The Proposal

Before this all gets too cobwebby I'm putting it down in words. My plan was simple: Get Yelena away from the family for a "date night" in San Francisco, have dinner, head to the Embarcadero ice rink, skate romantically in circles, stop to tie skate and voila - pop the question. In theory this sounds great and Josh helpfully offered a rather cheesy line, "look at this piece of ice I just found," that I would never have used.

In actuality the proposal went something like this: We took BART into the city and emerged at the Embarcadero too early for dinner. The ice skating rink was a bust: filled to capacity with shrieking kids and corny music (The Poynter Sisters' "I'm so excited," really?) so I suggested a walk through the ferry building and along the bay.

The full moon was rising over the Bay Bridge and reflecting on the water and I thought it was a perfect excuse to distract Yelena. She went up against the rail, took a picture and while I handed her the camera I pretended to tie my shoe (the one remaining part of Plan A). When she looked up I was holding the ring and on one knee.

"Yelena, will you marry me," I asked.

The response was surprising.

"Where the hell did you get that," she replied.

"Is that a yes?"

 

To say that Yelena was surprised would be an understatement. I literally had to push her up several hills to get us to dinner in North Beach.