things have worked out pretty well, however, even if not exactly as planned.

13 december 1998

this is sunday evening. Nicole, who wears a number of rings on her fingers, has placed said rings on my kitchen counter. which she isn't looking, i secretly sneak one of these rings (that fits on her ring finger) and put it in my pocket. obviously, i did this so i can have an engagement ring sized ahead of time, but the whole time i'm thinking "there's no way this is going to work, she's going to know right away why that ring is missing."

she did look for it, but i suggested it must of fell onto the floor that happened to be very messy at the time, so we figured i would find it in a day or two. later that evening that stolen ring was put in a bag and was carried with me as...

18 december 1998

...i left work this friday evening and headed down to old town, alexandria, thinking for sure that i was going to march into this little jewelry shop we like, get a ring, and make it back home before the cold medicine i was on really kicked in. WPFW helped me endure the friday evening traffic and i was at the store within 90 minutes only to be very disappointed in the selection - or lack thereof - based on what i was expecting. so i walked back outside and decided to look around at some other shops in the area.

just fyi, alexandria has a ton of jewelry shops. one of which is run by some pretty obnoxious people, one of which is just a little too corporate looking, one of which has workers who seemed to be very afraid of me and completely clamed up and stared at me until i left, one of which was very pleasant, but none of these had anything that interested me very much. i trudged back to my car pretty disappointed...

...but not discouraged. i sat down that night with the yellow pages and made a list of a bunch of jewelry shops that pretty much made a straight line on the map from reston to downtown dc i figured i would step out early on...

19 december 1998, afternoon

...and head to the stores looking for something more to my liking. this is probably a good point to break and explain how i had this vision of finding a neat ring in a small family owned shop that was hidden away on some back road that belonged more in a twilight zone episode than buried in northern virginia. since it was Christmas time i was trying to avoid the crowds as much as possible - not because i didn't want to fight through the crowds as much as it just seemed wrong to be bouncing off a manic shopper looking for a beanie baby or a furby while i was searching for the jeweled equivalent of how i wanted to spend the rest of my life. it may not make much sense, but you have to understand i can be pretty stubborn once i get an idea in my head.

anyhow, i headed for the place in reston i had mapped out the evening before. in case you don't know, reston is the first "planned community" in america. i'm not sure exactly what that means, but it certainly does raise an argument against planning anything. i drove around reston probably 45 minutes until i found the store i was looking for, and once i went inside they had about 3 rings that just didn't do much for me. stupid reston.

of course, the best part of the story is that i forgot to even bring the stolen ring mentioned above to use for size. i decided to head back home to retrieve it before i headed down towards the falls church area to do more ring shopping, just on the off chance i found something i liked. at this point, i was pretty discouraged.

i'm blabbering too much already, but i was to meet Nicole at 4:30 for an early dinner. by 3:15 i had a good fill of jewelry stores that had moved or had very little selection or were just on the wrong side of route 7 in the holiday maddened tyson's corner. i decided to give one last place a chance; after backtracking twice i finally found a tiny shop buried between a restaurant and a car dealership that, long story short, had the ring i was looking for. really. just perfect. even the right size. in fact, the only reason i even feel the need to elaborate four paragraphs on this is just because of the perfect ending the ring search had. at 4:15 the ring was in the inside pocket of my jacket and there was no doubt in my mind that on...

19 december 1998, evening

...this evening i was going to give her the ring. i couldn't think of one good reason to wait until new year's, and a whole lot of reasons to propose before time (there's a lot to be said for about 200 people saying congratulations that makes Christmas just a touch more special).

nObOdy knew about this except me and that guy who sold me the ring. the only hint i gave, i think, was, when i picked up Nicole at 4:30, i returned that stolen ring and explained that i found it in mindy clubhouse - mindy being my cat, and the clubhouse being where he stores all his toys. it's quite believable the ring would be in there. it's actually amazing the things i find in there sometimes.

we had dinner, did some shopping. i bought Nicole a stuffed bear at the cosmetic center, "nutmeg" is his name. it's a very cute holiday bear and would play a fun role in our lives before the night was over.

when we got home Nicole scolded mindy for stealing her ring. she was walking around with nutmeg and i told her i wanted to give her something before Christmas since we would be spending the actual holiday apart with our respective families. i told her to close her eyes and hold our her hand; with her right arm around nutmeg and her left hand out, i placed the ring in hand and asked her to marry me.

nutmeg got quite the squeezing.

she said yes. i don't remember her saying yes, but she assures me she did. that's okay, she didn't remember i was down on a knee when i proposed, nor does she remember when i put the ring on her finger.

from then on, nutmeg was officially renamed as "engagement bear." after a bit of explanation, Nicole apologized to mindy for an inappropriate scolding; after all, he didn't steal the ring he was so accused of.

the next logical step was to call and tell people...

19 december 1998, night

...that night. i don't want to be mean here, but the chance of my parents being out on a saturday night is so slim that it is almost laughable. which makes it that much more funny that the phone rang and rang when i called them to tell them the news. no problem, we'll call Nicole's mom.

at least the voice mail was kind enough to answer there.

of course, we did reach both parties that night, eventually. my mom went an entire minute saying nothing but my name over and over again, she was so excited. it may not sound like much to a lot of people, but i feel exceptionally fortunate that my parents and Nicole's mom are so sincerely happy for us.

starting that night, and carrying on for days to come is the answer "no" to the question...

20 december 1998

..."have you set a date yet?" "we are just taking it all in right now, enjoying the moment." this sunday was without question the most euphoric day of my life. we instantly told crunchland and were bombarded by a ton of well wishing messages by some of the best friends i've made over the past three years. a few other phone calls came in. we tracked down a few phone numbers to tell some friends. a number of announcements went out over email.

we didn't discuss much, planning wise, other than perhaps the most touchy subject: "will our cats get along?" mindy, my 17 pound orange tabby, is 3 years old; rascal, Nicole's 20 pound orange tabby, is about 7, i think. i think both could use a buddy.

hopefully they feel the same way i do.

with the weekend ending came the...

21 december 1998

...monday morning announcement at work of my engagement, and the same for Nicole. i think i took a lot of people off guard; whether i did or not, my attention span was on anything but working. in fact, you may have heard about that terrible...

23 december 1998

...ice storm that hit the dc area this wednesday night. i was to meet Nicole for dinner and sat near-perfectly still on the road for over 3 hours before i finally crossed a median to head home. and you know, the whole time i was just thinking, "this traffic isn't so bad because i'm engaged."

25 december 1998

this was the first year i actually had a solid answer for my uncle's question "when are you getting married?" he would have asked it, i'm sure, but he passed away suddenly in october of this year and it was a sad Christmas without him. i only mention it here because we placed his money clip, a keepsake given to me by his wife, on the engagement ring before we had told anybody about the events of 6 days ago. i'm not sure if i believe in such things, but theoretically, he was the first to know of our engagement.

4 january 1999

we spent new year's together in annapolis where we celebrated Christmas. i got a bouncing tigger; cats do not like bouncing tigger. anyhow, we started to discuss some of the details and came up with some very tentative decisions. we'll have a small wedding in september, probably in baltimore. then in october we'll have a big party where we invite our friends and family. the party should be very informal and, seeing as how we know a number of musicians, we'll probably do a big impromptu jam type of thing.

in the mean time, i've started cleaning and throwing out junk in my apartment to make room for Nicole, her cat and a number of possessions. now that the holidays are over, everything seems a lot more real. it is very exciting; there is so much anticipation now for all the changes we are going to go through over the next year that i don't think i can really put it into words. together we spent the first few minutes of 1999 thinking about how thrilling december was and, likewise, eager for the events that will envelope our lives over the next year.

7 august 1999

it's pretty safe to say that i haven't been exceptionally prompt in updating the chronicles throughout the year. a lot of things have happened over the past eight months: nicole has moved in with me, not only has her cat rascal become a part of the household, but an unexpected arrival, cleo, has joined the family as well, and the wedding plans are coming together well, albeit slowly at times.

i'm determined to put together the "1999" page, probably in november when we are married and i can reflect on all the events of the past year.

this is the first time i've read the engagement chronicles since, well, probably since i wrote them back in december and january. it's still exciting to think about. i suspect it always will be.