Guess who's a year older?

I've matured so much in the past nine months. You should have seen me before I met her.

Last night was my birthday. Getting older, sure, but I knew how to milk this special day. I've been plotting for months on how I'd surprise my girlfriend of 9 (or 10, depending on how you count) months with the ring I have known she deserves.

As usual, I waited until the last second to complete my preparation. Sometimes procrastination is manageable, sometimes it isn't. There was some frantic last minute activity before our 7pm dinner, but more importantly, before she arrived at my house at 5pm.

I want to write this well, I guess I should get to the plan:
My goal:
Propose in a way that will knock her socks off. Girls plan the wedding from their eighth birthday (their mothers from the day the daughter is born). I have always wanted to make the proposal itself as special as possible.

I have listened to excellent stories, I have read books & webpages, and I have spent hours imagining creative twists. In this case, I built the surprise over most of our relationship. Every time the 'm' word came up, I'd roll my eyes and change the subject. We communicate very well (I work hard on it), so many problems came from having such a strong void in such a close relationship. "Why won't you ever talk about this with me???" LOL.

Step 1:
Pick a day. There are many special days. Christmas. Our 1-year anniversary (Dec. 3). Valentine's Day. Our often discussed, but thus far poorly executed trip to Paris. Those were all obvious. My birthday presented a unique challenge. I would get the gift I always wanted.

Step 2:
Pick a location. Thankfully she took care of this for me. She booked a birthday dinner for two at J'Lo's Madre's using OpenTable.com, Matt's previous employer.

Step 3:
Pick a ring. I wanted to imitate Bobby's technique, but here's where my plan began to encounter some trouble. I love to do things right, I love to make her happy. I struggled with the right thing to do. Ultimately, procrastination led to improvisation, and Mounia's reminder that Sheree's a HUGE fan of Tiffany's provided an excellent opportunity to save the day.
Thursday (2 days before!) I left work early to make it to Tiffany's in Costa Mesa's South Coast Plaza. Deanna Haves quickly helped me get a ring I knew Sheree'd like. Then I raced to Starbuck's. Maria Elena Arenas showed me they aren't the evil empire they are often made out to be. I offered $400-500 for the small table where Sheree and I talked for 3 hours on Dec. 3, 2003, our blind date after three weeks filled with a couple hundred (sic) emails and just two or three phone conversations, only one of which lasted more than 5 minutes. The district manager was contacted by the store manager at Tustin's, and directly by me after a desperate call to corporate (god bless the internet). Marie listened to my story in the message I left on her cell phone. She called early the next morning (Thursday, 2 days before the big day.) "Could I please buy the table? I am not a furniture expert, but $100-200 seems like the going price for what I remember of the table, I'll pay $400" Marie: "I told your story to some coworkers, and we all agree, you can't buy the table." I was crushed. I would like to be a skilled negotiator, but this is my only hope. Before I get out the tears, and plead my case further, Marie gave me the best news, "We'll give it to you. I've told the store manager. Pick it up whenever you like." Yes!! Thank you Starbuck's! Thank you Marie.


Step 4:
Pick a ruse. Robert (né Radoslaw) Osada taught me the old Polish tradition of treating friends to gifts on one's birthday. Distract her with presents and build a crescendo of romance & history, & drop the ring at the best time. I am not Polish, but it would work well.

Step 5:
Get her Dad's permission. This was tricky. I did not have his cell phone number. If I call the house, I could get Danny or Betty, and all I need is Randy. The fewer people who know, the better. I surreptitiously sneak his mobile # from Sheree's cell. I knew I would propose on a Saturday, so I should try to call Friday, right? Not if I want it to be a surprise. I trust as few of my best friends as I can with this surprise information, so I was not going to give her a clue by letting her family have 24 hours to talk to her. They talk every day, and even if they want to keep a secret, Sheree's pretty smart when I am trying to hide something, and she's known them for a couple decades!

Step 6:
Prepare the gifts. Again, procrastination led to improvisation.

Gift 1-CD with some excellent love songs. I had never made her one, and she stopped making them for me after about six in the first month. My bad. Title: Happy Birthday to me! I finished this at about 4:16pm.

Gift 2-450+ scrunchies; no more frantic searches before volleyball. I picked these up at Sav On at about 4:30pm.

Gift 3-A scrapbook with a brief walk down memory lane. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow were the page titles. A picture of a blue box with a white ribbon towards the end. That page would be flashed for a second right before the ring was presented. Kinko's finished this at about 5:25pm.

Gift 4-A couple of books I hijacked from the hospital before the donation was complete. I planned to show her these after she said yes. Pretty coincidental (foreboding?) that I got the books four days before I proposed. Barry wrapped these for me at about 6:05pm.

Saturday was a rush! Making the scrapbook, and getting it printed at Kinko's. A $60 trip to Sav On got some white wrapping paper, some white gift bags, and red tissue paper. And the scrapbook used for Gift 3.

She called at 6:02pm. "I'm at the 605!". I was sweating. Barry finished while I got dressed in the nice Geoffrey Beene (sp?) blue shirt Autum bought me in '00, and in the black suit and black shoes Christina helped me buy from the Mens Wearhouse in November '03.

Everything was perfect when she arrived.

Dinner went pretty well. Check out the video linked to from my website. Too bad it did not catch the moment where I asked for the heater to be turned on. She had my coat, as she was a bit cold. I should have known it was because she had the cold soup and plenty of ice water. When I asked, "should we turn on the heater", "NO." was the answer. Chivalrous Brett said, sometimes no means yes. "Please turn on the heater" "No, I'm okay" "Yes, the heater. Just a bit. Low, please. Thank you." Five minutes later: "Please turn off the heater. We're fine now. thank you again." Very embarrassing. I just didn't want her to be cold when I broke the surprise. Kind of funny looking back. But not then.

Oh. She said yes. Celebration.