I have kept that information hidden. Why am I sharing the information now? Honestly, I don’t know. Perhaps, it has something to do with my very good mood. I did, after all, just buy myself a new shirt today.<\/p>\n

You may or may not have heard me mention that I used<\/em> to attend a Catholic church. I don’t remember if I have written it on my blog, but I have definitely mentioned it several times on the show. I used to attend St. Luke’s Catholic Church here in Maryland where Mr. Shoes (real name: Ike<\/em><\/strong>) was a new priest. We (my family and I) had just started attending St. Luke’s church because it was a recent discovery (and because it was closer to us, too). For some reason, we always thought it was an Anglican church.<\/p>\n

I didn’t care for the church really, but mom in her usual way, went above and beyond to familiarize herself with the people of the church, and when she found out that there was a Nigerian priest there, she could not be stopped. She would invite him over to our house for lunch on Sundays; he’d stop over on his way from church during the week; and whenever he was hungry, you know where he came to: our house. It continued this way until Father Ike was transferred to Saint Mary’s Parish in Chicago.<\/p>\n

All this time, the entire communication between Father Ike and my family was pretty much between him and my mom. My conversation with him was always ‘Hi’<\/em> and ‘Bye’<\/em> — until the day mom got promoted at work and decided to have a little<\/em> reception that was anything but little. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was at a rented venue instead of our house. The place was overcrowded with Nigerian people that were screaming on top of their lungs about politics, men, God, food, beer, children, and everything in between. I went outside to sit on the steps, take some fresh air in, and make a few calls. Father Ike came and sat with me. We ended up talking for hours. I didn’t even need to make one single call. That was in January 2009.<\/p>\n

Unknown to me, Father Ike had been reading my blog. I had put up a write-up – Dear Saint Valentine<\/a><\/strong> – before Valentine’s Day. On Valentine’s Day, Father Ike showed up at my house with a bag of starbursts, a box of chocolates, and a singing card. He did not look like the Father Ike I was used to seeing. He looked like a man – like a man that was not a priest, like a man that was not a priest and was also available. He told me about some things that happened, which made him hang up his priestly robe (personal things that I cannot reveal on this blog). At the time, I did not know he had a thing for me. I think I kinda sorta know now *INSERT WIDE IGBO GRIN*<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, that’s how we started. Well, we didn’t start just like that. It took several months of begging, convincing, and possibly, prayer and fasting. You can imagine my hesitation. My mother, on the other hand, was not surprised. She said she always knew he liked me. Mothers!<\/em> She could have at least pretended to not like the idea. She just seemed so happy to have him become a prospective son-in-law.<\/p>\n

Unlike last year and the year before, I will not ask that you slap yourself for believing the preceeding story. \u00a0But if you can just send me a bottle of perfume, I’ll be fine. Happy April Fool’s Day. Who am I kidding? Slap yourself jooor. I, Vera Ezimora, in love with a priest? Maka why? What does he have that other men don’t have? Wait, Mr. Shoes … as a priest? Psshtt!<\/em> That would be the day. I will become a\u00a0Buddhist\u00a0the day he becomes a Catholic priest.<\/p>\n

But Happy Valentine’s Day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did I fool you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been asked several times about how Mr. Shoes and I met. Until now, I have concealed that information, and by the time you’re done reading, you’ll understand why I have kept that information hidden. Why am I sharing the information now? Honestly, I don’t know. Perhaps, it has something to do with myRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_14738191_14738191":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[710,19,226],"class_list":["post-1074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-vl","tag-april-fool","tag-love","tag-relationships","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMr. Shoes And I: Our Story - Verastic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/vl\/mr-shoes-and-i-our-story.html\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Vera Ezimora\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/vl\/mr-shoes-and-i-our-story.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/vl\/mr-shoes-and-i-our-story.html\",\"name\":\"Mr. Shoes And I: Our Story - Verastic\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-01T04:00:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-02T13:04:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/2c1b7969fbea03a45b97d54a5228cc1a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/vl\/mr-shoes-and-i-our-story.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/vl\/mr-shoes-and-i-our-story.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/vl\/mr-shoes-and-i-our-story.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mr. Shoes And I: Our Story\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/\",\"name\":\"Verastic\",\"description\":\"Recklessly authentic.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/2c1b7969fbea03a45b97d54a5228cc1a\",\"name\":\"Vera Ezimora\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6c1e19c23a08351aab97f35d3ca650f0b87e7e96937f85baf0faf6e0834bc51?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6c1e19c23a08351aab97f35d3ca650f0b87e7e96937f85baf0faf6e0834bc51?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Vera Ezimora\"},\"description\":\"I mean, I'm a lot of things - a Writer, Blogger, Speaker, Vlogger, Content Creator, Storyteller, Truth-Sayer, Milk-Lover, Yogurt-Addict, Entrepreneur, Daughter, Wife, Mom, & Nwa Jesu. 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