The Proposal

Ken proposed on April 28 2007. He made me get all dressed up to attend a Japanese art exhibit at the Kimbell Museum, followed by a phenomenal dinner at Papas Brothers steakhouse. Ken had been bugging me for some time that we hadn't gotten all dressed up to go out in quite some time. I picked the restaurant and he picked the event. Ken even promised to drive, even though he hates driving his 'vette in Dallas traffic.
We got all dressed up and, except for a side trip to WalMart for Kent to buy black socks we were on our way to Fort Worth. My sister Alice had called me earlier that weekend, and I decided while Ken was driving and stopping at WalMart, I would call her back to see what was going on in her world. I told her all about our planned festivities for the day, the fact that Ken was dressed up in a very nice suit (the color of his shirt even matched the color of the pinstripes!), and we chatted about our niece Michaela. Soon Ken was back from his sidetrip to WalMart and we were headed to the museum.
The exhibit at the museum was very nice. The pictures were part of the Floating World, a part of Japanese culture I knew next to nothing about. I enjoyed the art, but I had a hard time reconciling what I knew about Geishas (from reading Memoirs of a Geisha) to the information presented about the time period and the pieces of art. Ken and I discussed at dinner that what I read in Memoirs was from a much later time period.
Dinner at Papas Bros. was absolutely fantastic. We had a fantastic bottle of shiraz with our dinner. I ordered the lamb chops. They were, by far, the best lamb chops I have ever eaten. Even Ken, who ordered filet minon, was jealous! Throughout the meal, Ken was drinking quite a bit of the wine, he probably had 3 glasses to my 1 1/2. I told him to be careful because he was supposed to be driving home. When the dessert menu was passed around and Ken ordered scotch, I knew what that meant. I would be driving the dreaded corvette back home. I told Ken to hand over the valet tag and the keys (Oops! The valet has the keys idiot!) I also had to hit Ken up for a tip for the valet. He happily handed the ticket and the money over.
As they pulled the 'vette up to the curb, I had to move the seat up about 8 inches just to reach the pedals. I moved the car away from the valet parking area and stopped to put the top down, at Ken's request. I also had to move the seat again so I could look over the steering wheel instead of through it. As I was driving home, every car that changed lanes looked like it was going to hit us! I drive and SUV, and I am not used to sitting that low. I white-knuckeled the steering wheel the whole way home while Ken sat in the passenger seat and commented on how wonderful and relaxing it is to drive home with the top down. Needless to say, I wasn't in full agreement with him.
I did get us home in one piece, with only 1 close call of someone changing lanes nearly into us at a stop light. I pulled into the driveway and was going to put the top up. I asked Ken where the button was, and he told me he would get it. "No, no, I'm right here." Ken, not being a happy camper, told me "I will take care of it." At that, I decided that I would leave his car alone, and I would let him put the top up all by himself.
As you can tell, I still had no clue what the outcome of the evening would be!
Ken came around the car and kissed me. He turned me around so that my back was to his front and he put his arms around me. He asked if I remembered the first night I kissed him out in the driveway under the stars. I, being a romantic of course, said, yes I remember, and I remember that you got a speeding ticket on the way home. He told me that I had left him speechless, and asked if there anything that he could say to me that would make me speechless.
It finally clicked! My heart raced, and I was truely at a loss for words. He made me close my eyes, and when I opened them, the ring was in front of me. I started blubbering like a baby. I could barely get out the yes, before I started crying all over that pinstripe suit and the matching shirt. He got down on one knee in the driveway to put the ring on my finger, and then almost fell off the driveway because he got a cramp. Concrete isn't the softest thing to kneel on. We finally made it back into the house, and he told me that I could call and tell everyone.
I zipped off to call home and tell everyone. As I called my parents place, my sister Alice answered. I told her what happened, and she said she already knew! Ken was devestated to find out that his big surprise wasn't a surprise after all. Alice did a great job of hiding it from me, but everyone in my family knew because Ken had to talk to my Dad to get permission. Dad isn't very devious so everyone knew what was going on.
That's it! I spent the rest of the night on the phone talking to everyone at home and admiring my newfound piece of jewelry, and Ken was sad that his surprise hadn't turned out to be so surprising. It was certainly surprising for me!