The weekend of Feb. 16-19 (Presidents Day weekend) Rondell and I went to Washington DC to visit some real good friends of mine. My maid of honor, Melissa, and her boyfriend, Stuart, were coming to visit Melissa's and my mutual friend, Marie-Anne for the weekend. We had a grand time catching up and playing tourist. On Saturday we visited the Air and Space Museum, enjoyed the sites, and stopped off at the Pentagon City Mall on the way home. Rondell and I had been giving Melissa and Stuart a hard time about buying rings, and forced them, and of course the rest of us to stop off at a jewelers to look at the rings and discuss styles. Melissa and I were critiquing the rings and pointing out what we wanted to the guys. While I noticed that Stuart was paying particular attention to Melissa's comments, Melissa noticed that Rondell just kept looking at me instead of the ring. She cornered him in the shop while I was off looking at emeralds, and accused him of having the ring. He claims he grinned widely and tapped his breast pocket. Melissa, of course, had to see it immediately, but Rondell didn't want to show her in my presence, so he and she contrived a reason for the two of them to be alone later in the evening (The reason was for Stuart and I to get to know each other better... he was in the process of the "Best Friend Grilling"). So Melissa and Rondell went off to buy medicine for her cold, and left Stuart, Marie and I alone cooking dinner. While Rondell and Melissa were out, he showed her the ring and asked her blessing. :-) She give it, and wished us the best. When they got back, Stuart and I finished up our conversation, and the gang sat down to a good, home cooked meal.
After the meal, Melissa and I discussed the wedding plans. Rondell and I had been discussing getting married for months, so we had been making plans. I actually had everything together except for the tent, the preacher, and the caterer. These all require a date, and we couldn't set a date until Rondell gave me the ring. Needless to say, I was getting impatient, though I was trying to contain my impatience. So we review the plans, dress fabric, patterns, invitations, etc. I was trying to be enthusiastic with out being too impatient (I failed miserably.) Meanwhile, everyone else knew that Rondell had the ring and was planning on asking me that weekend. They were laughing at me.... no fair.
So after Melissa and I have a heart to heart and she tells me to be patient as she is sure that Rondell has a plan and things will come in due time.... I repeated to her what had become my mantra, "I know he is working on it because he has told me he is, but that the 'world is conspiring against him' and that I've just got to be patient." (yada, yada, yada)
So, I resigned myself to being prepared to pick out another wedding date even later in the year, got ready for bed and went to sleep. Then sometime time around 6:30 am, Rondell snuck into my room and put the engagement ring on my finger (he claims he didn't want to give me and opportunity to refuse). I, of course, slept through the whole thing. He said that I helped him put it on my rolling over in my sleep and pushing it onto my finger. I don't remember this, so, I'll take his word for it. I woke up some time later with a full bladder and a desire to stay asleep. Unfortunately, the bladder won the debate. I got up and went to the bathroom totally oblivious of the ring on my finger. I've worn a ring on that finger for years, and so was not aware of its presence until I started washing my hands. I looked at my hands in a half asleep, dazed fog and thought, " that's new. Where did that come from? I wonder if Rondell gave me this?" I dried my hands, wandered into the room in which he was sleeping, crawled onto the bed and held my hand in front of his face and said something like, "Is this you? did you do this?" His response was to grin really big and say, "yes, will you marry me?" I, still mostly asleep, said yes. There was more said, but it is rather foggy, as I was not really awake.
Rondell was somewhat disappointed in my reaction as he expected a scream, squeal, or tears, which I did not give him. But I figure that is what he gets for giving it to me when I was asleep. Besides, I'm not a squealer or screamer. Of course, all of our friends were downstairs waiting for a similar sound to come from me. They did not hear such noises, though Stuart claims he heard my "yes". At any rate, we did eventually join the lot downstairs and had the obligatory sparkling grape juice toast, and by the end of the second toast I had awakened enough to display the appropriate signs of giddiness. [Rondell did eventually get his squeal. One of the barn girls, Sarah, squealed with delight for him when she found out. :-)]
It turns out that Rondell really did have a hard time getting the ring he wanted for me. I've had problems before with rings that have gem stones in prong settings. My life with horses and art requires a ring with a low profile and channel set stones. He couldn't find such a ring here locally and ended up having to have one specially made for me in New York. It is a beautiful ring, very sparkly, etc. The jeweler did a wonderful job. If you want more specifics, I'm willing to brag, but not in such a public forum. :-)
By the way, in case you were wondering how Rondell managed to get a ring that fit, it was because I had given him a ring several months earlier that fit that finger so he would know what size to make the ring. |
