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| Monday, April 21, 2003 Breakfast: Starbucks Toffe Nut Latte (skim, of course!) Lunch: Catered by Danny (how sweet!) Mid-day snack: Starbucks skim, no foam latte Dinner: Leftover (and questionable) beef stew with herbed dumplings A few updates are in order. A couple weeks ago, a little excitement and intrigue was injected into my corporate, cubicle-constrained life. A woman using guerilla-style tactics beat me out of a pair of tickets to Great America. I entertained the thought of using my newly developed conflict resolution skills (by getting HR to mediate) but thought better of it. It was not a battle worth fighting. On a much happier, purer note, Grace is now one solitaire closer to wedded bliss. Congratulations, chica!! It was a sweet affair, literally. She was surrounded by friends old and new as Eddie waxed on about her glorious self. "Will you marry me?" he asked. We all waited in anticipation for a response that would sum up this beautiful proposal. "Okay." Though hilarious at the time, that truly was the proper response to a month-long effort of hiring and working with a production crew to make their boy-meets-girl movie; duping family and friends into coming to a Tuesday night advance screening to a Hugh Grant movie in the-middle-of -nowhere Lincolnshire, Illinois; and an overall SEALS-like stealth in pulling off the perfect proposal for Grace. What else can you say except a simple, humble, overwhelmed "okay"? That proposal event still seemed surreal when we (Yeon, Grace, Danny, and I) bummed around at Starved Rock Lodge a couple days later. I can't call it a hiking trip because our hike was a 30-minute stroll through the hills on the longest deck in the world. It'd be more accurate to call it a spa retreat minus the massages and body wraps... and healthy food. We soaked in a deliciously hot whirlpool. We jazzercised in the swimming pool. We hunted for the perfect candle. And we really watched a Hugh Grant movie, "About a Boy." It was exactly what I needed in a vacation at that time. ADDENDUM: Okay, so it seems that some people want all of the details to Grace's proposal so here's my version... Wednesday, April 15, Danny picked me up from work and drove us to a tiny theater in the middle of nowhere to watch a sneak preview of an upcoming Hugh Grant movie, "Love, Actually". We got to the theater about an hour early because it was a sneak preview and everyone knows that a seat isn't guaranteed. Surprisingly, the theater was nearly abandoned when we arrived. I figured that the marketing people were focusing on a small niche. We showed our pass to the ticket guy and he pointed us over to the first theater on the right. As we walked into the room, two guys were walking out and one of them said hello to us. I just gave him a funny look since I didn't know who he was. Weirdo! We parked our bums in the middle row and I got up a few minutes later to get us snacks. I ordered nachos and two large drinks when I overheard someone talking about Koreans. I looked over and saw a bunch of Asian guys sitting in front of the video games and just rolled my eyes. Wonderful. Obnoxious Asian boys. Hope they're not here for the preview. When I got my stuff, I realized that I needed a third hand to carry everything so I asked the kid behind the counter for a tray. He warned me that the trays are big but I needed it so I didn't care... until I saw what he was talking about. It looked like a plastic crate that was cut in half. You could hold four 1-gallon jugs in this thing and it was fire engine red!! What could I do but use the darn thing since Danny didn't come out with me. When I walked into the theater, Danny laughed at my industrial-strength tray. He then told me that he got so bored that he started running laps around the theater. Okay... And then the Asian boys walked into the theater. I figured that they were high schoolers because they were really loud and were joking about being disruptive during the movie. Why am I out on a weekday night, again? Finally, some people we knew started arriving. Cha Song, Yeon, Grace... Ray and some youth group kids... Imagine my surprise when one of the Asian boys called out Cha Song's name. The Asian community in Chicago's tight enough for a run-in to be inevitable even in a remote part of Cook county. The room turned dark and the movie began without even an introduction. Was this a low-budget promotion? Oh well. On screen, a DVD Play icon popped up in the upper right hand corner. A bunch of us booed at that. A skateboarding documentary-looking short popped up and I was waiting for the moral message but none came. Huh? Another short followed but this one starred an Asian guy... and it wasn't ending. What's going on? It took a few scenes before Danny realized that this was Grace's proposal. Eddie somehow recreated their story. We watched the film which was cute and interesting because we got to see Eddie's perspective of how it all began. At the end, Eddie came strolling towards Grace and, of course, everyone scrambled away from her. He got down on bended knee and recited a beautiful, practically perfect proposal. Grace looked completely overwhelmed, poor thing, but she managed to accept. It turned out that Eddie had found his filming crew online and I think the actors were Chicago natives. He had been flying from California to Chicago for the past several weekends and no one knew; neither his parents nor Grace suspected a thing. Grace's brother, Dave, is the one who distributed the passes and did an excellent job of lying to us all. (Dave, if you're reading this, you know I'm just joking.) Afterwards, we all headed off to Giordanno's for a celebratory dinner. It was a sweet and memorable event. |