I have a story to tell... if you aren't a geek, you may not recognize that the formating of this post follows IMs (or for you total non geeks like my parents, Instant Messages). I find this fitting... for reasons I'll explain later.
Friday day (May 2nd):
**jfong sneaks around house collecting random articles of clothing
Friday evening:
jfong: Do you want to go out to dinner tomorrow? It'll be late.
sfisher: how late?
jfong: like 9 pm
sfisher: why don't we go sunday instead. I can't eat that late, I have to take my pills at 9:30 pm (on an empty stomach). I mean, it's not like this is a proposal dinner right?
jfong: ok
Friday night:
**sfisher dozes blissfully
**jfong stares at ceiling, unable to sleep, how will I get her to dinner?
Saturday morning (May 3rd):
**jfong awakens sfisher before he leaves for a music workshop
sfisher: groan, why are you awakening me?
**jfong hands her a card
**sfisher opens very lovely anniversary card
sfisher: awwwwwwwwwww. I didn't know it was our anniversary
jfong: it is the anniversary of our first kiss! (Nemo wrap party)
**sfisher decides dinner is okay, she will take pills early
Saturday evening:
**jfong sneaks around house while sfisher takes a way too short shower trying to pack overnight things
Saturday night:
We drove into the city (early, given our reservation was at 9pm). When we get out of the car, he heads to the trunk and pops it... and hands me a pair of tennis shoes**. I look baffled.
Turns out he had booked a boutique hotel for the night right by the restaurant. After a glass of wine in the room, we went down to dinner at Masa's, a very nice French restaurant. We ordered wine and tasting menus, mine vegetarian. I suspected something was up, trying not to burst out saying that, but failed.... I had globe artichokes with mini-asparagus, cherry tomatoes; a Hen of the Woods in madras curry; tagliatele in saffron infused cream; a wax and fava been salad with horseraidish cream fraiche with lemon oil; strawberry mint sorbet; apple tart; chocalates; brioches.... very good!
Dinner nears the end and I am sad that nothing has happened.
We go to the hotel. We putter. I wonder if it really is just an anniversary...
Finally he says I have one more thing for you. I flirt back and say, "a massage?" He answered, "Okay I have two more things for you." And got down on one knee and asked, "Will you marry me?"
So why the IM format? Because that my dear is how we fell in love. Yes, we work together. But we worked in different cities. We chatted often about renderman bugs, builds, how to fix something, about a line of code. But sometimes other questions would pop in there too. You'd be waiting for a one minute render to return and you'd ask a non-work question. Then I realized I missed the chatting on weekends. I convinced myself it was a terrible idea to go after a coworker. Then, dateless for the Nemo wrap party... I suggested we go together as friends. Yes, FRIENDS. However that evening ended in a kiss...
..and five years later, to the day, we became engaged.
**And since everyone keeps asking about the shoes, they were for the next day! It just happened to be the moment when I realized something was up.