Ker-engaged!

Some of you may have seen this coming, but I’m guessing a lot of people weren’t paying close enough attention. As of the night of May 24, 2008, Sarah and I are officially engaged. This happened at the end of her week-long trip to visit me in Nashua and was really sort of the only big thing we did the whole week. That’s probably for the best, since it’s a really big one. Well you might want to know how it went down.

I’d made reservations and purchases well in advance, but had been keeping it a secret. The plan was we’d get really dressed up, go to the Federalist near the State House for drinks, then walk over to No. 9 Park for dinner, then the next day we would just sort of walk around downtown Boston and see whatever Sarah wanted to see. I sort of left out the whole engagement part when I went over this plan with her. The dressing up went well. I wore my new pinstriped suit, and she wore her new blue silk dress. She looked very pretty, even though she was uncomfortable walking around in the shoes.

Going to the Federalist didn’t go quite so well. This is a bar that had been recommended to me by my friend Jared (who also happens to be a bartender in Nashua). He said they made a great old fashioned and was a good place to start an evening. Well, the Federalist no longer exists. It has since been renamed to Moo and redone on the inside to look a little more hip. We found it without too much more trouble, sat down, and ordered some drinks. Since we had a late (9pm) dinner reservation at No. 9, I was in no real rush. Sarah ordered some sort of lemonade drink and I went with the old fashioned. It was quite expertly made. We debated ordering an appetizer but somehow neglected to. That would end up being a tactical error.

After lots of talking with each other and the bartenders, it was closing in on 9pm. We left Moo and walked around the corner to No. 9 Park. What a tiny place, both inside and out. It was pretty busy but since we had a reservation, all we had to do was sit around and wait for the table to be ready. While they were preparing the table, Sarah and I sat in the bar area and I ordered a flight of Aviators. Then it was time to move to the table. Strangely, everyone in the dining room sat so we faced away from the entrance to the kitchen. Our waitress was very knowledgeable and attentive. No problems at all with the service. The only real problem I had was the portion size of my duck meal. This combined with the very late reservation made me start to feel pretty out of it. I don’t think Sarah had any problems with her meal at all. After eating, drinking, talking, and waiting around for the check, it was nearly 11pm when we left.

I suggested we walk over into the Boston Common, which is right across the street. Sarah agreed but had to take off the shoes before her feet fell off. We wandered around for a while in the dark until we got close to the lake. This looked as good a place as any, so I stopped her, took the ring out of my jacket pocket, and WHAM! I believe her exact response was “Of course.” And then that was that - all the thinking and planning and it was all over very quickly. How strange. I only felt slightly awkward doing it. I don’t think it was quite what I wanted it to be given how I felt with the late meal, but she was happy and that’s probably all that counts.

The next day we spent wandering around downtown. We saw the park again by daylight, the Boston Public Library, some fancy mall down in that area, more of the North End, and some other stuff. Basically we just walked around. There was also gelato involved. Then it was time to flee the city and go back up to Nashua so we could spend some time around my house. Back in Nashua, we took a bunch of pictures of ourselves to mail to people. Above is the one picture we decided came out pretty good. Too bad you can’t see the ring.