An Open Letter To Those I May Have Wronged

To Whom It May Concern,

Hi! Micah Hart here. You may remember me from such discussions as, "You are having your wedding during football season? What is wrong with you!" and "It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever get married on a weekend when Texas is playing!"

Guess what? All those times I was giving you grief about making me miss important sporting events for your wedding...I was totally kidding. Honest! I never meant anything by it.

That reminds me - on a completely, entirely unrelated in all ways shapes and forms note, Hilary and I have set a tentative date for our wedding.

When is it you ask? Oh, you don't care for those trivial details. Just know that it will be a lovely ceremony held in front of our family and friends. We've even secured the services of a rabbi, who we are very excited abo-

I'm sorry? You really want to know the date? Jeez, awfully nosy, aren't you? Fine. But consider this first. What exactly constitutes a "date"? Aren't days, hours, minutes, etc, all devices that exist only in the human construct and not in nature? Isn't it true that the actual "date" of something is, as Kant said, just an arbitrary notation of the overall passing of time, a way for us to separate moments and experiences into separate file cabinets in our minds?

Oh, you don't care. Sorry for trying to enlighten you a little. So, that date you were asking about. You are totally going to laugh when you hear this...it's September 13th, 2008.

Say...is that during football season? OMG. How did we miss that? Whooo boy, is my face red. Talk about an overlooked detail! Ah well, it's already in place, it'd be silly to move it now, right?

Pardon? You say I wrote a column stating no one should ever, ever, EVER get married during football season? Yeah right. It'd be pretty dumb of me to write that and then set a wedding date during that exact portion of the calendar (the weekend of the Texas-Arkansas game, to be exact). I mean, come on, what am I, an idiot? I defy you to find any proof of that.

Oh? It's right here? Man, you are a savvy Internet-surfer, I'll give you that.

Well you know what? Big deal. So what if I wrote a column stating you should never get married during college football season and then completely reneged on it?

It's not like I wished unkind things upon the people who did it.

I'm sorry? You have a quote from the column in question?

"Three years running, a cousin of mine has gotten married during the holiest day of the year: the Texas-OU football game.

I hope their first child has webbed feet."

Hmmm. Well, obviously I meant no harm by...ok, you got me. That was in pretty bad form. But in my defense, I thought there was no WAY this would ever come back to bite me in the rear.

I guess we can chalk this one up to what my grandfather has always said about his relationship with my grandmother: "I have my say; she gets her way."

Or in this case, "I whine and complain about all the grief everyone will give me if I get married on a football weekend so please let's do it at another time please please please; she gets her way."

I suppose it does me no good to explain that Hilary's father's business requires him to work every weekend from April to September, and his "I want to be there for my daughter's wedding" trumps my "I wrote a column detailing the evils of football season weddings and people are going to laugh at me" card.

And I imagine I only earn a few points back to my side if I say hey, at least it's not during March Madness! Right? Anyone?

(silence)

Oh well. At least my first child's webbed feet will make him/her an excellent swimmer.

Sincerely,
Micah Hart

And Now You Know, The Rest Of The Story

Coming at you live, 32,000 feet above the Southeast as Hilary and I make our way to Virginia Beach for the weekend. I thought this would be as good a time as any to fill in the blanks from last night and explain exactly how everything went down.

As I've mentioned already, the rain washed away any hopes I had of proposing in the park, so I had to regroup and move to plan B, which consisted mostly of surprising her with the proposal right as she walked in the door.

When relating this bit of information to people this morning, many asked the question: How did you know when she would get home?

Well, I didn't. So yes, to answer your next question, I did really sit in front of the door for quite a while. I'd say I was in a crouch, sit, or kneel position for a good 40 minutes before Hilary arrived. I felt like David Putty of Seinfeld fame, staring blankly at the front door.

Periodically I would peer through the peephole to see if I could catch a glimpse of her, and lo and behold, the last time I did it, I spied her moving towards the door.

Crap! I'm not in position!

As fast as was humanly possible for a slow white boy like myself, I knelt back down and grabbed the roses from the vase (I had stowed them there next to the door for easy access) right as she clicked open the lock, and as soon as I saw the door swing open I aimed the ring and fired.

Here is a rough transcript of what happened next:

Me: I love you baby (yes, I call her baby. Sue me). You are the best thing that's ever happened to me and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?

Hilary: Really? (Blank, Putty-like stare)

Me: Yeah.

Hilary: Really? (The lightbulb slowly begins to turn)

Me: Yeah.

Hilary: REALLY? (Bingo!)

Me: Y- (I didn't get this word out, as Hilary executed an impressive chest-high tackle. A textbook move, right at shoulderpad level).

So that was that - she quickly realized she hadn't actually accepted, so she said yes, and (warning: mush) hugged and kissed for a few minutes to celebrate.

A quick digression: Hilary is sitting next to me as I write this, and out of the corner of my eye I can see her continuosly, almost on a loop, picking her hand up and staring at the ring. She cannot stop. It is really cute - she is reading a gigantic copy of Brides magazine (If I had to guess, I'd say it contains about 1700 pages - I'm surprised it didn't make the plane's payload exceed the weight limit) and every few pages she stops, examines her hand, and then continues. Priceless.

Ok, back to the story. Many people have asked me today if I was nervous to propose, and honestly, I never really was nervous about the asking part. There was one thing I was incredibly nervous about, and that was the ring.

As part of my keep-Hilary-in-the-dark-as-much-as-possible plan, I didn't want to ever talk to her about rings, because then she would know to expect that something might be in the works. Early in our relationship, at some point, I had asked her for her ring size, just so I could get it out of the way in case we decided to get married one day. Yes that is quite prophetic of me, thanks, you're too kind.

The problem was, I couldn't remember what size she told me. Gun to my head, I swear she told me it was 4, but 5 also sounded right as well. Hilary only owns one ring, and she never takes it off, so there was really no way for me to find out without having to spill the beans to someone.

So, I decided to roll the dice, have them size it for a 4 1/2, and take my chances.

If there was anything that could potentially ruin what was supposed to be one of th best nights of our lives, this was it.

In the ensuing chaos of Hilary's pass-rush, I looked to give her the ring, but it was no longer in the box. She had knocked it loose, much like a boxer might knock out his opponent's mouthpiece.
We found the ring on the floor, and I handed it to her to put on, and in that moment,I was truly terrified. Everything moved in slow motion as she slowly slipped it down her finger, where it paused briefly at the knuckle...and then blissfull continued on its way down her finger, completely unaware of my anxiety (obviously - it's a ring, not a dog, it can't smell fear). It fit! Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles! I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief.

Everything was gravy after that. We had a glass of wine and ate some strawberries as I was finally able to tell her the story of buying the ring, reading her email chain with Jaygima, planning the faux picnic, etc. It was great.

After that, we continued on to the surprise party at Hannah and Will's, which turned out to be really nice. At the risk of sounding mushy once again, I can't overstate enough how lucky we are with the group of friends we have in Atlanta. We are like one big family, and having almost all of them there (sorry Anjali) to share in the moment was truly special.

We shared a champagne toast with everyone and made the rounds, and then we headed off to dinner at Two Urban Licks. It was delicious as always (Note to self - send the owner of Two Urban Licks a link to this blog, they will probably love it. Oh, and maybe give us some free stuff).

It was a great night. Hilary was thrilled, I was thrilled because she was thrilled, she was thrilled that I was thrilled that she was thrilled...you get the picture.

This morning we began the phone call process bright and early, and as of this writing, I think we've actually managed to reach a reaonably impressive portion of the friends and family we need to call.

So now we are on our way to Virginia Beach, where I assume we will begin the process of actually putting this little (doubt it!) shindig together.

We've only been engaged for about 20 hours now, but already I feel like I know several things:

- I know I was right to wait and propose when I did
- I know I got extremely lucky with getting her ring size right
- I know my family will love having Hilary on board, as everyone was quick to tell me today (Sample convo: "Congrats - what the hell took you so long?")
- I know that Two Urban Licks is one of the finest restaurants in Atlanta, with a terrific menu that suits even the pickiest tastebuds. With affordable prices and a helpful and friendly waitstaff, why not try them for your next celebration or business meeting!
- I know I am an incredibly lucky guy
- I know that there won't be much more cheesy crap after that last sentence, I only have so much of it in me.
- And finally, I know this - I really, really, REALLY don't want to get married during football season.

I Asked, And She Said...Really?

I will tell the whole story a little later on, but for now we are crazy busy working the phones to tell family and friends. For now, I will leave you with this slideshow of the evening:

We are really excited, and I promise to give a much longer, fuller report sometime this weekend when I have the time.

God 1, Micah 0

It's 6:06 pm. It's pouring. I think I even saw a few hailstones.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men: "They get rained on forcing you to abandon your kick-ass idea for a way to propose to your girlfriend." I may be paraphrasing a little.

So, I roll with the punches. Plan B it is. In roughly 90 minutes, Hilary is going to walk through the front door, and there on the other side of the door to Apt. 1015 will be me, on bended knee, with the ring in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other.

BAM!

She won't know what hit her. It's not how I drew it up in the playbook, but it will still accomplish the most important thing to me, the surprise. The evite will still have served it's purpose, which was to throw her off the trail.

So, T-minus 75 minutes and counting. I feel good. I don't feel nervous, at least not yet. This is a good thing that is about to happen. It feels very surreal. I started working towards this over two months ago, and it's strange to know that the moment is finally here. I hope it is everything Hilary wants it to be.

It's funny how life works out sometimes. I used to joke with my friends soon after I met Hilary that I was going to marry her someday, but I didn't really mean it. I never expected us to end up in a situation where it was even a possibility, but I guess good things come to those who wait.

Speaking of which, Hilary just IM'd me to say she is leaving work, so now another waiting game begins.

Wish me luck!

Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Our Lives

Normally that kind of saying is cheesy and silly, but today it feels like it rings true. After tonight, our lives will be different, both in the short term (the onset of planning a wedding, which sounds like loads of fun from listening to all my friends) and the long (getting hitched, having babies, NOT getting a dog, etc.).

It rained all day yesterday, and the forecast is for a 50% chance of rain all day (see right). This puts a serious crimp in my style, but hey, you gotta roll with the punches.

I am going to wait until this afternoon to make a final decision on if I can proceed with plan A or if I have to bag it for the back-up. Hopefully God will stop being such a large-scale doucherocket and let things unfold as I intend (note to future kids: I have no idea if the word "douche" will still be in vogue when you are adults, but in 2007 combining it with any noun is pretty much guaranteed to be hilarious, at least to your father and Uncle Will).

No matter which way it goes down tonight, I am certain it will be a special moment for both of us, and in that I feel reassured. I am excited to finally have this secret off my chest and get on with the next chapter in our lives.

You know how in movies and TV shows whenever someone has to pee (stay with me here), all they see are rivers and waterfalls and drains? That's how I feel right now. Everywhere I look, there is something wedding-related.

Two nights ago Hilary and I watched an episode of Coupling (the good British one, not the crap American version) where the entire storyline revolved around a group of friends antagonizing a guy for having not yet proposed to his long-time girlfriend. Last night I came home from my soccer game and turned on the TV to see that Hilary had been watching a show called "Wedding Central". Clearly, the world is ready for this to happen.

I spoke with Hilary's parents last night, and though I was very nervous going in, they were great about everything and very excited. Plus, I didn't get the Macy treatment, so that was nice. It will be fun to spend the weekend with them and celebrate, at least until we start yelling at each other about which font should be used on the Save-The-Date (Helvetica, dammit!). Kidding!

Weather aside, I anticipate things going well tonight regardless. Or, at least better than this:

9 more hours and counting!

Another 48 Hours

After months of planning and preparation, D-Day is nearly upon us. I have spent the last several days going over and over the details of my plan. Everything appears to be (mostly) in order. I don't think I've worked this hard at something since I took AP U.S. History in high school (I definitely wasn't this diligent in college).

By nature I am not a paranoid person, but I have been slowly losing my mind over the last week or so worrying about ruining the surprise. I feel like I'm in an episode of 24 - I trust no one. I look over my shoulder at work. I speak in hushed tones around the apartment, even if I know Hilary is all the way across town. I am half convinced she is waking up early every morning to turn the apartment upside down in an attempt to find her personal afikomen (too bad Hil, the ring is at my sister's!).

Still, as far as I can tell, she is in the dark. If I can keep it that way for roughly 36 more hours, I will be a happy man.

There is one dark cloud on this otherwise sunny horizon - and unfortunately, I mean that literally.

All along, the biggest obstacle in the path to my preferred method of proposal has been the threat of inclement weather. I have been monitoring the situation all week, and the prognosis seems to be getting worse by the day. Right now it lists a 40% chance of thunderstorms for 7 p.m. Thursday night. An optimist might say that means there is a 60% chance it won't rain, but I guarantee you that optimist is not planning an engagement that day.

I am willing to risk the rain, but if it's looking bad and Hilary is on her way home, I am going to have to make a decision but quick whether or not to abort the mission and opt for Plan B.

This will be a great test of my friends' theory that "everything works out for Micah". I would say a rainout would do serious damage to their argument's validity.

In this case, I'm happy for them to be right.

Or, to put it another way, I'd like to see their argument hold water by holding on the water.

10 Days Away - Time To Start Crossing The I's and Dotting The...Lowercase j's

It's hard to believe, but the moment is getting very near at hand. Today is Monday, and with my target date of next Thursday, it's time to start firming up all parts of the plan so as to ensure it will run as closely to my vision as possible.

Let's take a look at some of the things I still have to do before the big day.

- Talk to the parents. When is the appropriate time to do this? Obviously I need to discuss my plans with them before I propose, but I'm not exactly sure what to say. I'm hoping the conversation goes something like this:

Me: Hello Mr. Lesser, I love your daughter and I'd like your permission to marry her. I know I'm but a humble, bald, internet sportswriter, but I promise to make an honest woman of her.

Mr. Lesser: You had me at bald.

That would be short and sweet. But what if he goes deeper, like some people I know? When my brother-in-law Will asked my father for my sister Hannah's hand, he got grilled like a rib-eye: how would he provide for her? What were his long-term plans? How did his 401k look? What is the air/speed velocity of an in-laden swallow? And so on...

I like to think Hilary's parents are happy about our relationship, so I anticipate relatively smooth sailing, but you never know.

- Pick a restaurant. I'm torn here. Two Urban Licks is a favorite of ours. It's delicious, has great ambience, and we ate there the first weekend we started dating. Clearly, we have history there. Unfortunately it's very trendy, and on a Thursday night likely to be very loud. It's romantic, but we won't have much privacy or ability to talk without having to shout at each other across the table. ("I LOVE YOU BABY!")

On the other hand, there is Imperial Fez. It's a delicious Moroccan joint with dim lighting that will allow for a very soft, romantic setting, but I've never taken her there so it doesn't have any particular meaning for us as a couple.

Which way to go? I've made reservations at both places, so I have some time to decide. (Of course, asking this hypothetical question here is the ultimate in futility, since no one is reading this and there is no hope for advice in the comments section).

- Call her boss. Part of my plan is for us to spend Friday morning together before we head to Virginia Beach. To make that happen, I need to square her absence from work with her employers. We are family friends with her company's CEO, so I feel like it shouldn't be too big of a deal - the hardest part is deciding when to pull the trigger. I'm trying to balance giving her company enough advance warning of her absence while also trying to mitigate the chances that someone there might blow the surprise. I'm thinking next Wednesday. Two days notice is enough for the half-day before Labor Day, right?

UPDATE: My sister says I need to give more notice, so I guess I'll call them on Monday.

- Check the weather. The one thing that could foil my plans. I checked the 10-day forecast, and it lists isolated thunderstorms for next Mon-Weds. I guess that's cool, just as long as they are isolated way the hell away from Piedmont Park. It's looking ok for Thursday, but obviously things can change between now and then so I'll keep my eye on it. I don't really have much of a back-up plan right now; if it rains, I suppose we could just go skating in the Berman Center (sorry, a little Jacobs humor for the camp nerds out there).

My main back-up plan is to just surprise her with the ring right when she walks in the door, which won't have quite the same cachet as the park, but what can you do? Mother nature can be a cruel mistress.

It will be a bummer if it does in fact rain, but at least it will prove that I, as a Jew, cannot in fact control the weather.

Setting The Plan In Motion

After much careful thought and consideration, I decided to go with the plan I hatched so cleverly at 2:00 am the other night. I talked it over with some of the inner circle, and everyone agreed that it would be a good surprise - provided I can pull off all of the details.

There seems a bit of skepticism on that point, but I trust my instincts. True, I may be relying heavily on Hilary's gullability, but what can I say - it's gotten me this far, I can't buck the system now.

Below is the evite for the invitation to the picnic dinner at the park. It's fairly simple and plain, but that's sort of the idea - nothing that will arouse suspicion.
I agonized over several details, many of which I will feel silly about later on as I look back at all the planning that went into the occasion. Here are a few of the issues I've been pondering:

1) What time to make the picnic start? Hilary gets off work at 6:30. With traffic, she typically arrives home around 7-ish. In trying to plan out when to do this, I needed to come up with a time that was late enough that we'd have plenty of time to get there early, but not so late that it would start too close to sundown. I went back and forth between 7:45 and 8:00 several times, eventually settling on 8:00 pm because I figure it's more important we have time to get there early than run too close to sunset (it is a fake picnic, after all).

2) What to tell the guests to bring? Hilary is a planner. I rarely am, except in this case. In fact, I may be planning more for this than anything else I plan on, umm, planning for, in the next several years - including the wedding (Hilary, that's all you babe). With most of our pot luck dinners, the guests are rarely required to bring anything, but in this case I need an excuse for us to be toting wine and appetizers and Hil not get suspicious.

If I tell everyone to bring wine and an appetizer, there is a fairly good chance Hilary will plan ahead and pick up those items in the days leading up to the picnic. In fact, it's two weeks away right now, and I'm not entirely certain she won't pick them up on her way home from work today just to get it out of the way. Still, I am hoping I can lead her into thinking we will just pick up the necessary items at Trader Joe's on the way to the park.

If I only say to bring an appetizer, I could have Ben "call" me the day of to ask if we could get some wine, but for some reason that makes me think it could begin to look suspicious. I could also do the opposite of that and just tell everyone to bring wine, but it seems too likely that we could end up with a bottle of wine at the apartment that we can just bring with us.

Therefore, I stuck with everyone bring an app and wine, and if for some reason Hilary picks these up ahead of time, then I can have Ben place the "We need more" call so we can arrive at the park ahead of the (phantom) pack.

3) What to tell the guests and when? As of now, my plan is to alert all of the guests on the day of the event to what is really going down. My dad worries that I might risk someone tipping Hilary off, or that I won't be able to reach everyone in time, but I am not concerned. I know most of these people's emails, IM screennames, and cell phones. One way or another I should be able to re-route them to Hannah and Will's. I did consider just sending out an evite update and just not include Hilary on it so as to save the surprise, but then I bring into play a number of scenario's like people calling to carpool and other issues like that. Easier to just spoil the surprise for a few people but maintain the surprise for the one person who matters most.

So, the evite is now posted, the wheels are in motion, and all that's left to do now is sit back and watch the con unfold...

UPDATE - The first potential road block has been removed. Hilary just made reservations at a restaurant for us that night at some restaurant in midtown (it's restaurant week then, where several nice restaurants offer fixed-price menus for $25 a person). Fortunately, the evite had gone out a few minutes earlier, and I had no trouble convincing her we should change the reservation to another night. So far so good!

Genius at work?

Hi, it's me. It's about 2:42 am on Saturday, August 4 (or late Friday night, however you want to look at it), and I can't sleep.

This is not a trait that Hilary possesses. She and I differ greatly in our sleeping habits. She typically goes to sleep around 11:00 pm every night, and can be sawing logs within a few moments of head hitting pillow. I on the other hand am my father's child, and a restless mind keeps me up most nights well past 1:00. On the other hand, I can nap with the best of them, and can easily nod off on all forms of transportation (even rollerblades), whereas Hilary can't sleep anywhere but in a bed. She is way too nervous to sleep on planes, trains, or (in) automobiles for fear of what might happen whilst she is out. It's one of the many differences we have, but, like Paula Abdul and MC Skat Cat will tell you, opposites attract (yeah, try not to get that song stuck in your head now).

I suppose that is all a digression from why I am writing tonight in the early morning hours, which is to say this: I think I just came up with a geniusly devious (or deviously genius?) way to propose, and since I just thought of it, I can't stop thinking about it, so I am writing it down now for perpetuity and so I don't forget the plan tomorrow.

If I haven't mentioned this before, I am creative to a fault. Everything has to be unique and/or funny with me. I can't just send out an evite for an event saying "Come to the party"; I have to make it funny or witty somehow*, and could spend hours slaving over every word to make sure it is up to par, neglecting personal appearance or hygiene until the work is done.

With my engagement, there is no way I can settle for just spraying around a few rose petals and writing her a poem or something cheesy like that - I have to do something different. I must do something that will make people say, "Wow, that's pretty cool", or at least nod approvingly before turning the conversation to something more socially relevant like Obama's health care initiatives.

In planning said engagement, there are a few things I will want to take advantage of. To wit:

- I love planning surprises
- Hilary is extremely gullible
- I love taking advantage of that fact

Though the end game is drawing nearer, I haven't spent too much time planning up until tonight. I always do my best work at deadline, and I knew that once it started getting closer the ol' right brain would go to work.

Tonight, as I lay down to sleep, right brain finally decided it was time to get serious. And here is what I came up with (subject to change). Hold on to your scrotums, here comes genius.

I am going to create an evite for a dinner party at Piedmont Park. This evite will not be sent out by me though; most likely, I will get Ben and Amanda (soon to be) Dorfman to do this, as they live near the park and already know of my plans to propose in the near future. Also it will help lead Hilary to believe that nothing is afoot.

The Dorfmans will invite the traditional Sunday night dinner crowd, who will all believe the event is real. The arrangements will call for dinner at the park starting around 8:00 pm, with dessert to follow after dark back at their apartment. People will respond yea or nay to the event without actually knowing they are decoys, adding legitimacy.

On the day of the event, I will actually break the news of the engagement to the invited guests ahead of time, letting them all know it was just a clever ruse, and though they will not actually get to dine at the park, they will instead be re-routed to dinner at Hannah and Will's. I will gently ask everyone not to pass this information on to Hilary, and will gently remind them that if they do I will (gently) beat them to death with their own thumbs.

That evening, Hilary and I will head out to the park with a blanket to sit on and an appetizer (as stipulated in the evite), but I will tell Hilary we need to leave a little early to get a bottle of wine. We will arrive at the park "earlier" than anyone else, but her suspicions should not be aroused due to the wine-getting errand.

Once we are at the park and have laid out our blanket and appetizer (first thought: brie and crackers, she loves that), I will pour us two glasses of wine and make a toast, and at that point, will pop the question. Hilary, not seeing this coming, will suffer a mind explosion.

After the initial excitement, we will finish our drink, I will let her know there was no actual dinner, and we will head home to change for a nice romantic dinner.

On our way back, I will say, let's stop into Hannah and Will's real quick to say hello because they really want to congratulate us. When we walk in, all of our friends will be there to surprise her and say congrats, leading to mind explosion #2.

We will only stay for a few minutes though, just long enough to see everyone, and then we will actually go to dinner at a really nice restaurant (unless they open a Whataburger in Atlanta in the next three weeks) and spend of the rest of the evening alone.

It's entirely possible I may come up with a different plan than this before the target day, but sitting here tonight I think this could be the winner. Piedmont Park is beautiful, it's large enough that we can be in public but still share a fairly private moment, and it also has some significance in our relationship as we went ate a picnic lunch there during her first visit to Atlanta.

The only real obstacles I can think of are the threat of inclement weather and potential leaks, but it's worth the gamble to me if I can pull this off.

We'll know if I did in just a few short weeks...

* Funny or witty in my eyes, at least. I'm only out to amuse myself, sorry.

When To Pop?

You know those situations that occur, and you say, "Well, this is no fun, but someday we will look back on it and laugh"?

I have a feeling Hilary is going through one of those times right now. To say that she is ready to be engaged is to say that the Cookie Monster would prefer some Chips Ahoy in the very near future.

I am trying to put myself in her shoes. It's easier to be me right now - I know how the story ends. I know when we are getting engaged.

She, on the other hand, is completely in the dark. And, I admit, I'm not helping things. I am in a bit of a precarious position - I want to reinforce my feelings to her so she will feel safe and secure in our relationship, but at the same time, I don't want her to be thinking that our engagement is just around the corner.

Is that wrong of me? I don't know (actually, probably). But I want it to be a surprise to her, and the longer I can hold her off thinking that engagement is imminent, the easier it will be to pull off.

Which brings me to this post.

I've been trying to avoid any direct talks about our future because the engagement is so close at hand. I suppose I know that is nearly impossible, especially since we are moving in together in the next few weeks.

Friday we had a long talk about the state of things in our relationship, and I had to figure out a way to keep her in the dark without making her feel insecure. This was, as you can imagine, not so easy.

My plan all along has been to set up the actual proposal around Labor Day weekend. We are going to Virginia Beach that weekend to be with her family, and I know how much her family means to her. It's the perfect setting to me.

Here is the problem though - Labor Day is still over a month away. That doesn't seem like a long time to me, but it appears that Hilary's mental calendar advances in dog years these days. A month until engagement to her might as well be six more months.

In speaking to my father about this on Friday, he continued to urge me to just get it over with. I see his point - it's going to be a special moment no matter how or when I do it. At the same time, I still believe that though it will be special no matter what, it can still be "more special". My analogy to him was if you win $40 million in the lottery, you will be excited, but you will be even more excited if you win $100 million, and if you had a choice between the two, you'd choose the latter, right? (Note - using analogies runs in my family; we are unable to communicate without them. It's either a blessing or a curse - lately I've been leaning towards curse).

Her family is important to her, and therefore it's important to me that they be a part of the engagement in some form or fashion. It's something I really don't want to bend on.

So, I want to wait. I know I could do it at any time between now and then, and I know it would certainly be a load off of Hilary's mind (see previous post regarding the cruise), but I am stubborn.

Hopefully, the angst Hilary is feeling now will turn to laughter someday when we look back on this.

Or, she will kill me.

For those of you who had the cruise...you lose

When Hilary and I booked a cruise vacation back in March (or maybe it was April), I wasn't ready to consider engagement. That's not a reflection on her; it was still just only a few months into our living in the same city and she was still commuting back and forth to DC, which gave our relationship still a slight long-distance feel.

However, as the weeks went by and our relationship continued to grow, I began to consider the notion of proposing while on the ship. Certainly, there were plenty of good reasons to do it:

- it's a vacation, and would give us the opportunity to be engaged without all the madness that creates for at least a few days

- we would be in several places with aesthetic beauty (the ship's casino!) that might provide a terrific backdrop for the moment

- it would more than satisfy Hilary's desire to be engaged before I moved in and we began living in sin (note to future children: daddy has no problem with it, just so long as you are doing it for the right reasons - you know, like affording better cable)

In the end, I chose not to do it. I'd love to give you a lot of good reasons, but it really boiled down to two main ones - one good, and one you probably won't like as much.

First the good one. In many of the proposals I've seen and heard about amongst the people I know, there is often two parts of the proposal surprise: the popping of the question, followed by a surprise appearance from one or both sets of parents.

If I proposed on the cruise, I couldn't really pull that off (at least not without great cost). I debated the idea of having her family and mine meet us at the airport upon our return, but we wouldn't get back until Saturday night and it seemed somewhat of a waste to only have everyone together for a couple hours all told. Not being able to add in the family component was a big negative.

The second (and more selfish reason) was, it was too cliched for my tastes. It would be so obvious for me to propose on the cruise; I knew this intuitively as well as because roughly everyone I knew asked me if I planned on doing so. I may make fun of my friend Joey Lazarus for never doing what people suggest to him, but the fact that so many people were certain I was going to pop while we were in the Caribbean made me all the more resistant to the notion.

Is that unfair to Hilary? Maybe. It's entirely possible she will be upset with me when she eventually reads this post and makes me sleep on the couch for a night. But my feeling is, the proposal is going to be a special moment for both the ask-ee and the ask-er. I want to find a way to do it that will satisfy both her desire to be asked (growing daily from what I can tell, but more on that in a minute) and my desire to do it in a way that will be (ideally) unique and surprising.

So the cruise was off. When we returned from our vacation, a friend asked me if I thought she was disappointed that it didn't happen. My response was I wasn't sure. We don't really talk much, currently, about when specifically we will get engaged, mostly because I want it to be a surprise. So it was hard for me to know what her level of anxiety was...until today.

Let me start off by saying that I may get in more trouble for posting this than it's worth, but from where I am sitting today, I think it's too funny not to mention given the nature of this blog. I.e., Hilary may get mad about it in the short term, but the further away we get from it, the funnier it will be (to her that is - its funny to me right now).

Hilary is supposed to be having dinner Thursday night with her friend Jaygima, a co-worker from her days at HMS Host who like her moved to Atlanta to be with her significant other (to whom she is now married).

This morning, she forwarded me an email from Jay with something funny she had written. Normally, I'd just glance at an email like that before hitting the ol' delete button.

For some reason though, Hilary forwarded me the entire email chain, and I inexplicably started reading it. This is not normal behavior for me, and I do feel slightly bad about it, but my eyes somehow saw the word "ring" in part of the thread and subsequently my curiosity got the best of me.

What did I learn? Apparently, Hilary is quite ready to get this show on the road:

"It’s just really frustrating the whole engagement thing. I know you know though. I just wish it would happen already!..."

And from another portion:

"We just got back from our cruise on Saturday that was really fun. No ring, but I overheard a conversation before the cruise that keyed me into knowing it wasn’t going to happen. I’m glad I knew for sure beforehand or I would have been anxious during the cruise and upset towards the end..."

Wow. I guess she is ready, eh? I can't for the life of me figure out which conversation she overheard, as I am pretty good about keeping any engagement planning talks from taking place anywhere near her. It's possible someone asked me if I was going to propose within her earshot and she heard my answer, that's the best I can figure.

So, this leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. At present, my plan is still to put the plan into action around Labor Day weekend, when we will be in Virginia Beach and I can incorporate her family easily into the blessed occasion. I like this idea a lot. Most of my brainstorming on how I will eventually pop the question revolves around the notion of being with her family in her hometown. However, Labor Day is still 5 weeks away. Based on the tone of the email I just read, it's entirely possible that Hilary will run several hundred volts of electricity directly through my testicles if I don't ask her to marry me soon.

I have a choice to make - do I re-evaluate and change course to help Hilary maintain her sanity? Or do I stick to the plan and risk the safety of my future children. This is a toughie...

The Things You Do For Love

My Dad, Suzy B and me

Welcome to the blog! No one of course is reading this yet as I haven't made it for public consumption yet, but someday people may read this (Micah and Hilary Jr.?) and I felt like this was as good a place as any to document the lead up to our nuptuals.

For the first post, I thought I would write a diary of sorts of my day spent selecting Hilary's engagement ring (a live blog of sorts, except written after the fact, so while it's not technically live, it will be in that style and will feature many of the thoughts going through my head at the actual times they were happening).

Let me give the set-up first. We have a family friend who works as a private jeweler (whatever that means) in NYC, and who was wonderfully willing to be my tour guide through the engagement ring purchasing process. However, the concept of this person sending diamonds back and forth for me to look at seemed like a horrible idea and a huge hassle. As it turned out, my dad (who once worked in the jewelry business - is there any job he didn't have at some point?) was going to be in New York City on business, so I decided to fly up to the Big Apple for the day to whittle the process down to a few hours.

Fortunately, by brother-in-law Will is working at Delta for the summer, so he allowed me to use one of his coveted "buddy passes", which made the price of a roundtrip ticket to NY less than $100 (for those thinking I'm Mr. Moneybags to be flying to NY just to look at a ring, this explains how I was able to make that happen). Now all I had to do was figure out a way to slip it past Hilary that I would be out of town for the day and not have her get suspicious.

A quick sidebar: There is a famous story from when Will got engaged to my sister Hannah, where he flew back to Corpus Christi ("The Body") to get the ring he was planning to propose with. He did it on a Wednesday when we would usually be playing soccer, so as to explain his late arrival at home to his nosy bride-to-become. All went as planned - except that while he was in Texas he made the fatal mistake of getting his hair cut, and when Hannah asked him when he got it done, he responded, "When I was home." Will is an idiot.

I was determined not to suffer the same fate as my new bro, but I too am cursed to be in a relationship with Nosy McNoserpants, so I had to be prepared to throw her off the scent.

Now that we've set the scene, let's get to the action.

6:15 am - I set my alarm to get up at this time, as I was planning on getting on a 7:45 am flight to LaGuardia. I told Hilary I was playing racquetball before work with my co-worker to explain my early rise; typically she is long-gone by the time I get up for work around 8:00 (8:20 after four snoozes). She bought it. So far so good.

6:50 am - I arrive at Hartsfield-International Airport, park my car in the economy parking lot, and head towards my gate. One of the great things about flying by myself is that I am quite content to get to the airport as late as is humanly possible without missing the flight, while Hilary likes to get there a little earlier, like say a calendar month in advance. I chuckled about this fact to myself as I arrived at my gate for the 7:45 flight at 7:33.

This actually worked out well, because with Will's buddy pass I have to wait until the end to board anyway since my priority lies somewhere between Tuberculosis Guy and terrorist. On this particular flight, I was literally the last person onto the plane in the only seat left unoccupied.

10:00 am - Landed at LaGuardia - so far so good. I managed to sleep a bit on the way up despite sitting next to one of the worst possible seatmates - the talker. I realize I am quite the gabber myself, but when I get on a plane, I just want to listen to my iPod and go to sleep. So dude, please, leave me the @#$@ alone. I called my Dad to check in, and headed to catch a bus to Grand Central Station.

10:30 am - Well, I wouldn't say this counts as things going awry (foreshadowing), but traffic was a murph, so it took about an hour to get from the airport to the city. Still, this gave me time to continue acting out the ruse that would lead Hilary to believe it was nothing but a normal work day for me.

With her new job, Hilary no longer uses any instant messaging programs, which made my job a little easier. Still, we email back and forth during the day, so keeping that afloat would be the biggest challenge. Both of my sisters were on board to help out though, so I called Hannah and had her check my email to see if Hilary had written anything. She had, so I dictated an email back to her.

Let me tell you something I learned from dictation. Mushiness is a private, private thing. It's all well and good to write "I love you!" to your girlfriend, but telling your sister to write out "Next paragraph - I love you, exclamation point" sounds really, really lame. Doing it on a crowded bus doesn't help much either.

11:30 am - Ok, that took a little too long, but my appointment at the jeweler wasn't scheduled until 12:30. My Dad was there to meet me at the bus station and we headed to grab a quick bite before going to check out the bling (question for future kids - do people still use that word in the future? it annoys the crap out of me now, so for your sake hopefully it has faded).

Telling mom about my purchase

11:45 am - We were supposed to eat at this midtown restaurant called "Dishes", but despite being given directions to pretty much the exact street corner it allegedly resided on, we couldn't find it. I did however find a kosher deli with a shawarma skewer running, and my contract with God stipulates that I eat shawarma whenever the opportunity presents itself.

12:15 pm - Ok, maybe that wasn't the best idea. My stomach is not going to enjoy the flight home later this afternoon.

12:30 pm - Right on time, we get to the jeweler's office to check out the merchandise. Her assistant shows us a couple things to begin with, all of which look exactly the same to me.

Frankly, the whole diamond business cracks me up. I mean, how long does the average person get to spend looking at someone else's ring? Four, five seconds? And usually the finger where the ring resides is in motion for most of it, no? The only way most people can tell the difference from one diamond to another (aside from size, obviously) is if they have one of those diamond microscopes, and how many people walk around with those? 10% tops?

Still, I want a diamond that is going to make Hilary happy, so I am trying my best to understand what she is saying.

I actually learned a decent amount (I mean for a guy) about diamonds in the last couple weeks. During Hilary's last trip to DC before she started her new job, Hannah and I went to Solomon Brothers in Atlanta to get my first taste of the ring-selecting process. Following that, my friend Kim, who works in the diamond industry, spent a couple hours showing me more options and explaining more about the Four C's (cut, color, clarity, and calligraphy).

12:35 pm - Our family friend shows up, and I like her immediately as she begins to give my dad grief. A woman after my own heart. When she and I spoke on the phone to set this up a week ago, she mentioned she already had the perfect stone in mind for me, and though she shows me a couple other potential rocks, "the one" is brought out and I gotta say, it looks great. I have a problem expressing myself in this way (as many who know me can attest), so all I can manage to say is, "Yeah, I think it looks ok." But as my dad tells her, that means Micah like-ah.

Examining the rock

2:20 pm - I examine the diamond in many different ways and compared to several others, and it still looks the part. My dad tries in vain to get me to consider a heart-shaped diamond, but I'm afraid he is now 0-3 with his progeny on that count. We agree to talk again in a couple weeks, but I feel comfortable walking out of the office with the notion that we have picked the winner. All that's left to do is grab a taxi, get back out to LaGuardia, catch the 4:00 flight and BAM! - I'm home with Hilary none the wiser. Hannah and Leah have continued to send out my dictated emails, so everything is going well. Still, I am a Hart - nothing ever goes completely according to plan...

Suzy shows me how to look pompous while examining a diamond

3:00 pm - I arrive at the airport in plenty of time to catch my flight. Security is a breeze, as all I brought with me was a book (Sam Walker's "Fantasyland", a book about the popularity of rotisserie baseball) and my iPod. As I get to my gate though, I realize all is not as it should be. There are tons of people camped out in the terminal, and I soon find out why. Weather has wreacked havoc on the Eastern seaboard, and flights have been cancelled up and down the coastline. The 1:00 flight to Atlanta was one of them. Oh, crap.

3:30 pm - First the bad news - the 4:00 flight is delayed until 5:00 now, which would get me back to Atlanta at 7:30. Hilary usually gets home around 7:00, so that could be a problem. I was prepared for this though, so I had Leah (she was working the afternoon email shift) email her and tell her I had a work function that might keep me on the job until perhaps 8 or 8:30. Poor trusting Hilary.

Now for the worse news. Because of the previous Atlanta cancellation, everyone got bumped to a later flight. Currently, I am 78th(!) on the standby list for the next flight to Atlanta. 78th? Really? They need to count that high? After like the first 15-20 names, they should just puta little picture of someone giving you the middle finger. Not good.

4:20 pm - Sensing that things could get ugly (no matter the flight, my priority status would remain at the bottom of the barrel, making it next to impossible for me to get a standby seat on a plane so long as the weather was bad), I got in line at the Delta counter to see if perhaps I could persuade someone to help me out. I flashed my best smile and proceeded to explain to the agent my situation as a poor lovestruck fiance-to-be who just wanted to get home to his soon-to-be bride without her figuring out what he was up to. She seemed sympathetic, but when you are 78th on the standby list, I don't even know if I'd have had any luck as a woman in labor.

4:30 pm - I called my dad to explain the situation, and Macy gets on the case. In the meantime, I begin to think about what kind of excuse I am going to be able to come up with to explain to Hilary why not only might I not be home by 8:00, but it's entirely possible I may not come home at all. This was not part of my original plan, to say the least. I started to think contingencies, but I wasn't panicking...yet.

5:00 pm - Ok, definitely starting to get worried. It is beginning to look increasingly likely that I won't get out of NYC tonight - at least from LaGuardia. I call Will to see what the availability was looking like at JFK and Newark, and begin to ponder how irritated I'd get if I had to fly to say, Birmingham, and then rent a car to get back (about 8 on a scale of 10).

5:10 pm - LaGuardia is basically a ghost. Will, despite being a Delta employee, apparently isn't able to conjure a flight out of thin air (give him time, he's only been there a few weeks). Since it appears that even under the best circumstances I'm not going to be able to make it home by the 8:30 time I originally quoted Hilary, it's time to put Plan B into action. Which direction to go? Last minute poker game? Late movie she wouldn't want to see? The biggest issue was finding a reason for my cell phone not to work in case she needed to call me. She had already phoned once in the morning when I was on my flight, but I could excuse that because I don't get reception at the gym where I'd allegedly been playing racquetball.

No, there is only one answer - TNT. I had worked for a month straight during April and May at TNT for the NBA playoffs, where I had spent every night from roughly 6 pm to 2 am logging sound for their pre- and post-game shows. During this month I had always come home late, and since I didn't get reception at TNT either (annoying at the time, but a small bonus at present), it would provide a good cover. I try to find as quiet a place as possible in the terminal so as not to let the PA system give away my location ("Listen Jane, don't start with that Red Zone sh*t again.") and call Hilary at her office, where I know she'll be hesitant to talk long. I tell her the good news - my boss from Turner had called and wanted to know if I could fill in on the baseball shift tonight!

The ploy works, and she goes for it. One crisis solved; I now at least have some leeway on time to get home without needing any more excuses.

5:15 pm - Macy is having some luck on his end. Let it never be said that my dad isn't there for his children. On his way to NYC on Sunday, he got bumped from his flight out of Atlanta, for which he got a $400 voucher (basically so many pennies to him with as much as he flies). He gives me the voucher towards a one-way ticket out of JFK on a flight scheduled to leave at 6:50. The only seats left are in first class, so even with the voucher I still have to cough up some dough (but significantly less than I would have). Now all I have to do is make it over to JFK in time to be on board when it leaves. Not exactly my preferred choice, but at this point I can't take any chance on any standby seat from any airport anywhere. I head towards the taxi depot.

5:50 pm - A $34 cab ride over to JFK later, and I've now spent more on transportation to and from airports by automobile than I did by plane. But, I won't complain - anything that gets me back to Atlanta with Hilary none the wiser is worth it. To be honest, I don't know what my max would have been to spend on a ticket home, but it might have been upwards of $500 just to keep the day a secret.

6:15 pm - I get through security, and - surprise! - my 6:50 flight is now scheduled to leave at 7:30. I'll take it, just as long as it leaves today.

7:30 pm - Trivia question: what has two thumbs and has a 6:50 flight now looking like it won't be leaving until 8:45? This guy.

8:45 pm - The flight we are on finally landed from LAX around 8:30, so we actually get to board our plane with the notion that we might land in Atlanta before the midnight hour. Although I am exhausted, I can't help but be a little excited to fly first class. I've only done it twice before, and once was an early morning flight where I slept for most of the time. It's a shame I have to drive home from the airport, or else it'd be time to get my Hasselhoff on. Still, this flight has those little monitors in the back of the seat in front of you which allows you to watch movies, TV, or play games.

9:00 pm - Apropos of nothing, I'd just like to note that tonight is Game 4 of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't be more frustrated with life watching that game than sitting through my current predicament.

9:15 pm - The plane is fully loaded (and I'm working on it, having ordered a glass of wine and a screwdriver in succession), and we taxi away from our gate. Good to go? Clearly, you haven't been reading this. The pilot comes on to explain that because of the weather, the runways are backed up and we are currently something like 427th in line to take off. At least I can watch a movie. I choose Shooter starring Marky Mark, which seems like a better option than Norbit or Bridge To Terabithia.

11:00 pm - Shooter is almost over as the plane finally takes off. I've seen worse, but I've seen better. For the record, my 6:50 flight pushed back nearly two hours late, then waited on the tarmac for another two hours to boot before taking to the skies.

1:00 am - We land in Atlanta. Praise God. I would love to write something witty here, but let's be honest. There isn't much witty to say when you've spent the past 10 hours at the airport or on a plane.

1:35 am - Home at last - almost. There are no parking places available anywhere near Hilary's apartment, so after circling twice around her portion of the complex, I decide to take a calculated risk. Since I am leaving for work the next morning at 8:30, I park in the handicap spot adjacent to her building under the assumption (fair in my thinking) that no handicapped people will be needing it in the next six hours. Maybe not the best solution, but I am willing to roll the dice at this point. I just want to go to bed - screw the handicapped.

1:45 am - I check my email to make sure nothing imploded at work and crawl into Hilary's bed dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep. For just a moment, I stare over at her sleeping figure. It may have been one of the longest days of my life, but looking at her lying next to me, I know it was worth it. Now if I can just keep it a secret!