Two Kids From Miami

Did I mention his brother was in the bushes?

I explained that the engagement began with a stroll through the High Line park in New York City.  The High Line is a new park that was created from an old 1930s elevated rail system intended to keep freight trains off the streets.  For those of you in Miami, this is like if they shut down the Metrorail, and made it all an above-ground park, except for a park that you don’t have to worry about people mugging you at gunpoint.

It turned out that Chris, Charlie’s brother, and his girlfriend, Tanya, had been hiding in the bushes taking pictures of us, paparazzi-style, with sunglasses and a zoom lens!  Ultimately, there were too many people there to propose, as you’ll see from the pictures.  It was awesome to have Chris and Tanya be a part if it, even if I didn’t know they were there!

Engaged? It’s, “comprometido” and “propuesta de matrimonio.”

We’re engaged!  Charlie popped the question on Sept. 18, what was our one year and 9 month anniversary.  It happened in New York City, starting with a stroll and a park bench at the High Line Park and ending with Charlie on one knee at 60 Thompson Hotel.  We called our parents first.  On my end, Merle answered the phone first, and said something I don’t even remember.  Probably something about Charlie being a lucky guy, then he explained that my mom was on the other phone with someone who must have been less important than me, because he yelled something like, “Mercy, get off the phone NOW, Jennie is on the phone and needs to speak with you!” And then my mom said something I don’t remember in the background about that other person on the other line that was in the way of my spreading the good news as fast as I wanted to, until she finally picked up and I got to say… well I don’t even remember what I said, but whatever it was it prompted the foreseeable, but 28-years-in-the-making, “Oh my goodness, congratulations!” and then other words I don’t remember because my heart rate was somewhere near the speed of sound, so maybe I just stopped hearing.  Fortunately that didn’t prevent my tear ducts from working on the requisite tears involved.

And somewhere in the background Charlie was sharing the news with his mom, and from what I could tell his mom was saying something about a new daughter-in-law.  More tears.  So, who’s next on the list?  I can’t remember. We couldn’t remember.  Apparently the adrenaline makes you forget who you know, who your family is, and who your friends are.  You know you’re supposed to call people, but whom?  And, in what order?

So I started with the letter “A,” A is for abuela!  Right!  So, how do you say “we’re engaged” and “he proposed” in Spanish?  My brain was barely functioning so I went to the most reliable source in language translations, not wanting to mess this one up, Google.  Everything was happening so fast, it turned out I could barely read Google let alone English too!  No English or Spanish, no bueno!  Unsatisfied with my search results I defaulted to the universal language of jewelry, a language my grandmother knows well, and went with “Charlie gave me a ring!” Somewhere in the background I heard Charlie explain to a new person, “She said yes!” As if there was any doubt I would say “yes”?  The rest is really a blur.

By the end of the day, all of the important people had been contacted, a Gator game was watched at a BBQ place on the Upper West Side, we had celebrated with family and friends with dinner at Dos Caminos and drinks at the Russian Vodka Room which had some scary Russians awesome vodka.  It wasn’t official until the Facebook relationship status had been changed from “In a Relationship” to “Engaged.”  This alerted all of our  people who aren’t going to be invited to the wedding friends of the good news.  One of Charlie’s ex-girlfriends Facebook friends even wrote, “Congratulations, you’re one of the best!” This isn’t too far from the truth, because he is THE best, and I am a very, very lucky girl.  Now we just have to plan a wedding in Miami…