There was this one day I got engaged, Part Five: Faux Zach Quinto takes my engagement pictures

So Zach Quinto had just come down the stairs into the cave, carrying a hefty camera. Like, this guy knew what he was doing. He began taking pictures of the signatures on the cave walls above my head, occasionally pausing for a close up of something fun on the wall closest to him, occasionally snapping one near the older couple near us. I tried not to make it obvious that I kept glancing at him, because he freaking looked a lot like Zach Quinto. Whom I happen to love, by the way. 

While I was sort of stalking faux Zach Quinto with my eyes, Chris had meanwhile knealt down to put the camera away. He rummaged around in the bag, moving lenses around (he had Cody's along with him, too, remember), handing me a lens while he adjusted the camera into the pouch. When he handed me a lens, faux Zach Quinto quick snapped a picture in my direction. And I thought, hmmmmmm... that was kind of weird, but I'm not above taking pictures with random strangers in them either... maybe he really liked the OSF's backside. (And who doesn't, really?) So I didn't think much of it, and besides he had turned to take another picture of the other couple there anyway.

Chris took the lens back from me, and I continued to secretly stare at faux Zach Quinto, who was again busying himself with the names etched into the wall. He really did look just like him. His face was the same, his hair was the same, even the way he carried himself. All he needed was a pair of trendy glasses and-

Then Chris was saying my name, and I looked down, expecting to get another lens to hold. Instead, he had sat back and was holding a box. I didn't recognize the box. It was reddish and square, and I thought maybe he had some new piece of camera equipment that I hadn't seen before. 

Then I looked at him and wondered why he was sitting kind of funny. And I noticed Zach Quinto snap another picture in my direction.

Then Chris asked me to marry him... and I stared at him, wondering what in the world was going on.

Then he opened the box. And I did this:

Let's see a close-up of that face, shall we?

Here's what was going on in my head in the ten seconds between "Will you marry me?" and me finally catching on to what was happening:

"Why is he sitting like that... what did he just say... why is Zach Quinto looking at me and smiling... what's in the box... wait, what?! Here?! Now?! This is happening right now?! This is it?!"

That's what was going on while I had my hands over my mouth in shock. Then I spoke and it came out like this:

"What? Here? Now? This is happening right now?! Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. Really? Here? Right now?!"

(Which he later told me might have come across sounding a little negative, like, "Really? Here? In this cave?" which is not at all the tone I was going for, mostly because I wasn't trying for a specific tone, my mouth was just saying words that were in my head. And my head's tone was incomprehension, which apparently doesn't translate well.)

I still wasn't quite sure it was all happening. I needed a hug.

Then I started shaking, and possibly crying just a little. Because this was a total and complete shock that my mind was trying to wrap itself around.

Around this picture, I started figuring out what was going on. Chris was proposing. Right at this moment. A week after he'd convinced me it would be months before he'd do it. He was doing it now!

And all I could think was why isn't someone taking pictures of this?!

I know, I know- I'm a real genius. But I was having a moment, people! 

Ten seconds after that, I realized duh! Zach Quinto, who I'd completely forgotten about at that point, was taking pictures of us! Chris must have hired this guy, because I'd never seen him in my life... 

And then I figured out who Zach Quinto must be: Garrett, the new guy at Chris' work! The only one who hadn't been at the Christmas party! And who Chris had failed to ever mention looked exactly like Zach Quinto!

Good thing, because I'd have recognized him on the spot.

Garrett/Zach Quinto, you crafty guy!

At this point, Chris asked, "So... you want to see the ring?" Because I hadn't actually looked at it yet in my disbelief.

This is me looking at it for the first time:

Guess what? It was the Robbins Brothers' ring I'd loved from the beginning. The OSF had been hiding it in his golf bag for the last month and a half. Even though we'd gone to at least two ring places since then!

He is much sneakier than I gave him credit for.

Our very own Zach Quinto took some more photographs for us while I continued to shake and smile and ask a bazillion questions about how this could possibly be happening at this very moment.

Then we came back out of the cove and admired the beautiful ring in the daylight.

This is the OSF thinking success! I surprised her after all her telling me I couldn't pull it off! I showed her good!

Yes, you did, babe. It was the best I could have ever imagined.

There was this one day I got engaged, Part Four: To the Cave

As a general rule, I've been very on my toes these past three months. I knew he was thinking of proposing. I told him flat out there was no way he'd be able to surprise me; I am un-surprisable. (With the exception of a graduation dinner party the Aubreys threw me in 2007- but Heather's just really good at that kind of thing.) The problem is that I have an overactive imagination and anything- anything- will set me on the course of wondering if something out of the ordinary is about to happen. Chris could put on a nice shirt, and I'd wonder "Is he dressing nice because this is the day?" He could see if I wanted to go hiking the next day and I'd be sure it was going to happen at the top of Cowles Mountain in less than 24 hours. He could look at his watch and I'd wonder, "Is he worried about the time? Are we behind schedule in his crafty little plan?!"

It is impossible to surprise me.

Even on this beautiful Saturday in March, when we stepped out of the car and headed in the direction of our first geocache, I was thinking today would be a nice day for a proposal. But there was no way it was today. We were supposed to have gone whale watching that morning. And I was still sick. And geocaching was my idea. There was no foreseeable plan whatsoever. 

And my Chris? He's a planner. To the extreme.

I also remember thinking, as we started past the Contemporary Museum of Art, and Chris stopped to take some pictures of balloons, how weird it was to not have my camera. Chris had brought his, since he'd already borrowed Cody's long distance lens for our cancelled whale watching trip, and he figured he'd get some use out of the lens. My battery was dying, however, and I felt it wouldn't be worth it to lug around a camera that would only last five minutes.

It felt really weird. I was going to blog about it, actually. Dear blog, I would have said, today was so weird. Chris brought his camera and I didn't, and so Chris spent the whole time taking pictures of me and our surroundings while I was bored and looking for geocaches by myself. Not having a camera is the worst!

That's what my blog would have been about.

So Chris took pictures of me geocaching:

And not finding the geocache.

And random pictures he would later doctor up in photoshop with a cool lighting effect he discovered on a design blog.

Around the first geocache, we were down on the hard sandy cliffs, where we found lots of signatures and smiley faces, and this arrow that presented a fun picture opportunity.

Same arrow. I'm not making a face here, I was just looking right into the sun.

First geocache was left unfound, but we found success with the second one. It was hidden in a knot in the fence overlooking the coves.

Most geocaches have little lists in them for you to date and sign your name when you find it. I always, always forget a pen, so I've never actually gotten to sign one. But the OSF had brought one along!

(Later, when we looked through the day's photos, I realized that I had unknowingly written our names and the date of our engagement day. Chris was thrilled while taking this picture... since he knew, of course.)

Okay, here's where the story starts getting scary. Scary as in I almost ruined it. And if I wasn't such a go-with-the-flow kind of person, I probably would have. 

We had just finished searching for the third geocache. Didn't find it. At this point we were just around the corner from the cave store, a place I remember going with Jesse and Justin years ago, and that I'd told Chris about each time we were in La Jolla, but we'd never found the store. Well, coming in to La Jolla, we'd driven right by it and I'd pointed it out. Chris was like, yeah, maybe we can stop there if we have time.

So we're right there. And my food poisoning dilemma was starting to creep up on me again. Boo for food poisoning! So I asked nicely if maybe we could just hit up the cave store while we were already next to it, and then maybe just go home for the day. 

Chris seemed bummed in the it's-such-a-beautiful-day-I-really-don't-want-to-leave-yet-especially-since-we-were-supposed-to-go-whale-watching-today sort of way. And I felt bad. But my stomach also felt bad. Chris suggested we go get some lunch up on the main street, and that I'd probably feel better afterward... which really wasn't a good argument for someone who has food poisoning, but I went along with it anyway. So we trudged up the street to the Living Room.

By the time we got there it was super hot. The cafe was crowded and noisy, and I miserably sat at the table we managed to snag while Chris stood in line for us. I told him I just wanted water.  But then a girl walked by with an amazing looking turkey sandwich and I called him with my new order. He brought us a sandwich, water, and a bowl of fruit to share. It was a delightful lunch.

And, surprisingly, I felt great by the time we were done. So great, I even agreed to walk all the way back down to the cave store so Chris could see it before we headed home.

So off to the cave we went!

This is how the cave store works: you go into the souvenir shop, pay the guy $4 each, and then you get to walk down the stairs, into the cove, and emerge on a little deck down at water level. You can see in the sign that there's an opening in the cove (yes, shaped like a person's head) where you can see out to the water. Inside the cove are hundred of signatures and I Heart's scrawled all over the rock. It's a great picture place because of all the natural light.

Here's the OSF, in one of our first attempts at a good shot.

And me, in another attempt. We were trying to compensate for the brightness coming through the opening, while still trying not to blow the picture out.

Finally, Chris figured out if we stood in one corner, away from the opening, we could take advantage of all the light without the glare. There was an older couple on the deck with us at the time, and Chris asked them to take our picture... which just so happened to be our last pre-engagement photo ever.

And then Zack Quinto came down the stairs.

Wow. Who'd have thought it would take me so long to write about this?

Not me, that's for sure. But it's been a crazy week- parties, people, homework, regular work, editing pictures, beginning to look for venues, looking for some design-y wedding blogs... but finally it's spring break! And I can start really looking into some stuff. My mom and I are going wedding browsing in a bit- not shopping, mind you, just browsing. Just to see what's out there and be able to touch it all, which is sadly one downfall of internet shopping. 


But when I get back, I am going to try my hardest to sit down and devote time to finishing the story. Because it's good. Really good. That OSF just hit it out of the park, I tell you.


He's so amazing. :)


So look back later today or tomorrow for (hopefully) the rest of the story, complete with pictures from the day!

There was this one day I got engaged, Part Three: The Food Poisoning Part

Chris and I stayed home last Tuesday with food poisoning. We had had a few bites of salmon on Sunday night that hadn't quite been cooked all the way, and that's what we blamed it on. So we spent a miserable little vacation day watching Veronica Mars and eating Saltines.


Chris recovered just fine, but for some reason I stayed semi-sick Wednesday and Thursday, then had a complete relapse on Friday. This was problematic, because Chris had made reservations for us to go whale watching on Saturday, as his "new thing of the month." I texted him at lunch on Friday to ask if he'd lose money if we couldn't go. He texted back that he cancelled the reservations. My co-workers at lunch gave me suggestions about how to get better. I headed home early and slept the rest of the day.


The next morning, Saturday, (yes, the Saturday!) I woke up early. And this is where the first miracle happened. Because I don't get up early on Saturdays. If, on the rare chance, I happen to wake up early, I simply roll over and fall asleep again. On this particular Saturday, however, I lay in bed, awake at 7:45am, and thought, "Hey, why not get some homework done right now?"


I know, right? Totally a God thing.


Chris asked if we could go do something outside if I finished my work early enough, since it was such a beautiful day and I was feeling better and we were missing out on whale watching and all that. I suggested geocaching, and he got to work writing down coordinates for geocaches around La Jolla Coves.


At 12:30, we were in the car, free from homework for the weekend, and headed into the rest of our beautiful day.

There was this one day I got engaged, Part Two: What a tease

In the following weeks, Chris took me to multiple ring stores. First Jared's, which was fancy, but unimpressive. Then a quick stop in to Kay's at the mall once, only to find out that they really have nothing good. Zales that same day, which was a little more promising. I never found another ring that I really liked as much as the Robbin's Brothers one, but Chris either wasn't as impressed or wanted to check out all the other possibilities.

January turned into February, and amidst all the ring shopping and "so when are you going to marry me" joking, people from school were betting he would ask on Valentine's Day. I didn't think so. That OSF wasn't going to do it on an obvious day like that. 

Meanwhile, Chris had started a business card collage on his bulletin board. 

This is what I would stare at when taking breaks from my homework. Such a tease.


I tried not to pester him about it, but it sure is hard to not know what someone's thinking... especially in this situation. 


When March started, and we were still looking at rings every chance we got, I began figuring out that probably, probably, my extremely organized and resourceful boyfriend was just getting a head start on the looking so that, years from now, whenever he planned to ask, he could look through his files for the perfect ring. To save himself some time later, you know.


Also, he mentioned something about how he thought a year was about the right time to propose. We were at 10 months. Dang.


Then I felt bad. Had I been pushing him into this? Was I being too "marry me already!" with him? But he was the one who initiated the ring shopping. And kept taking me to more stores.


It was a very confusing time.


I remembered something my wonderful used-to-be-roommate Mandy told me a few days before she got married, when I was lamenting about how much I loved Chris, and how much I wanted to marry him, and all that blah blah blah. And she told me, as a seasoned girl at being engaged, that I really needed to be enjoying the last few months I had being single.


So last week I decided I would do just that. I would be independent, while I still had my independence! I had homework to do, and students to teach, and books to write, and scrapbooks to create, and all kinds of things that needed to get done. I didn't need any man to take care of me!


And then I got food poisoning.

There was this one day I got engaged, Part One: Some back story

January 18, 2010

It flooded on Martin Luther King Day this year.

This was the Monday that the weather freaked out. It was also a holiday. Chris and I poured over movie times online before selecting the new Michael Cera movie, Youth in Revolt. Then we braved the storm to Fashion Valley.

When the movie let out, and we stepped outside the theater, it was Noah's flood reenacted outside. Apparently Fashion Valley sits on U-shaped pavement and all the water collects in the center. Three steps out and water was seeping through my shoes already. We tried going to another level, in hopes the flood wasn't as bad. It was worse. We hopped from storefront to storefront, even though our shoes and socks were already soaked, and the water was creeping up to our knees.

We ended up stuck outside a corner storefront. Ahead of us was more flood. Chris looked up at the sign and brightened. "Hey... want to look at rings while we wait out the rain?"

We had never done anything like that before. The whole marriage idea had been in talks for a few months at that point, but it was still a distant idea, at least as far as I was concerned. So a surprise ring-looking excursion was new.

It was also fun, because the store we were standing outside of was Tiffany's.

So we walked in. Us, the drenched to the skin mall kids. Us, pretty much the only ones left in the entire mall because everyone else was smart enough to get out of there before the flood. And I tried on my first diamond ring. It was gigantic and sparkly.

Up to that point, I hadn't thought about rings. I figured, my amazing boyfriend was going to pony up all that money, he should be the one to pick it out. But I discovered that there are a lot of rings I hated. And only a few (very few) I really liked.

That night Chris and I got online and pulled up the Robbins' Brothers website. We picked out about four rings we both liked, and Chris said he would set up an appointment for the next day, after he got off work and after I met with my advisor at National for the first time. He was going to print out the rings we'd liked and take them so they could pull those ones out for us.

My National meeting ran late, so Chris had already been there for about forty-five minutes when I finally showed up. For the next hour or so we walked around from case to case. Every time we found a ring we liked better than the original four, we swapped it in, until the end when we had two rings left.

They were similar to this:

The only real difference was that the one I liked better had a bit wider band at the top then the one Chris liked better. I told him that if he actually did get me one of those rings, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference without seeing both of them together.

We met with a diamond-ologist (totally making that word up right now) in a little private room, and Chris went over all this diamond knowledge he had with the guy. I sat back and nodded like I knew what we were talking about. Soon after Chris dismissed me from the room. Really. He sat back, looked at me, and said, "Okay, you're dismissed now."

I drove home in a very confused frame of mind. Were we getting engaged? What was he doing talking to the jeweler alone? Was he buying me an engagement ring at that moment?

And all because it flooded on Martin Luther King Day.

First Engagement Picture (or as Chris calls it, "The Money Shot")

It's a very low resolution photo for now... hopefully we'll be getting the good ones from Chris' co-worker Garrett (our Zach Quinto-look-a-like photographer) tomorrow!