Tuesday, July 19, 2005
The Engagement
Our engagement will always be fondly remembered as involving scalded feet, the fog of early morning grogginess, and the city dump.
It all began after work Friday, at a barbeque with some of Mary's co-workers. I joined a game of 2-on-2 basketball on the white concrete driveway at about 4 pm, in the bright sunshine. The other guys playing were wearing flip-flops, so I felt it would be an unfair advantage to wear my tennis shoes (even though we told each other "Of course we'll play half-speed," what four guys will really compete at half speed when keeping score and playing in front of even one onlooker?). Notwithstanding the 104 degrees heat (admittedly, with the slight breeze, it felt more like 103), I decided it would be more fair to take off my tennies and play bare-foot. The pavement felt hot. Really hot. But I thought it would be fine. What an idiot. Seven minutes later, I called a time out and took a look at my feet. It turns out the pavement was more than just hot--it was rough. The bottoms of my feet were covered with nasty, silver dollar-sized blisters. I was barely able to limp to the car, and I had trouble walking around the next day. It felt like my feet were on fire with every step. At least the pain distracted me so much I didn't die of shame.
Now, originally, I planned to propose at the beach. I scheduled the day to correspond with her birthday so she wouldn't be suspicious when I made plans to go to dinner in San Francisco and stay there that night. We planned to go to beach on Saturday, spend the night in S.F., and return to Sacramento on Sunday for her birthday party (her parents and Matt were coming up and we'd all go kayaking with Shoddisonsie [Shelley-Todd-Madison-Cassie] and Dad). But on Friday night, we gradually became stressed with the logistics of getting to the beach, then to S.F. for dinner, not to mention the complication that the truck was full of brambles that needed to be taken to the dump sometime before the kayaking trip ... Considering the logistics and my idiojury (idiot-injury) of scalded feet, we opted to forgo the beach.
So I had to find a new plan. As Dad's fortune cookie said, "It's not the plan, it's the planning." None of us know what that means, but I think it belongs in this story at this point. I decided I would ask her in bed, first thing in the morning. That night we stayed up late (we tried to get Mary the new Harry Potter book at midnight when it went on sale, but we would have had to wait until 2:30am ... it was still cool to see all the really really happy kids with their brand new books).
I woke up at 6am, excited and ready to propose. But because we went to sleep so late, I figured I would generously let Mary sleep in until 7am. Okay, 7:30. So I lay there, unable to sleep, for a looooonggg time, trying to will Mary to wake up so I wouldn't feel bad depriving her of sleep. Then I looked at the clock. 6:03. This would be tough. It would get worse.
At 7:30, I sneaked down and got the ring in its box and came back to bed. I surrepticiously slipped the ring into the bed between us. My plan was for her to discover it and be surprised. I lay there, waiting for her to feel the ring box, heart thumping with anticipation, pulse racing, sweat on my brow. I lay there. For another hour! She sleapt like a rock, never rolling over! Of course I couldn't go back to sleep at that point. So I waited.
Finally at 8:30 am, she got up to go to the bathroom, and I put the ring box on her side of the bed where she would be unable to avoid it. Now, we had stayed up late, she was tired and sleepy, it was already hot in the room, the bathroom smelled bad because we hadn't taken out the trash in awhile ... So when she came back to bed, she just wanted to sleep. Without her glasses on, she bumped the ring box and thought it was a kleenex pack or something. She pushed it out of the way and said, "What is that." (translation: move that, I'm going to sleep). But I said, "Maybe you should put on your glasses and look at it." So she did. And then all was good and happy. She had had no idea at all. She was very surprised, and even more surprised to find out that most of the fam knew already and was eagerly waiting the news that I had finally done it. And she said yes. Yay!
After talking for awhile and calling a few family units, we drove down to the mall with brambles flying out of the truck and bought Harry Potter (it took 4 minutes, and there was no line at all ...). Then we went to the city dump, where two foul-mouthed ruffians helped us celebrate our engagement by unloading a truckful of branches in the dusty heat.
That night we had a great dinner in San Francisco and stayed at the Westin St. Francis with a view on Union Square. I had to limp around the city on account of my scalded feet. We ate Cheesecake Factory cheesecake in the room and watched What About Bob on tv. At the end of the day, I'm left with two thoughts: We're perfect for each other, and my feet hurt.
It all began after work Friday, at a barbeque with some of Mary's co-workers. I joined a game of 2-on-2 basketball on the white concrete driveway at about 4 pm, in the bright sunshine. The other guys playing were wearing flip-flops, so I felt it would be an unfair advantage to wear my tennis shoes (even though we told each other "Of course we'll play half-speed," what four guys will really compete at half speed when keeping score and playing in front of even one onlooker?). Notwithstanding the 104 degrees heat (admittedly, with the slight breeze, it felt more like 103), I decided it would be more fair to take off my tennies and play bare-foot. The pavement felt hot. Really hot. But I thought it would be fine. What an idiot. Seven minutes later, I called a time out and took a look at my feet. It turns out the pavement was more than just hot--it was rough. The bottoms of my feet were covered with nasty, silver dollar-sized blisters. I was barely able to limp to the car, and I had trouble walking around the next day. It felt like my feet were on fire with every step. At least the pain distracted me so much I didn't die of shame.
Now, originally, I planned to propose at the beach. I scheduled the day to correspond with her birthday so she wouldn't be suspicious when I made plans to go to dinner in San Francisco and stay there that night. We planned to go to beach on Saturday, spend the night in S.F., and return to Sacramento on Sunday for her birthday party (her parents and Matt were coming up and we'd all go kayaking with Shoddisonsie [Shelley-Todd-Madison-Cassie] and Dad). But on Friday night, we gradually became stressed with the logistics of getting to the beach, then to S.F. for dinner, not to mention the complication that the truck was full of brambles that needed to be taken to the dump sometime before the kayaking trip ... Considering the logistics and my idiojury (idiot-injury) of scalded feet, we opted to forgo the beach.
So I had to find a new plan. As Dad's fortune cookie said, "It's not the plan, it's the planning." None of us know what that means, but I think it belongs in this story at this point. I decided I would ask her in bed, first thing in the morning. That night we stayed up late (we tried to get Mary the new Harry Potter book at midnight when it went on sale, but we would have had to wait until 2:30am ... it was still cool to see all the really really happy kids with their brand new books).
I woke up at 6am, excited and ready to propose. But because we went to sleep so late, I figured I would generously let Mary sleep in until 7am. Okay, 7:30. So I lay there, unable to sleep, for a looooonggg time, trying to will Mary to wake up so I wouldn't feel bad depriving her of sleep. Then I looked at the clock. 6:03. This would be tough. It would get worse.
At 7:30, I sneaked down and got the ring in its box and came back to bed. I surrepticiously slipped the ring into the bed between us. My plan was for her to discover it and be surprised. I lay there, waiting for her to feel the ring box, heart thumping with anticipation, pulse racing, sweat on my brow. I lay there. For another hour! She sleapt like a rock, never rolling over! Of course I couldn't go back to sleep at that point. So I waited.
Finally at 8:30 am, she got up to go to the bathroom, and I put the ring box on her side of the bed where she would be unable to avoid it. Now, we had stayed up late, she was tired and sleepy, it was already hot in the room, the bathroom smelled bad because we hadn't taken out the trash in awhile ... So when she came back to bed, she just wanted to sleep. Without her glasses on, she bumped the ring box and thought it was a kleenex pack or something. She pushed it out of the way and said, "What is that." (translation: move that, I'm going to sleep). But I said, "Maybe you should put on your glasses and look at it." So she did. And then all was good and happy. She had had no idea at all. She was very surprised, and even more surprised to find out that most of the fam knew already and was eagerly waiting the news that I had finally done it. And she said yes. Yay!
After talking for awhile and calling a few family units, we drove down to the mall with brambles flying out of the truck and bought Harry Potter (it took 4 minutes, and there was no line at all ...). Then we went to the city dump, where two foul-mouthed ruffians helped us celebrate our engagement by unloading a truckful of branches in the dusty heat.
That night we had a great dinner in San Francisco and stayed at the Westin St. Francis with a view on Union Square. I had to limp around the city on account of my scalded feet. We ate Cheesecake Factory cheesecake in the room and watched What About Bob on tv. At the end of the day, I'm left with two thoughts: We're perfect for each other, and my feet hurt.
# posted by eric @ 6:33 PM 
