Happy News!

Jen and I are engaged!

It’s something I had been thinking about for a while (since January or February at least). We had been talking about what we might look for in a house, that kind of thing, and it had always seemed a bit funny to be dancing around the question of the status of our relationship. Since we’ve known each other almost 5 years now, and have been going out for 4, and since we love each other very much, it seemed (at least in my mind) like the time was ripe.

Despite having entertained these thoughts, I really had not come up with a concrete plan involving places, dates, times, circumstances, jewelry. But when last Saturday (June 12) turned out to be a picture perfect day, and we had nothing else planned, I thought to myself “Self: Good day to get engaged!”

So, I decided to ask Jen if she might like to go for a nice walk in Gatineau Park – something we like to do on nice days in the summer. She readily agreed to this plan. I suggested breakfast first. She concurred. So, we decided to go to the Elgin Street Diner, then changed our minds and mosied on over to the Manx. There, the breakfast foods were fantastic (particularly the Banana/Vanilla scones that Jen ordered). Everything was going according to plan.

Of course, being at the Manx meant that I could consult the stars to see whether my plan would be propitious :) (Disclaimer: We do not take astrology seriously, but it’s fun to read Free Will Astrology every week in the back of the Ottawa X-Press.). Our horoscopes were pretty good:

With the approval of the universe seemingly granted, I decided that my plan was indeed a good one. (Luckily, at the time, I did not know that according to the farmer’s almanac week outlook, June 12, 2004 is a good day to prune to discourage growth. But what do they know anyway…)

We had noticed the setup for Art in the Park on the way down Bank Street so we decided to postpone the Gatineau walk a bit and view the art. Many of our favorite artisans were back this year, in virtually the same spots. There was a huge variety of art, including fabrics, paints, pictures, sculpture, fine cabinetry, glasswork and plenty more! There were some fantastic hand-coloured black and white photos there, and the person was offering courses on how to do it. Of course, I did not pick up a card and now regret it. But anyway, I’m getting away from the narrative here, so ask me about that another time.

After the highly enjoyable art show, we headed home to pick up a bottle of water and the camera, and then went up to Gatineau Park. We drove straight to the place I had planned: the King Mountain trail. This is a lovely trail, with several great lookouts over the Ottawa valley.

Along the way, we stopped to take a few photos. Jen being, of course, oblivious to my designs… :)

Eventually we came to a little bench overlooking one of the best views.

It really was the perfect day. Clear blue sky, warm, a nice breeze at the top of the Gatineau escarpment, the clear blue ribbon of the Ottawa river on the valley floor, the farmer’s fields below with the city along the horizon, the hawks soaring over the cliffs. (Ok, the truth is out, I am a secret romantic.)

View from King Mountain

Eventually, the couple that had been sitting in that area moved along and we were left alone. (Lucky… given the beautiful day!) At that point I began to get a bit nervous. Voices approaching from a distance, however, made me realize that if I wanted this to occur today I had best get along with it!

Seated together on the bench, I said that I was feeling very happy with the state of our relationship. Then, after Jen reciprocated this feeling, I suggested that we might want to consider a more permanent arrangement. Feeling that this was not really clear enough I added that perhaps we should get married. Jen agreed, and so it is that we are now engaged.

Now, I did not have a ring with me, nor did I get down on one knee on the rocks. In some ways I feel I should have gotten down on one knee, I had sort of been planning to, but in the end Jen assures me that my position was perfectly acceptable. Regarding the question of a ring, since Jen dislikes them I decided that I would not get one in advance. (This also assisted me with my spur of the moment planning). Jen has no rings, so it would have been a total stab in the dark to try to get one. We need to hold more discussions on this point before we come to any conclusions. Needless to say, I am happy to provide a ring if one is required.

After a few more moments of sitting together we moved off down the trail. We felt very natural about the decision, it has come at a good time in our relationship I think. It was interesting to both of us that we didn’t immediately feel hugely different. We just felt very normal about the entire exchange. This seems like a good sign to me… I think it would be worrying if we had suddenly felt nervous, or trapped or something.

It has been a long journey to this point for us. We have worked very hard in this relationship to understand each other. We have truly learned how to be together, and this has been paying off big time for the last few months. This is a good time for us to make this decision I think.

Just after!

So, then we went and romantically filled my car up with gas, and then got back to the apartment, and basically said “Now what?”

So, being the food-oriented people that we are we decided to go out for a fancy dinner to celebrate. We do like a fancy dinner… We decided to go to Le Jardin which I had never been to, and which has received the Golden Fork Award of the Gourmet Diners Society of North America (for what that’s worth). Also, it comes highly recommended from several friends. In short, it was excellent. We both had the table d’hôte, which consisted of a rich cream of tomato soup, an exotic salad with cold lamb medallions, a mango sorbet to clear the palette, filet mignon with vegetables and an excellent dessert.

One nice aspect of the engagement, something that did change a bit, was that those topics that had seemed dangerous before (like houses, for example) seemed very easy to talk about over dinner.

Before we got engaged (I realize now) these topics were hard to talk about because I (at least) didn’t want to accidentally fall into a discussion about getting married. It felt to me like doing that would be getting the cart before the horse. From the point of view of our planning I wanted us to come to a clear decision about our relationship as its own decision, and then move on to other discussions. From a romantic point of view, I wanted our decision to make our relationship permanent to be an event in and of itself - a special day for us to remember. That is exactly what happened.

So we’ve been having a great week since this decision. A great week following a fantastic and memorable day. (Note to self: “stop overselling”) We haven’t come to any firm decisions about what we’re going to do in the way of weddings and surrounding events, but whatever we decide it will likely be next summer.

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