the gory details

so, it all started because we have family coming over for christmas on friday, and family coming over brings out nazi-mom (just kidding, mom, i love you), and nazi-mom makes you do stuff like clean your room and move things into the garage. and so sunday afternoon, while joel was out with steve (the roommate with the cats) doing reasonably vague guy-nothings at the mall, it seemed perfectly reasonable that mom would make me help her take some things down into the garage. it was cold, and i thought it was going to be one of those you-own-too-many-things-and-need-to-amalgamate-your-storage-goods-on-to-one-shelf moments, so my relief on regaining the upper floor was tangible. THEN the phone rang, and i was cryptically ordered to go into my room, and promptly hung up on. i had gone INTO my room to answer the phone, but it took some doing to find it, so i didn't immediately notice the LARGE BOUQUET OF FLOWERS that had materialized on my bed. with a note. and a blindfold? the note read (i paraphrase) 'bundle up, come outside, blindfold yourself, give me a call.' notes accompanied by flowers must be obeyed, and once outside, i was ordered back in so that joel could use the facilities. i hung out blindfolded and alone by the front door, calling out 'it's dark! my eyes...oh long johnson' until he came back. i had to hang out blindfolded and alone again once we got to our unspecified destination, because he had walked me a ways along slippy trails and over branches (i think i stepped in poop) before realizing that he'd left something in the car. [the part of me that embellishes stories to make them a leetle better would like to say that it was the ring...'hey babe, will you...uh...damn! it was in my pocket a second ago!' but it was a rose, or something.] SO, we got to a picnic bench and he made me stand on it and took my hands and said a bunch of stuff about our relationship and all we've been through that i won't repeat here, and then he let go my hands and said i could take off my blindfold. now, i had told joel when we started dating that he wasn't allowed to tell me that he loved me, because those words are scary words, and sometimes they're lies, and i didn't want to hear them if they were lies. but when i took off my blindfold, there he was, kneeling in the wet grass, telling me that he loved me and asking me to marry him. and then i said yes and then i almost cried a little bit and then i screamed for my ring and then we picnicked on the wine and cheese and spiced meats and breadsticks that were spread on the be-clothed, be-candled, be-rosed picnic bench. oh yes, and we were at this park that he and i had gone to one time when we were first dating and fed the squirrels and he took a picture of me feeding a squirrel but my little bum crack was peeking out and that was the picture that he took with him to hawaii to remember me by, and to show people, 'that's my girlfriend, she can't buy pants for herself.' anyway, THAT's the bit (candles, cheese, park, accomplice dressed like ninja to light candles) that probably took the most effort and forethought on his part but that i always keep forgetting to tack onto the story, because the important thing is that here we are, two-and-three-quarter-years, one break-up, two summer-long separations, a handful of fights, a bucketful of miscommunications, a truckload of moments that were just right, and three little words later. and babe? i love you.