Engagement!

This last weekend something happened that only occurs once in a lifetime. You know those types of things, like being born or having your house burned down by a pack of angry chimpanzees. (That actually happened to me twice, but I've come to understand that for most people it only happens once in a lifetime, statistically). Perhaps my faithful readers have noticed that I haven't updated in a long time, and will make a connection between my absence and the special occurrence of this weekend. If you were able to see the connection- I commend you. And yes, I'm here to set the record straight: I have been in absentia from Holla Atchya! for a few months because I was preparing for... my MathCounts competition on Saturday!
I have switched my coaching allegiances from baseball to Mathematics, and I had to take my team of 8 mathletes to the regional competition. There's a lot to prepare for, frankly; not just anyone can successfully lead their math team to 71st place (out of 80). It takes a real leader to watch his/her apprentices do math problems for 7 straight hours without interfering. There are pencils to sharpen, black eraser junk to wipe off, calculator batteries to be checked, sweat bands to be replaced, and scratch paper to be distributed. All of this was under my supervision, and it took months to make sure everything went without a hitch. So thank you for your patience and I'm sorry I was missing in action there for a hot minute.
Of course I'm kidding. Sort of. I did go to a math competition on Saturday, but that wasn't the once in a lifetime opportunity that was awarded to me. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'm only 27 and I've already been to three MathCounts competitions. At this rate it's more like a 25 times in a lifetime opportunity. Still special if you ask me, though.
No, the big news from Saturday was that I was engaged! I mean, I've watched reality television before, but Saturday was the first time in recent memory that it actually engaged me. Who knew that the Home and Garden Network could be so thrilling? I was hooked!
Of course the real news is that through the Home and Garden Network engagement, I myself entered into an engagement, but this time with a beautiful woman and a diamond ring. That may be confusing to some of you; allow me to clarify. I used the diamond ring to get engaged to the woman- I didn't get engaged to a ring using a woman. I only engaged with the ring for about twenty-four hours before it started burning in my pocket and I had to give it to the woman whose been burning in my heart for 8 months and counting. Now I'll be engaged to this incredible woman- Caity Jones- for a few months and then we'll stop being engaged and start being merry. People say an engagement is a difficult time, and based on my 24 hours with the ring in my pocket I would have to agree; it burned through six of my pants' pockets. Luckily, Caity and I have decided not to wait until we marry and have our own Mary to be merry. Okay, weird choice of words; perhaps too much alliteration. Let's try again: "We're not going to wait, we're going to be gay now!" Dangit, that's not much better. One more time: "We're not going to wait; we're going to be absolutely, hands down, deeply in love and eternally happy RIGHT NOW." We already are! Of course marriage will be better, but we are SO HAPPY with where we stand today.
Everyone wants to hear the engagement story, so here goes: I invited Caity to go downtown to the National Mall to walk around the monuments with me on Saturday night (after my MathCounts competition). I was pretty nervous. We admired the Lincoln Memorial for about 5 minutes, then I suggested we go to the other side and look over the river. It was a beautiful night and I couldn't wait any longer, so I got down on one knee, told her I loved her and that she made me very, very happy, then asked her to marry me. She said "Yes!" Then she said it many more times. Then she hugged me. There was no one around except Cupid. One little thing I was impressed with was that she was more excited about me and the question than the ring. I mean, she loves the ring, don't me wrong, but she is so dedicated to me and our love that it means WAY more to her than a ring. She puts love ahead of materialism any day. We fell in love in DC, and we got engaged under the approving eyes of Honest Abe.
Yep, it feels great to be engaged to the one I love. It's a little surreal, and a lot bit AWESOME.
I'M GETTING MARRIED! (in June 2014).