my lovely girl and i took off for Paris on May 19th, and had a wonderful trip. we spent just over a week with my sister & her husband, and their insanely cute little self-propelled floor scrubber. the trip itself was awesome, and i'll write more about it in detail later, though not in as much detail as the last time i went, partly because i didn't keep a detailed journal like last time, and partly because, as infrequently as i update, i'm sure you guys don't want to be bored to tears by 8 days worth of interminably long posts. 'cause you know if i wrote 'em, i'd write 'em big.

anyway, the main reason i'll not write more about the trip in this post is because there really was only one event that i want to highlight, and it's possibly the most important event so far in my life (except, perhaps, for my birth). it took a lot of planning, and even some conniving and sneakiness, to pull it off, but i like to think i pulled it off with charm, character, and panache.

on friday, Sara and I headed out on our first full day in paris (we don't count thursday, 'cause we were barely lucid after staying awake for 36+ hours…) to the louvre, which is the only place i had regretted not spending more time at on my last visit. we spent several hours walking around the louvre, until the pictures started really blending into each other, our feet were demanding a break, and our lungs were clamoring for fresh air.

back out in the daylight, we wandered for a bit through the courtyard, then out towards and into the Jardin des Tuileries. some of you might recall the garden as being the location of my favorite view of Paris. when we reached the end of the Jardin, near the huge gate connecting the gardens to the Place de la Concorde, we went into the little bookstore set into the wall, above-which was the spot–my ultimate destination. of course, i'd told sara several times about the spot, and the view of the Parisian skyline that it afforded, with the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Egyptian Obelisk in the large open plaza.

the bookstore was filled with gardening books, and was really just a delaying tactic, though a completely explainable one, considering Sara's mom's gardening/landscaping hobby.

still, there wasn't much of interest, so we left the bookstore and headed up to the spot. hand in hand, we trudged up the incline to the top of the wall. we walked up to the fence and stood there for a minute or two just kind of taking in the scene and hanging onto each other. then i told her i wanted to get some pictures, and i handed her my backpack, so i could dig into it for my camera.

i reached in and rummaged around for a while, long enough for her to get curious as to why it was taking so long. just about the moment, she said "ah… wha…", i set the backpack down to the side, dropped down to one knee, and, with ring in hand, asked "will you be my wife?"

after taking the briefest of moments to recover from shock, she said she would. we hugged, she cried a little, and we just enjoyed the moment for several minutes. i'm certain the french couple sitting on the bench nearby had seen the whole thing, and were either watching us intently, or trying intently not to watch us. we walked over to another bench and sat for a while, talking, and just being close. then we got up and took a few pictures to mark the occasion.

after taking in the view one last time, we headed out of the Garden and onto the streets, walking down to a restaurant in the Marais district that my sister had picked out at my request especially for this evening. we enjoyed the night air, had a great dinner at a classy-yet-cozy little French restaurant, and then made our way back to my sis's place.

i couldn't have asked for a better day, and i couldn't have hoped for all the little plans i'd been working on for the proposal to have gone any better than they did. and i couldn't have hoped for a better girl to have that day with or make those plans for. so, after 20+ years of waiting to find the right person, the countdown has finally begun to end my life as a single man. in June of next year, we're not sure exactly when yet (though, probably on the 11th for all of you who're expecting invitations), we'll get hitched and get started on our long lives of bugging the crap out of each other and laughing about it later. wish us luck.

personally, i can hardly wait.

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