Catching Up To Life Again!

Yes, it has been way too long since I've posted. I've got great reasons, though, for my absence:

The biggest one...I'm engaged now! To whom, you ask? Why Katie, of course. She's the one for me, she's the one for me (I love The Beta Band)...

I had been looking at rings for a while, and went with Tricia to look at some on December 29th. The jeweler informed me to come back the next day, December 30th. I did, and it didn't really hit me that I had just bought a ring! I just ordered it there, and would await a call from the jeweler when the ring was ready. The very next day, at Lee's super-righteous New Year's Eve party, I told all my friends there that I had bought Katie a ring. Within one week of purchasing it, I had told pretty much everybody, and Katie had no clue. I thank you again, friends, for not telling her. After the new year, I went to my friend's belated New Year's Eve party on 01/06/06, complete with friends, champagne and a countdown to midnight via the microwave clock! That was hilarious, and I told more people at the party about my buying Katie a ring.

In the same month, I saw a great show at the Triple Rock for the pro-choice movement (remember kids, pro-choice doesn't mean pro-abortion!) that featured Unknown Prophets, Dessa and Cecil Otter of Doomtree, the Shim Sham Shufflers, the magnificant The Haves Have It and the always impressive and amusing Belles of Skin City. This concert was for a great cause, and each band had something progressive to say about the current political climate. No surprises there.

I picked up the ring January 26th, rushing to get to the jeweler before it closed at 6pm. She handed it to me, swiped my credit card, and I signed the slip. I walked out the store, checking my coat pocket twice to ensure that the ring was indeed there. A lot of emotions came over me: pure joy, excitement and nervousness, among others, so I called some friends to calm down a bit and tell them the news. After friends de-escalated my hyperness, I walked to Cheapo and promptly purchased 4 cd's to get in the normal mindstate before heading home to Katie. After all, she thought I was going to the 'Y' to work out after work, not pick up an engagement ring! So I had to act calm and collected. I was totally chill when I returned, and went about eating food and packing for the trip up north.

We left the next day, January 27th, to celebrate Katie's 25th B-Day at Bluefin Bay, located right off the awesome Lake Superior in Tofte, MN. The lake wasn't even close to being frozen over, due to the warm weather and whatnot. Consequently, that hindered our ice skating and cross-country skiing plans. Nevertheless, we made the best of it: a lakeview outside our hotel room, jacuzzi, calm Nature and local establishments for eating and shopping were at our disposal. We got there friday night, popped a frozen pizza in, ate, soaked in the jacuzzi and crashed. We awoke Saturday morning, and trekked to Coho Cafe, where we ate amazingly good food and dessert. We walked along the boardwalk connecting the resort to the Cafe, taking in the fresh, clean, crisp air. The atmosphere was fantastic, confirming that indeed this would be the day when I would propose to Katie. We got back to the resort, and fell asleep listening to the waves crash against the shore. We awoke, watched a bit of the Truman Show and prepared for dinner at the resort restaurant. We dressed up a bit, and I made sure I had the ring in my dress coat pocket.

Our dinner was wonderfully delicious, and I told Katie we were to have a toast before every sip of wine. I may have hinted a bit at things to come, but was generally coy about it. There were some really heartfelt words spoken that night, and it was turning out to be the perfect night. After dinner, we hurried back to the resort. I thought, this is it, right now, I'm going to propose! So I went to the bathroom and took the ring out and put it in my right hand. With a closed right fist, I exited the bathroom, bent over and took out a poem I had written for this occasion. I was getting real excited, my heart beat increasing a bit and such. Katie, meanwhile, was watching cartoons on cable tv! I said 'turn the tv off, I have to read you a poem.' Moving the endtable in front of the fireplace, I instructed Katie to sit there while I read the poem.

This was it....I got on both knees (just to mess with her a bit), the poem in my left hand, the ring hidden in my right fist. The first verse was general and contained lovely words. The second verse, however, contained the word ring...and that's when I got on one knee and opened my right fist to reveal the ring to Katie. Her eyes got really big, she started tearing up and leaning forward in anticipation. I, on the other hand, began breathing heavy and slow, my left hand shaking as I read the poem to her. She sat through the whole poem, and when it ended, she leaped off the endtable and threw her arms around me. Subsequently, my ear, neck and cheek was covered in her running makeup, which was damn cute! She said, 'of course I will!' About 5 minutes after hugging and kisssing and shaking, we were like, 'oh yeah, the ring! '
I shook as I slid it on to Katie's finger. That was it....the anticipation, the nervousness, the surprise, the shock, all but completed. We jumped in the jacuzzi and talked for over an hour about, well, everything really. So exhausted from the shock and occurence, we exited the jacuzzi and fell asleep for the first time, engaged, fiance and fiancee. Holy shit, right? It was great!

The next morning we awoke refreshed and eager to play outdoors. We drove up to Lutsen, ate some good food and went snowshoeing! That had been my first time, and Katie helped me into the snowshoes. The loop was about 3 miles, and we viewed the great lake, deep-valley forests and a hanging gray skyline. Light snowflakes fell on our jackets, and Katie pointed out the beauty of them; the fact that we could see their individually shapes due to them falling lightly. That she pointed this out to me was one of the numberous reasons I proposed to her. After a snack at the resort restaurant, we soaked in the big communal hottub and retired to our room. Leftovers comprised our dinner, and great comedy ala Simpsons, Family Guy, and a Jim Gaffigan comedy special thoroughly entertained us. We totally relaxed that night, writing about the weekend adventures and surprises, including a nature poem that I left part of in the resort room journal.

We returned Monday January 30th (Katie's 25th B-Day!), and did all of the following in one hour: went to the gym, Rainbow, unloaded the car, prepared Katie's B-Day angel food cake, showered, dressed and left for dinner with our great friends. We told of the engagement, recalling our weekend through pics that Katie had displayed on our tv. She even passed the engagement poem around, letting our friends read it. They gave me a mix of warm and sarcastic responses, saying it was 'beautiful, heartfelt, tearful, universe-changing (ok, not the last one...) Awash with friends and celebration, I must say that last weekend in January was one of the best weekends of my life! And yes, I'm surprised as much as you are; I don't know how I kept the secret from Katie for over a month! I'm sneakier than I thought I was...

After telling my family that I'm engaged now, my focus shifted to grad school, hoping to pursue a Master's of Public Health. I studied for that damn GRE, recalling prefixes, suffixes, roots of words, and high school algebra and geometry. I gathered letter of recommendation from past and present employers, completed the online application, prepared a resume and letter of intent, requesing an official transcript, etc. It was a big process, consuming my afterwork evenings and hang-out-with-friends and fiancee time. But I submitted my application last week, complete with everything needed. I took the GRE last week and got whooped! Not horrible, but below the preferred score for grad school admission. I could retake it, but I don't know if I want to. The math was a big pain, the verbal about what I expected, and the writing part smooth. Oh well; it's over for now.

Now it's time to return back to life again: get back into poetry, writing, blogging, attending concerts, hanging with friends, seeing family, working out and doing yoga. We have chinese chi balls, tai chi kit, exercise ball, massage/reflexology/shiatsu books and darts that need to broken in and used. I have photos from August 2004-present that need to be organized into albums!
Ok...in all likelihood, all of the above won't happen right away. Nonetheless, it feels superbly awesome and fantastic to be engaged to Katie, and great to be done with grad school stuff. 2006 will surely be another amazing year, with more changes and great music to occur for sure.