Champs

36 weeks down
17 weeks left
Starting back at 0 pounds lost (I’m not totally there, but I’m close enough that starting from scratch feels better than actually admitting to the *real* number.)
About 9 months until the wedding

‘Tis the season for people to take the time to stop and tell the world what they are thankful for. I thought about doing that here today, but honestly, I feel like in the last few posts I’ve basically already covered all that. I’m thankful for my job, my smooth transition, my amazing friends, my wonderful family, Washington DC, music, and J. I feel like that’s sorta what this whole blog is about. It’s well- covered territory. So, I’m going to go another direction here.

Thanksgiving was when J proposed to me. Yes, it’s true. We’ve now been engaged for one big fat happy crazy trying year. And since each year at Thanksgiving, I will remember our hilarious and ridiculous and weirdly romantic engagement and be thankful for J,I thought today would be a good day to tell our engagement story. It’s a good story. And it’s pretty reflective of the two of us, which makes me love it even more.

J had a master plan to ask my father in person for permission to marry me (how sweet is that?) on Thanksgiving Day and then ask me at dinner. By the way, I was the only person on the planet that didn’t know this was happening. My best friend DJ was joining us for dinner as well; DJ who knew, had helped plot, had helped design the ring. Because I was hosting Thanksgiving at my apartment with J, DJ and my father, I thought it would be a good and kind idea to invite J’s parents to travel the 4-ish hours to my apartment to join us. J assured me that they rarely traveled and that they would probably say no. I extended the offer anyway, and they jumped at the chance. J was convinced that this would be the tip-off to me that something was going to happen (yes, they knew too.) I’m not that smart.*

*It should be mentioned that not a week earlier J and I had been at a dinner party where we were asked repeatedly about marriage and J constantly made comments about not being interested…not being ready…us not being “there” in an attempt to throw me off the scent. Um, it worked. I was a bit off-put. I called a girlfriend (a girlfriend who, by the way, had already seen the ring at this point) and was so upset. “I can’t believe he’s being like this! I thought we were on the cusp of getting engaged! This is so unlike him!” I’m an idiot.

J tried countless times that day to get my father by himself to ask. This plan did not work. Every time J asked me to run to the store to get something, my father offered to do it. Every time J came up with a new plan to separate my dad from me, something happened. I noticed that he was acting slightly on edge, but I just figured it was because this was our first big joint family venture.

Throughout the day, mutual friends kept calling J to ask him how the day had gone. I remember thinking at the time that this was so strange. What? I made a turkey. Did they think I was gonna kill people with it? (I’m a good cook, by the way…I’ve made a turkey or two in my time.) In hindsight the day was really quite funny…everyone consumed with nervous laughter and J sorta in his head…Dad and I oblivious to it all and DJ just kinda laughing at us all as an impartial observer.

The next morning the lot of us went to brunch. J’s parents, my dad, me, J, and DJ. J could not have been more distant, knowing that my father was leaving town after breakfast, and trying desperately to come up with a way to get him by himself in the few moments he had left. I’ll not go into the elaborate plot details of what happened next (which J came up with while sitting at breakfast freaking out) but it was quite hilarious and included dad being convinced to drive DJ and I home while J pretended he had errands to run while in fact tailing our car, DJ keeping me busy with serious conversation designed not to give me time to actually think about what was going on, and ended with J quite literally jumping in front my father’s car as he pulled out of the parking lot to drive home.

I am told the exchange between Dad and J was lovely and heartfelt. This always makes me happy.

So mission one—accomplished. Permission granted. At that point dad left, DJ left, and it was just me and J. He told me that since I had worked so hard and had made such a lovely dinner the day previous, that that night he was going to take me out to a super nice dinner just the two of us so that I didn’t have to cook (I’m still clueless.) Before our dinner though, one of J’s best buds who he rarely gets to see was coming to town and we agreed to meet up with him for a light late lunch—some wings and a beer and then come home, clean up, and go to our nice, special romantic dinner.

That’s about when I got a miserable migraine headache and crawled into bed with some unbelievably heavy drugs.

This ended up not being a horrible chain of events because his friend kept calling and pushing our late lunch back and back and back. It was almost 4 p.m. when his friends called and said they were ready for us to meet them at the bar, a whopping 4 hours late, and much closer to dinner time than lunch. The good part was that by then my migraine was pretty well gone and I could stand up again.

Of course, I was also totally stoned.

The plan was still to meet J’s friends for a quick drink and then still make our swanky dinner. When we got to the bar however, J’s friends had bought rounds of drinks and dinner for the table. I (not knowing what the intent of said swanky dinner was) suggested we just sit there and eat dinner. “It’s no big deal if we miss our dinner. It’s not like it was for anything special! Let’s just hang out here.” (Did I mention that I was high and clueless?) J just looked defeated.

And so we sat and we ate. And by the end of dinner I was not so stoned. And was feeling better. As we left, J, still desperate to make something happen (he had had the ring out of the box and in his pocket all day long just waiting…) suggested that we still try to salvage the evening by going out for a nice glass of wine somewhere special. I, still not feeling totally awesome, suggested that instead we go get a quick drink somewhere close to my apartment, just in case I started feeling badly again. And the only place close to my house was a total dive hole-in-the-wall bar called Champs. When I suggested Champs, J just looked at me and laughed.

“Really?...Champs?”

So off we went to the local pool hall. We got ourselves a bar trivia controller and a pitcher of cheap beer and sat down to watch some basketball, for what is supposed to be the MOST romantic evening in a couple’s relationship.

“I need to talk to you about something sorta serious.”

Oh God. The last time he said something like this, I found out he was getting deployed.

“Ok. Tell me.” J took a deep breath…and my phone rang. “Hold that thought.”

“Wait…really?”

It was one of my close girlfriends on the phone and she was crying. She had had a miserable Thanksgiving and was embroiled with high family drama which was quite upsetting to her. After about ten-ish minutes, our conversation concluded a little something like this:

“Just come join us for a quick drink. We’re not having a special moment here or anything…Seriously, I’m kicking his ass at trivia, we’re drinking beer and watching basketball. It’s not like Champs is place you come for a special evening. I promise you we won’t talk about your family at all.”(And then J in the background… “Seriously, give me 5 minutes and I PROMISE you, you two won’t be talking about HER family.”)

I hung up. J looked at me, and nonchalantly pulls out the ring. “Guess I’m going to have to do this quickly.” He said a few very romantic things (hey, some stuff gets to stay private…) stunning me speechless. He put the ring that he had carefully designed just for me in my finger. There was, of course, crying and kissing and all that. I just couldn’t see my gorgeous ring because we were in a dark bar. At one point I am pretty sure I was laying on a pool table under the low-hanging lights when J finally just laughed at me and said “Just go to the bathroom already and look at it under the big lights.”

It was while I was in the bathroom that I rewound the last 48 hours and realized how at just about every turn I had torpedoed J’s attempts at special and romantic. And yet, I couldn’t think of a better way to have the day end. When I returned from the bathroom, I kissed J.

“Do you know why this was the perfect proposal? Because *this* is us. We aren’t fancy dinners. We’re easy. We drink cheap beer and play trivia and watch basketball. We adapt and keep our cool when things are hard—we always have a plan B and a plan C and a plan D. We put including our families in important stuff first even when it screws up the plans we have in our head. We put a high premium on accommodating our friends and being there when they need us. You and me…we are Champs. This is us. And come on, would it really be an US engagement story if it wasn’t funny and ironic and ridiculous?”

Each Thanksgiving for the rest of my days, I’ll remember our engagement day and smile and laugh and be oh-so-thankful for the things that make J and I, well, us. We are Champs. And that’s why it works.