New year, new post

Anybody care to wager whether or not I'll get more than 2007's 20 posts in for '08?

Let's go straight to the headlines...

Engaged!
Yep. After 4.5 years, in a top-secret operation that only 3 people knew about until 72 hours prior to H-Hour, I snuck up to Long Island on Christmas Eve, and hand-delivered a ring to her Christmas morning. Shock and awe, man.

It was a somewhat elaborate undertaking (for me, at any rate) that consisted of me belaboring the plan for three-plus months, holding War Councils with myself at frequent intervals, then - as I put it after I'd set all the pieces into motion - kicking the wagon down the hill and seeing where it landed.

After getting the ring in-hand the Friday before Christmas, and faced with the reality of this thing now in my hand, I made last minute reservations at the motel and for the car (this was part of the plan... I didn't want her to see charges that would have given the secret away until after the fact) then waited for Monday to arrive.

I got to the motel around 10:00 Christmas eve, talked with Jenn ("from my mom's house"), made my traditional early Christmas morning visit to the 7-11 on Jamaica Ave right before it turns into the Jericho Turnpike, listened to 1010 WINS and WCBS 880, sat around promising to distract myself with books or whatever other things I'd brought along to while away a few hours, and eventually fell asleep.

I woke a little later than I wanted to Tuesday morning, but still with plenty of time to shower, then don the suit I'd picked out for the occassion. (Coincidentally, those of you who know me can guess correctly that I was mildly uncomfortable with this level of extravagance, but as I reasoned, I was only going to do this once... might as well go for the gusto.) A trip to Starbucks (surprisingly, thankfully open at noon on Christmas day), then off to await the call from my spy on the ground, who was to let me know when everyone had arrived.

Two and a half hours later, I'd listened to old radio adaptations of Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life (Note to WPHT: Your signal gets to Nassau County just fine), read three articles in Foreign Affairs, taken a nap (unrelated to previous item), and eaten the cheese and fruit I'd bought for lunch for myself the night before. At around 2:30, my spy reported that everyone had finally arrived. H-hour.

I walked over there (I'd parked a couple of blocks away), knocked on the door, and her sister MA answered with a gasp. Only two three people in the room knew... the rest were now creating a considerable hubbub. Jenn was overjoyed.

Then I brought out the ring.

The next several days are a bit of a blur. I spent Christmas afternoon up in NY, but I had to get back to DC that night to resume the babysitting of the cats. Since no one knew of my plan, and my "official" Christmas plans were only to visit my mom briefly on Tuesday and would be home the rest of the time, I'd sort of boxed myself into that assignment. So I drove down to Mom's house in Central PA, broke the news to her (and my brother, who happened to be on the phone), visited with her for an hour, then came back home.

And no, we haven't set a date. We're definitely aiming for some time in 2009, and it's almost certainly going to be in the DC area. I wanted to kick-start the blog with this tale because I'd like to think I'm going to capture the Tale of the Planning pretty well between here and other sources at my disposal.

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I want to write about other stuff, especially this election that we've all started, but my cold medicine is wearing off, and I really should go respond to some work emails. But I actually have political observations to make!!! One's that no one else has made!!!!! Srsly.