| One for the record books |
[May. 23rd, 2009|11:54 pm] |
I know I don't blog much these days, but it's not for want of bloggable events. Mostly, though, my life has been a riot of Battlestar Galactica, adoring my two dumb cats, biking in the sunshine (I bike to the office now a couple of days a week!), baking bread, reading books, doing lots and lots of graphic design work as a freelancer, and loving Mike.
On that last point, though, there's something so noteworthy that I've just gotta say it, gotta get it down here so I can look at it again when I'm old and grey.
It's no secret that Mike and I were intending to get married. That is, he and I have spoken regularly about how we know we are IT for one another, and even spoken about who'd do the asking. On that last point, my mom is the one who proposed to my Papa, which I've always really liked. When I mentioned to Mike that I'd been brainstorming awesome ways to propose to him, he appreciated the sentiment but I could tell that he really really wanted to be the one to ask. As in, he said, "I really really want to be the one to ask." Not one to muscle my way out of being on the receiving end of a romantic gesture, I shut the hell up.
So we've talked intermittently about all this stuff. Our future, our wedding, our kids, all that good stuff. I remember once that I had several friends who worked for the Shane Co., a Seattle-area jeweler, and they had a return policy for engagement rings. As in, they'd give you your money back if she said no. When I heard this, I couldn't help but be horrified that some poor fella would propose when he didn't actually know that the answer was going to be yes. OF COURSE you should know the answer! And boy, we knew.
In one discussion we talked about engagement rings, and I'm fortunate in that Mike and I are very much on the same page about them. While I love sparkles (OH YES I LOVE SPARKLES), I also love practicality. I do not want, nor have I ever wanted, some solitaire that stands high enough to catch on my jeans pockets with prongs to snag on my knitting. I'm not a diamond kind of girl. My mom wasn't, and I'm not. I like color and originality and I very, very firmly value sensibility over extravagance. It does not make sense to me to go in hock for something like this -- particularly in our case, living in an expensive city where we will be paying for our own wedding. Why carry around so much money on my hand, when that money could do so many other fantastic and wonderful things? Above anything, the purpose of the ring is not to dazzle, not to prove the intensity of love measured in dollars and cents, but to act as a pledge, a symbol of intent and and love and hope.
I'm saying all this because even though Mike knows me, he still ran into people (lots of people, lots of people who we count as good friends) who projected their own "stuff" into the discussion and tried to convince him that, no matter what I said, what I really MEANT was that I wanted a big sparkling diamond. That I ended up with a ring so perfect is further proof that I've found myself a trusting man who knows my heart, despite outside pressures.
So, I had a shit day at work on Friday. The work itself was fine, but interpersonal relations were...strained, despite the inaugural celebration of Frozen Novelty Friday (this Friday: vanilla and strawberry ice creams, fresh rhubarb sauce, a variety of nuts, coconut, sprinkles, etc.). I was not in a great mood when I got home, but I'd promised Mike a post-work bike ride, so I unloaded my grumps while we cuddled before changing into shorts and hitting the road. He wanted to take us slightly off our usual path so we could visit the Irish Hunger Memorial, a beautiful hunk of rock covered in native Irish grasses and wildflowers (also, the site of our first kiss -- AWWWW). We walked to the top and he said, "I have something I've been meaning to give you a while."
Now, I'm an emotional lady, but I know it, so sometimes I can effectively prevent myself from jumping the gun. I'm glad I did, because he whipped out my favorite ring, a beautiful silver ring Ruth had given me before I left Seattle -- one I'd lost about two months ago, much to my great dismay. He is a wily trickster, and I told him so ("that's like getting down on one knee, telling me there's something you've really been meaning to do...and then tying my shoe"), but I was very glad to have my old ring back. I love that freaking ring. It's the perfect ring.
We biked along the water, marveling at the cool air. It was totally dark by the time we made it to Shake Shack on the UWS, and there was some juggling to find a good place to lock up our bikes, and then the line moved more slowly than usual, and then the bag handle broke so we had to carry a sweaty paper bag by the base while finagling our bikes...but we finally got a chance to eat dinner around 9:30pm. We sat on a bench outside of Central Park and ate our meals (he, a double Shack burger and fries, me a Shack-ago dog and cheese fries). Into the park we went, around the southern end and up to try to make our way to Shakespeare Garden. Ostensibly Mike had wanted to see the fireflies, but it was quite dark by the time we arrived. So dark, in fact, that after dragging our bikes up a bunch of stairs, we found ourselves severely sketched out by the dim shadows. "This is creepy," he said. "Let's go. Where should we go next?"
"I don't know. Home?" I said, looking at my watch. It was after ten, surely time to call our ride quits. Instead, he wanted to stop at a pier on the water to relax a while. Ugh, FINE. So off we biked, back through the park, across town, and down to the bike path. We pulled off around 66th Street where there's a tiny pier -- not even a proper pier, really, more of an outcropping -- with some benches. We sat for a minute. I drank some water and took off my helmet, leaving my cycling gloves on.
Before I knew what was happening, Mike was giving a little speech. It's hard to remember it all exactly, and it's certainly not necessary to write it all down here, but I'm sure you'll trust me when I say it was sweet and heartfelt and I surely agreed when he said that he knew I was the one he wanted to marry remarkably shortly after meeting me. He snatched a box out of his bike bag, got down on a knee, and asked me to marry him.
I tend to react to exciting and wonderful things that are slightly overwhelming...with hysterical laughter, so unlike some brides who weep delicately or swoon or get all moon-faced, I started giggling like a maniac and clapping my hands. I had to rip off my bike gloves to allow him to slip on the ring, which made me laugh even harder. And then I thought about that part in Singles where Steve proposes to Linda when they're walking through Gasworks and she says, "Don't make me remember this chili dog forever!" and he says, "Make that an historic chili dog!" Oh, hot dogs. You are around during all kinds of important things.
Of course, then I demanded details. On March 23, my Papa's birthday, he'd e-mailed, saying something like, "I'm sure you know what's coming, but I'd like to talk to you on the phone soon. When is a good time?" Papa immediately wrote back, saying, "I'M HOME RIGHT NOW!" Hahahaha. He then spent the next several months conspiring with Ruth (the maker of my favorite ring), drafting a couple of ideas until I lost my favorite ring and he knew that this had to be it. Ruth then made this little baby by hand, and it's perfect. It's perfectly perfect in every way. It's white gold (I'm not a gold-gold girl, and platinum would have to be cast which would've meant Ruth would've had to send it out; with white gold, she could do it all herself) set with three rich blue sapphires.
Only after looking at it this evening did I realize that, in a small way, it resembles my mother's wedding ring, which was a very thin band with three (vertically aligned) tiny pearls. Each little bubble of metal on my ring is about the size of one of those pearls. Sadly, I don't have a photograph of her ring and the original was stolen from my childhood home several years ago, but now that I noticed the similarity I will never forget it.
Anyway, after demanding details, I called my Papa and he was congratulatory and hilarious. We snapped a quick photo of the two of us (for the Internets -- that's the way I roll) before biking home to call a couple more people (a few West coasters we knew would still be up). On the ride home, I totally nerded it up and pulled a Battlestar Galactica by shouting, "HEATHER CHOU LOVES MIKE LASTNAME!" and Mike responded in kind. Then I goofed upon telling anyone and everything that we passed that we were engaged. "Hey slow walkers, we're engaged." "Hey ballers, we're engaged, yo." "Hey neon clock, we're engaged." "Hey Hustler Club, we're engaged." Like that.
This morning, after sleeping in, we wound up at Balthazar for a celebratory brunch. Though we were originally told we'd have an extensive wait, we were seated in five minutes and enjoyed the first of many brunches as a couple of crazy kids who are, without question, to be wed.
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