Bloopers!
If you are one of those people who has spent time with Sharon, you likely know how challenging it is to surprise her. For one, she has a tendency to take the lead on organizing activities, and when someone else takes the reins, her preference is to have a good idea of the plans. Sharon is also incredibly attentive to details, thanks in part to her fantastic photographic memory. [Unfortunately for me, this means that I almost never get away with even the slightest slip-up, and I am rarely in the right when it comes to a debate/argument. If you know me, you understand how hard it is for me to admit the latter]. And then there is her uncanny ability to randomly mess things up, partly due to her rationality, and partly due to her occasional obliviousness.
Nevertheless, the year of 2012 was delegated my year to make plans and ‘be in control of trips,’ mostly because Sharon organized just about everything in 2011, as well as our surprise anniversary trip to Lake Tahoe back in January.
With the rights to plan just about anything in congruence with Sharon’s schedule, the question became, “How am I going to conceal a proposal, without making anything obvious?” Well, there was no single answer. In general, I deemed it all an excellent example of ‘slight-of-hand.’ In jest, Sharon simply referred to it as ‘lies, nothing but lies!” And let me just say, boy did I get lucky along the way.
Here is a list of the many ‘bloopers,’ or rather, close calls leading up the magical moment…
The first challenge was perhaps the most difficult to handle. About a month after I had ‘reserved’ Memorial Day Weekend with Sharon, I informed her that our plans were finalized. We were heading to L.A. for a three-day trip. Sharon was furious! That was also the weekend for The Smoker vet school party. I really didn’t think it mattered to her if we missed it, especially since we went the previous year. Quick on my feet, I claimed we had non-refundable tickets for an event on Monday (slight-of-hand example #1), and that they cost me a lot of money. Although I had not actually signed any contracts to lock us in for the photo shoot on Sunday, I saw no other realistic opportunity for this trip. And so, with flights relatively cheap, we agreed to fly down on Sunday morning, right after The Smoker.
So how did I manage to avoid raising any suspicions? I felt I had to give her something about the trip, especially to get her excited. So I told her we had plans to visit the Huntington Gardens on Sunday. It worked like a charm!..
Only a couple of hours later, Sharon’s mom, Grace, nearly destroyed what I had so delicately saved (that is, the façade of a harmless weekend trip).
You see, earlier that Saturday afternoon, I spoke with Sharon’s dad, John, and informed him of my plans. I intended on asking him if he and Grace would be interested in flying out for the surprise. Interestingly, John told me that they had already booked a trip to San Francisco for that weekend. We continued our scheming for a bit and concluded that he and Grace would hold off for a few days before telling Sharon that they were visiting. I wanted time to discuss the L.A. trip with Sharon, before she knew that her parents were coming into town that same weekend. So I told her right after she got home. My instincts proved impeccable! When Grace called Sharon that evening for one of their typical catch-up conversations via FaceTime, I decided to join in and sit on the bed with Sharon. Out the blue, Grace happened to ask (and I am fairly confident that these were her exact words), “Oh, did Jon tell you that we’re coming to visit Susan (Sharon’s sister) and work on the house next month?” My stomach sank. With a puzzled look on her face, Sharon simply responded, “Huh?” Her dad, listening in the background, said something along the lines of, “Jon doesn’t want you to talk about that,” or “don’t say anything about that.” What I do remember is Grace replying with “Oh, nevermind.” Thankfully, Sharon disregarded everything and never put two-and-two together…
A few phone-related incidents:
- One of the diamond companies called me one night as we were eating dinner. I was awkwardly terse with the person. Thankfully, he picked up on this right away and hung up. Sharon didn’t make anything of it.
- Sharon did, however, continually point out that I was suspiciously avoiding having phone conversations with my own mother in her presence. Sharon thought it was because I didn’t want to argue with my mom in front of her. Perhaps that was part of it, but mainly, my mom was really the only person I could openly talk with about everything. What can I say, I really value her opinions (most of the time).
- Sharon also went to grab my iPhone one night to use the Safari App and look something up on the internet. Earlier that day, I had just searched for the restaurant we were going to after our engagement shoot. If she had seen the name of it, she most certainly could have suspected something was up. You see, the first place that we met was Bistro 33 in downtown Davis, and after the proposal, we were having dinner at Bistro 45 in Pasadena.
- Days before our trip, I haphazardly mentioned how shocked I was that I had used so many rollover minutes this month. Oops! Although I had spent a great deal of time on the phone with Mark (the photographer), the Huntington Gardens, and the jewelry company, I certainly couldn’t acknowledge any of that. Mildly puzzled, Sharon asked why. I attributed my phone usage to work-related stuff. She let it go.
During our casual chat about structuring our day at the Huntington, I knew I had to play dumb and not set off any red flags. First, I had to get Sharon to agree on the route that I had planned for us, in order to get the proposal to happen near the Lily Ponds. Sharon definitely made this difficult as she always takes a new visitor on a particular path in order to enter the Japanese Garden from the south. We compromised, conflict avoided. I also wanted to schedule a break for lunch around 2 pm, for stalling purposes. Sharon simply wanted to sneak in some food and snack during the day (we ended up napping in the Japanese Garden instead). Then there are the restrictions on changing put forth by the Huntington Gardens, which definitely created a problem for me. Thus, I needed Sharon to agree on a nice, yet comfortable outfit for the day such that we both looked decent in our engagement photos (but she didn’t know this, of course). I tried to use the excuse that we were heading straight to dinner afterwards. Sharon suggests that we just change at the Huntington as we leave. I knew this was prohibited and a violation of the contract that I signed (sigh). In the end, Sharon chose the perfect outfit!
A few days before our trip and during a casual chat about what we should bring, Sharon mentions that we could check bags for free, thanks to the benefits provided by her credit card. She then suggested that we might want to bring a bottle of wine, if I had a fancy dinner planned. I am so thankful that Sharon did not push this topic, or look at our wine rack for the 1994 Silver Oak Cabernet that she gave me for Christmas. I had already secretly handed it off to her sister Susan, who was going to give it to Sharon’s dad, who was going to bring it down to Pasadena for the surprise engagement dinner. Like I said, I am very fortunate to have avoided a mishap here. I still don’t know how I would have explained why that bottle was missing…
Last – and furthest from least! – there was the ring incident. It was Saturday morning, the day before our visit to Los Angeles. Sharon woke up around 5:30 am for her day trip to Modesto, California to perform surgery at a spay-and-neuter clinic. Well, when Sharon doesn’t get to sleep in on a Saturday, neither does Jon. And it was a good thing too. Right as Sharon was about to leave, she grabbed my miniature travel bag from the dining room and removed my toiletries bag as well as a tiny down pillow. I was standing in the kitchen, still half asleep, and I didn’t even notice until she remarked that she was going to use my bag to carry her medical stuff.
I snatched the bag from her in a flash, simply said ‘No,’ and emptied out my gym bag for her instead. You see, I had received her engagement ring earlier that week, yet I never had the apartment to myself for a chance to hide it somewhere. So before I went to work one morning (with Sharon still sleeping in the bedroom), I transferred the ring box from my backpack to somewhere in the dining room that Sharon was least likely to look – my travel bag. I am just sooooo lucky that Sharon did not go to unzip and empty the side pocket. I suppose Sharon’s lucky too. Who knows what kind of frenzy that would have caused…