Okay, So it's not May anymore. I'm sorry. It's definitely poor form on my part. Oh well, what're you going to do? PS. I love Al Green.
Maybe stop reading. I could understand that. Well, if you are still reading, then consider this May's entry, and I'll figure something better out for June. Who knows, maybe it won't be better in June.
In any case, I was supposed to tell you all about how Helga and I got engaged. Since it's been 2 months now, I'm sure anybody who is reading this, already knows. However, if you don't already know, then allow me the pleasure of pretending to have an ironclad memory and recounting even the mundane details for you.
Once upon a time, two law students were put together in the same doctrinal section (law school speak for "class"). Oh, right, we've covered most of the first year and a half. So beginning in November 2010, Helga started working on an article for her journal, a.k.a. her "comment." This thing was a monster and took up a significant amount of time and research for her, not to mention energy and brain power. In any case, this monstrous commitment was to end on March 27th, the comment's due date.
While she was going through this process, I was going through my own process: I had decided that Helga was the person whom I wanted to share the rest of my life with, and so was going to ask her to marry me. I needed a ring, and a plan.
Well, my initial plan was to wait for our August road trip along the west coast. We are going to try different wineries and just generally take our time. It should be very exciting. In any case, planning on asking then would give me lots of time...then it was simply a matter of finding the ring. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, a simple band, a simple (and small) stone, and something that looked simply amazing. Well, I found a couple of nice things online and thought that I would stop by the jewelers to check them out: you know, make sure that there were everything i had hoped for. Even having found the ring, getting it was another story. Apparently metal, gems, and putting it all together costs money. A. Lot. Of. Money. Well, I'm on a bit of a budget, what with the whole law school thing and all--so i asked the folks for help.
Well, there was some chance for borrowing, and some other ideas. Amongst the other ideas, the best was definitely the offer of a an engagement ring, that I could have. This ring came from my godfather, and was his late wife's ring (a.k.a. my godmother's ring/an important family memento). So, at first I wasn't sure about it. It was bigger and grander than anything that I had been looking at--but realized how important it is and how nice it would be to keep a ring in the family. So I was very thankful and graciously accepted the ring to offer to Helga. Now I had a ring but the plan seemed so far away. Here it is March, and I'm going to wait until August to ask her? Ugh. That sounds like forever and a day away right now.
So. Helga's working on her comment: it's turning into a 120 page article! Me? I can barely READ 120 pages, much less write them. Well, as impatient as I was growing, i couldn't interrupt this process. But I was growing impatient. So, I decided to go ahead and ask her the night her comment was due. So I asked her to an event, there was a cherry blossom ranger-led lantern walk around the tidal basin for that night. It started at 8 and her comment was due at 8. We'd be cutting it close, but it seemed cool. So I asked her if she would be able to finish a little early and give us some time to get down and go on this nice cherry blossom festival event dealie. She said she could probably finish a little early, and turn it in and everything. So I was pretty excited. This excitement then turned to anxiousness and concern that a walk wouldn't be enough. So I asked her to dinner, to our favorite 'us' restaurant, Le Chat Noir (translated: the black cat). She wasn't sure if she would have time, so we decided that it would be a wait and see sort of plan (for dinner).
Helga finished on Saturday, March 26th. She's a hard worker. In any case, we had time for dinner and for our stroll around the tidal basin. It was a very nice dinner. We had some fancy delicious stuff--yeah, it was french. She was still pretty exhausted from her comment writing (which means i was really glad that she finished on saturday, 'cause she would not have been excited if she had just finished that sunday). In any case, we were having a lovely time at dinner, and then made our way down to the tidal basin via metro.
The ranger-led cherry blossom walk was up next. Simple enough plan: walk around, listen to the ranger, admire the cherry blossoms, at the end of the walk, find a nice place, then...then...uh...ask her to marry me. Simple plan. Right? Sure.
As we're walking around listening to the ranger. I don't remember her name, but she was very knowledgeable. She knew tons about the DC cherry blossoms. She knew their history, she knew their biology, she knew their everything-that-I've-already-forgotten. So we were listening and walking and everything else. The ranger would stop and talk. While we were walking along, between stop-and-talks, I started to tell Helga my own story about growing up, about living in California, living in France, living in Japan, living in Oregon, and living in DC. I told her about a lot about traveling and looking around and finally....finally the cherry blossom tour was over. I wasn't done yet though. I did have a little bit of story left. I still had to get to DC, and find Helga in my story. So we stopped and found a bench. It was freezing. Okay, not freezing, but easily 40 or below. I was shivering from the cold and from nerves. As we were sitting on the bench, me telling her the story, her thinking that we were in danger seeing that it was 10:30, we were alone, and it was definitely dark and cold out. Well, I finished my story: while telling her that I'd finally found what I'd been searching for all across the world, I got down one one knee, and pulled the ring out of my pocket. Then I asked her to marry me (though I'm pretty sure she saw it coming for about the previous 5 hours). She very happily and excitedly said yes.
I couldn't be happier about it.
Thank you my love.
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