What happened, when and how

It all happened yesterday. Actually too much happened yesterday for a single day; it was more like several days worth of incident and events jam-packed into a mild January Friday.

The day began with a client meeting in NJ, after which I went back into the city to meet Nick for half the pre-op appointments. In the morning before I left Nick got down on one knee -- I was puzzled -- and said he wanted to check out the shoes I was wearing. It was odd, no doubt, but I didn't give it a second thought.

The pre-op stuff went fine, and ended with my autologous blood donation (I gave the cookies to Nick who hadn't eaten since breakfast.)

After that we had time to kill before we were meeting the kids for dinner, and we wandered down a forlorn stretch of First Avenue looking for a place to duck in and have a glass of wine. For a while all we found were dusty convenience stores and dry cleaners, and then we spotted a little wine bar called Felice. A cute little place, practically deserted, but it was an off time at 4:00 in the afternoon. We had some very good Italian white wine, and Nick had what he thought would be a small snack but turned out to be quite a large sandwich.

We were chatting in our usual insufferable way. I told Nick I loved him, and he asked "how much?" I told him that I loved him the most, and at the moment I finished saying that he went down on one knee and said "then will you marry me?" And before I knew what was happening he took out a ring box from his pocket and opened it. Inside was the most beautiful engagement ring I've ever seen.

I said yes -- of course!

We marveled for a while at our good fortune, and I'm sure I was glowing. We giggled and left the well-named wine bar, and walked and walked.

We made a few calls and texts and made our way to Brasserie where we were meeting Liv and Jon for dinner. We got there early so we had a little more time to just be enveloped by what was happening (I must have looked at the ring on my hand a thousand times by then.)

The kids showed up and were thrilled. Liv was complicit in the whole enterprise -- she'd helped Nick pick out the ring and knew not only what was going to happen but when. They'd brainstormed ideas for how he was going to ask me (including one quite bizarre idea about asking me tonight at Sarah's party, stepping out to get ice and returning dressed as a knight in a suit of armor. Liv thought there might be better ideas.)

Dinner was wonderful -- appropriately celebratory. And it was a great meal on its own merits; everyone loved what they ordered and we had plenty of time, so even stayed and had dessert.

Then we grabbed a cab to head over to the theater where we were seeing "A View from the Bridge" in previews. We enjoyed it. Liev Schrieber was brilliant, and the success of this play rests squarely on the shoulders of its protagonist, Eddie Carbone. Scarlett Johansen was fine -- neither added much nor took much away, and the rest of the cast was strong. Very moving, and it seemed as though few in the theater knew the play, so there were gasps of shock at key points (Liv grabbed my hand at one tense moment.)

After this extraordinary afternoon and evening the three of us headed to Penn Station to go home. Some snafus with the LIRR (we were on a train which suddenly went out of service and had to go find another) but we didn't mind. We didn't mind anything.

We are engaged!