The Question -- Before & After The Ring

Moments before... she has NO IDEA, just wondering why the tripod is so dang important




How unfair of me, and no way to start up a blog! I tease with a picture of my engagement and then wait 6 weeks to give more information. See below:

The Engagement

I was planning on proposing the Saturday after Valentines Day at the beach -- there's a hidden trail past the rock wall on the Manzanita Overlook that takes you down to an isolated outcropping hanging over the ocean, and I always thought I'd do it there. But we had a birthday party for a friend's son that day, so I opted for a very very good alternative -- The Gorge.

Much went into the picture you see below. First, I spent the night before timing at what "beep" on the camera's timer I needed to kneel, open the box, ask Jessica to marry me and get a reaction when the camera snips its pic. I practiced this about 20 times and determined that the 12th beep was the one I needed to kneel on. This would no doubt have been hilarious to observe, as I knelt time after time practicing. Yes, I am a card-carrying dork.

I had gone to the Shane Company the week before to get the ring (yes, I guess all those nasally radio ads worked somehow) and picked out a nice Princess Cut diamond. It's very nerve-racking to go into a jewelry store for the first time without any experience. I actually went in the first time the Saturday before Valentines' Day, which was perfect since it was so busy I could walk around without any questions and view diamonds to my heart's content (which was about 20 minutes -- they start to look the same at that point).

Finally, the day came. Jess told me the week before she wanted to take some pictures in cool places in Oregon with my camera during our trip, which was my perfect cover. We headed out for the Gorge, with Jessica happily snapping pictures with her new camera, totally unaware of what I was about to do. I attempted to smile and play along, but my heart was POUNDING in my chest. She did notice my sweaty palms when we held hands, but that was it.

Finally we get to the Women's Forum Park up on the old Columbia River Highway, which was my targeted site. Immediately upon arriving I saw two problems:

1. There were TONS of people. It was a beautiful Saturday on a three-day weekend, and normally I wouldn't care but at that moment I hated every one of those people. I wanted them to either drive off at that moment or run like lemmings off the cliff.

2. I tried setting up the tripod, and no matter how I tried the camera WOULD NOT FIT in the tripod. I was getting quite frustrated, which Jessica could see but had no idea WHY I cared so much about getting the tripod set up. Why not ask one of the hundreds of people there to take the picture? Well, that would just about be the worst thing in the world if you ask me so I kept trying to fit the square peg in the round hole until my lovely future wife discovered the right plate in the camera bag. It WORKED! Yes!

So I set up the tripod and waited (and waited, and waited) until the crowd thinned out a bit at our overlook. Suddenly there was only one other photographer, visibly entranced by the location and oblivious to us. In one motion, I set the timer, ran over by Jessica, and kneeled exactly at the 12th "beep." I asked her to marry me, she put her hand by her mouth, and I heard the camera click.

At that point, a part of me already felt victory. I mean, I had somehow pulled off an amazing picture that would be legendary forever in my mind. Now, whether it was a GOOD legendary or TRAIN-WRECK legendary depended upon her answer -- which was "Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh..." This was OK, since she had not said "NO" yet, but with each "oh my gosh" I felt like my chances of a "YES" were slowly dwindling... sort of a movement from a shocked "oh my gosh" to a panicked "how do I get out of here, could I perhaps hitch-hike back to Los Angeles immediately oh my gosh."

Finally, Jessica picked her jaw up and gave me a firm YES. We then kissed and walked over to a stone bench by the camera (By the way, as you can see Pixie is ignoring us the entire time probably fixated on a distant squirrel). We hugged and kissed and talked some more, until I realized I hadn't put the ring on. DUH!

It was at that point that people began to realize that we had just gotten engaged and congratulated us. I don't remember what they said, except I think one old man told me in some sequence of words and in some Eastern European dialect that I picked a hot one. I think I thanked him for his kindness as he waddled back to his own wife, who I'm sure appreciated his sentiment about another much younger woman.

Our lives since that romantic Q&A session have been a whirlwind of wedding planning, moving (Jess still lives in another state, but it's Camas and not LA), and realizing every day how happy we are.

More to come on the wedding...