For quite some time now Miss Possible and I have been discussing our future and marriage. We’ve gone ring shopping, surfed the net for ideas, etc.. After getting a good idea of what she wanted, I was able to go to a small jeweler in Hoboken to custom-design a similar ring to Tiffany’s example that she had found — making a few adjustments to the stones, etc. Fortunately for me, the jeweler opened at 6am, which allowed me to leave for work a few minutes early and conduct all the business in the morning — so that MP was unaware that anything had been done.

Over the course of this month time, I struggled come up with the appropriate time and place to do this ceremonial presentation — as she had been expecting to receive the ring during our two-week camping trip next month. As it later turns out, she had even ruled out this expectation as she had thought that I had made no progress in terms of the ring at all. In order to surprise her, I had to come up with another adventure in which I could propose.

I had opted for a more local location, being New York City, during our “Tourist Weekend in New York” which we’d been planning for some time now. The purpose of the Tourist weekend was to use some CityPass tickets that my father had given us for Christmas and visit some of the museums and other popular tourist destinations in New York. As a last-minute addition, my dad was kind enough to give us some Holiday Inn points to use towards a hotel for the weekend, as a birthday present. This only added to the experience and gave us the opportunity to truly become tourists in the city we’re only partially familiar with.

The irony of the hotel, however, was that due to the fact that I made the reservations only a day beforehand, my options were very limited in terms of rooms. It was either a Queen bed in a smoking room, or two double beds in a non-smoking room. I opted for the latter, as you never know what you’re going to get with some of the smoking rooms — and so we spent our engagement weekend in separate beds.

The original plan was set so that on Friday we would hit most of the museums, leaving Saturday open so I could woo her into going someplace romatic to propose. Unfortunately, she wanted nothing to do with this. My first choice was to go to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, which seemed like a fantastic place to get engaged — however she fought this option to the bitter end, reasoning “Why on earth would we want to go all the way out to Brooklyn.” Ugh.

Frantically, I tried to come up with an alternate solution — and Miss Larby had actually recommended the Boathouse area of Central Park as a nice second choice. Fortunately, the weather cooperated and it was a beautiful afternoon. After going to the Guggenheim museum earlier that day, we walked through the park and made our way to the Boathouse. I spied a quiet area over by some flowers where there was no one around, but it was a little shady. She refused to sit in the shade, and wanted to sit in the highly-populated area to sun herself. Try as I might, she could not be dissuade — and so we sat in a sunny patch swarming with other sun-bathers.

Starting to get stressed out, I frantically tried to come up with a third option for the place. Originally the plan was to go to the Museum of Natural history, however, getting on one knee in front of the Wooly Mammoth was not really on my agenda, so I put my foot down saying I didn’t feel like walking around anymore. Instead, we opted to use one of the other attractions in our CityPass — the Circle Line boat tour of Manhattan and Ellis Island. I figured if the ride was even remotely romantic, I might be able to swing it somewhere out in New York Harbor.

We got there early, and were able to snag a seat in the back of the boat. I had noticed these seats were a little more spread out, so I might be able to get two seats isolated enough to propose without having a million people around. I spied two seats on their own, in a row that I felt would be perfect.. I tried to sit down there, but she wanted to be further back in the boat to be able to see things better. I didn’t feel like fighting, so I reluctantly agreed. Soon we were engulfed by a group of 10 high school students on a tour — and I knew my chances were shot. Mother Nature didn’t want to cooperate either, because as we had set sail, the sky clouded up and it began to rain. Being that we had prepared the day expecting to go to a few museums (and I figured by this point we’d already had been engaged and would have gone back to the Hotel to change into some nice clothes and do a nice dinner) we were not prepared for the colder weather in the New York Harbor.

As I soon realized that my chances were starting to dwindle, and the cruise was no longer an option I started to go through the Zagat guide in search of a romatic restaurant that would allow a couple to be wearing a t-shirt and jeans. While this isn’t exactly a field in the Zagat Guide, you can usually get a sense of this by price and description and was able to find a nice restaurant named “Canedela” near Union Square. I made reservations for 10pm and crossed my fingers that all would work out.

As we got to the restaurant, the host started to lead us to our table. The large majority of tables for two were squished together in a long row, which allowed for close contact with your neighbor. As we walked down the dining area, I kept saying to myself “keep walking, please keep walking.. I don’t want to do this sitting 18 inches away from another couple at the restaurant…” By a miracle, we were seated at a table for four in the back that was completely isolated and remote — in a very romatic setting.

I can’t remember the last time I was nervous around MP.. Actually, in all of our history of dating, I actually don’t think I’d ever been nervous around her — which is partly why we get along so well. All day, though, our converation had been very limited as I’d been racking my brain to try to come up with “yet another possible option to put this thing to bed.” Stressing out, eating very little, and starting to get very irritated, the day was not going as I had planned. After ordering our Apps and entree, I came out with it.

I started by telling the entire story of the day, and how she had foiled all my attempts to make for the perfect proposal. I then pulled out the ring and gave it to her — probably with a few other choice words here or there. She took one look at it, and was completely shocked. I’m sure she can comment more as to her thoughts/feelings, but I know I caught her off-guard.

While I probably should have waited until after dinner — so she could eat and enjoy her meal — I couldn’t bear it anymore. Fearing that something else would get in the way of making it a romantic proposal, I just rushed to get it taken care of when I saw the opportunity.

Despite all the stress and concern, it ended up being the perfect moment — which I’m glad finally worked out. We finished our drinks and dinner, and headed back to the east side to our hotel. Back to enjoy the rest of the evening in our room — with the double beds.

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