Sunday, Dec. 07, 2003 8:53 am

Engaged

This may be a two entry day. Not that I have anything at all to say, but this is my "entry so that I don't miss a day and forget to write" entry and there might actually be something interesting later today to write about.

I am up early again this morning because I had company last night. Perfect C, who lives in California with her work most of the time, but has a house in Blanco and comes back to check on it for quick weekends from time to time, was in town. We had a great visit. The nicest part was that we didn't go out to eat, or out to see music, or out for anything. We just came to the house after I was on the air and sat and visited for a few hours, I made us a barbeque sandwich and we shared our lives a bit.

I admire Perfect C for many things. She is certainly not perfect. I gave her that moniker when I first met her and got that impression from her beauty, charm, personality. She's got a lot, but she's got problems like anyone. It is refreshing to be around someone like that and know that beauty and thinness do not equal happiness (yes, yes, but I'd love to try).

She had an early flight this morning so I got up to make her some coffee and get her off on her trip back to California. She is hoping to be laid off this week and be able to return to Texas for a long while. She has a new boyfriend out there and she's let him know that she's been out there too long and never intended to make California her home, so if he wants to continue the relationship, he can commute for a while. I admire her lack of neediness. Let's see, levels of beauty, thinness, neediness.... how different can two girls be?

All week I was thinking about December 7 and, of course, Pearl Harbor kept coming to mind. But something kept nagging at me. Yesterday, if finally hit me. We got engaged 11 years ago tonight. Well, I got an engagement ring 11 years ago tonight. We were engaged from 7 days after we met back in June.

I don't have a real hearts and flowers story of the engagement ring process. It was cold and wet that day. I was a traffic reporter back in those days and my days began at 5:30 and ended at 7 pm with a big gap in the middle where I usually tried to nap. That day I was feeling lousy and a cold was coming on or was already there. I came home from work to Mark's house. I came in and said I was going to bed, I was too sick to do anything. A bright-eyed, manic Mark said, "NO! Let's go out to dinner! I want to go out! There's this great place I've been wanting to take you." I knew he had the ring. He had to. Bad thing about having a brother-in-law be your jeweler: We ordered the rings, he got them done for us. Any other jeweler in the world and any other customer for him, he would call the groom to let him know the rings were ready. But not us. When he couldn't get Mark on the phone, he called to let me know the rings were ready. My sister chewed him out good for that. But I didn't know for sure Mark had the ring, but this seemed like a good indication. He was so up and excited I couldn't say no. So we went to this nice small Italian restaurant somewhere in North Dallas. I was feeling SO sick I just wanted to be home in bed. Late into the meal Mark finally had the ring in his hand, or the box, I am so fuzzy on the details (remember, I was medicated). There was no down-on-one-knee or flowery speech. There was no words at all because Mark was all teary and choked up and verklempt. I said, "Is there something you want to ask me?" I don't think he ever did ask me to marry him. I think he just blindly thrust the ring across the table and I gave a yes to the non-question.

Miraculously, I did feel better once I had the ring. Instead of going straight home, we went to show it off. We visited friends of mine at their home to show it off and then we went to the neighbor lady across the street from Mark's mom to show her. She was such a sweetheart and was so excited for us. I can't remember if I had ever even met her before that night.

Finally, we went home, I slept the happy sleep of the drugged and the engaged.

Before || After
Older Entries
Book Club - Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014
A Good Saturday Ahead - Saturday, Jan. 18, 2014
Back to Work - Monday, Jan. 06, 2014
The New Year Arrives - Wednesday, Jan. 01, 2014
Engaged - Monday, Dec. 30, 2013
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