She Said Yes

To anyone who may have missed it on Facebook (still struck by the similarities between Facebook and viruses, but that’s another post), Ash and I are officially engaged. Not much of a shocker to those who know us. I’ve gotten a few “FINALLY’s!” to which I have responded by biting my lip and resisting the urge to launch into lectures about presuming to know about others’ important life decisions better than the people actually making those decisions. Fortunately, Ash and I have been on roughly the same page about the evolution of our relationship and the timing of the proverbial next step, whatever that might be at the time. Things have happened at a pace that, to me, has felt completely natural and comfortable. As for Ash, I wouldn’t presume to speak on her behalf about how she’s felt about things along the way, but I think I can safely say that we’re both very happy about where we’re at.

Thanks to her intelligence and intuition—and a few not-so-bright comments by undoubtedly well-intentioned people with insider info, me being one of them—Ash wasn’t very surprised by it. Fine with me. I don’t particularly care for most surprises. But she likes them sometimes so my only regret is that I wasn’t more clever and more careful about who knew what in the months and weeks leading up to it.

But that’s neither here nor there. The details. I’ve been on the interview trail checking out potential residency positions for the past couple of months. As Ash and I will be hitched before I start residency, she has come on some of the trips with me to check out different programs/cities.

Most recently we were in Seattle at the University of Washington. Neither of us had ever been before, and we loved it there. Seattle happened to be going through a record cold spell so that was sucky, but the nice side effect of the cold air squatting on the city was that the sky was clear the whole time we were there and we could actually see the city.

We did many of the typical touristy things—Space Needle, Pike’s market, the Seattle Aquarium, the Michelangelo exhibit at the art museum, a very nice restaurant with locally grown food called Tilth, some novelty shops, and generally had an awesome time.

From Seattle, we flew to Chicago and after a couple of hiccups getting from O’Hare to our hotel using public transit, we settled in to our temporary digs in downtown Chicago. I had an interview at Northwestern the next morning so we didn’t do much that night. The interview went fine and isn’t terribly interesting to hear about. Probably the only thing of note here was that it was on my birthday. The next couple of days we spent some time with Ash’s sister who lives there, did many of the touristy things like the river boat architecture tour, shopping on Michigan Ave, etc.

Saturday evening we walked to Millenium Park on the shore of Lake Michigan which is were I actually proposed. I’d had the ring in my pocket all day. It was just after sunset and it was getting dark fast (as it tends to do in Chicago around 4 pm this time of year) and it was freezing cold. There were big ice chunks in the little marina we walked by that made me think of one of my favorite shows, Deadliest Catch. Other than the Canadian Geese, and an occasional jogger, we were pretty much alone. That’s when I kicked into darling mode. We were sitting on a little bench looking out at the water which, except for the absence of the strong salt smell, looks pretty much like the ocean. I pulled out the ring, knelt down, said some things that really aren’t anyone’s business but included “I love you” and “Will you marry me?”

Fortunately, she said yes. I was significantly less nervous than I thought I would be. I was definitely less nervous than I was when I asked for her Dad’s blessing before going on the trip (probably because I was significantly more confident in getting a ‘yes’ from Ashley than I was in getting one from her dad).

I had some dinner reservations at a swanky joint in north Chicago, but after looking at the menu online, Ash decided that she’d rather go somewhere with food she’s heard of that was more reasonably priced. We ended up at pretty casual deep dish pizza joint that was recommended by my brother, Chad. My kind of girl. Other than the ridiculously long wait, it was awesome. Some of the time we spent waiting outside, we watched an older gentlemen who was clearly mentally ill—probably schizophrenic if I had to guess. He was definitely behaving oddly, but wasn't hurting anyone in any way. Ash and I were little sad by how poorly he was treated by some of the folks around us that night.

The next day, we went to the Bears Packers game that Ash had gotten tickets to for my birthday. I’ve been a long-time Bears fan and neither Ash nor I had been to an NFL game before. It was awesome, despite the Bears’ loss. We had good seats and it wasn’t as cold as we were expecting.

To say that it was a memorable trip would be a gross understatement. Ash was an unbelievably good sport about some of the negatives on the trip—the cold, my interview, etc. She’s been saintly patient with me and my many quirks over the course of our relationship. That’s one of the things I dig most about her, she’s pretty content to let people be who they are. She has so many strengths that happen to be weaknesses of mine. I admire her for her kindness and friendliness (among many other things) and I’m grateful to have her in my life. I love her deeply and I’m excited about the life we’re building together.

We don’t have a date yet, but we will soon. We'll be sure to keep everyone posted.

Thanks to everyone who has been/continues to be a support to Ash and I, we’re pretty damn lucky.