The Story of the Bowl (yes, it's really a vase)
Have you ever heard of an engagement bowl? Neither had I until just a few days ago. Then I bought this:
...and I gave it to Susan and asked her to marry me. "Engagement Bowl"! It went down like this:
Background. Two Oklahoma based artists, Matt Seikel and Denise Duong, have some collaborative vases showing at the JRB gallery in Oklahoma City. Susan and I have been visiting roughly every month (for "Art Walk", wine, and cheese!), and from day-one we both agreed that the Seikel&Duong vases were the nicest pieces in the gallery.
Step one: the ring(s). Don't most people hand a ring over in these circumstances? Yes. I actually had two (one amber, one turquoise) - both from the Natural History Museum. But neither qualified as 'special enough' to be an engagement ring!
Step two: the vase. I actually had a hard time buying the vase. I mean, how do you slyly slip away to buy a vase when you work all day, and your car has no rear brakes, so you have to borrow your partner's car to go shopping? Kind of suspicious, no? Well, this is where Oklahoma comes in and provides snow flurries ("Weather's nasty - can I drive your car to work today?") and the academic job provides flexibility to step out of the office for an hour and a half. (What office hours?) One phone-call ("Do you still have that orange and black Seikel&Duong vase? Yes? Can you hold it for me? I'll be there in 40 minutes."), one quick 25 mile drive ("What!? Only two gallons of gas in the car? ...I'll fill up when I get back. .... Nope. Can't make the round-trip, I'll fill up here!"), and a credit card ("Visa ok? Thanks!"), and I was set.
Step three: prep work. So now I have a bowl and two rings, and I start thinking. "Hide the rings in the vase? I could attach them to strings and have two little tabs to pull on outside the vase. .... Nice! Then we'll see which ring she chooses first (amber? turquoise?) and if the turquoise one comes out first, I get to pick the honey-moon! ....assuming she says, 'Yes.' anyway! Oh shoot, what if she doesn't say, 'Yes.'? ...I think I'd better drop by the liquor shop on the way home for some celebration/consolation whiskey..."
Step four: the big cliché. Cliché? Yes. Cliché. Dinner, up-scale restaurant, nice bottle of wine, Valentine's Day, wedding proposal.... And the only thing standing between me and our culture's most classically dull proposal cliché is the fact that I don't actually have an engagement ring - I've got an engagement bowl! Hooray bowls! (And this is proposal plan #3 by the way. #1A: Hike around Sibley Park, pop the question. #1B: Hike to the top of Grass Mountain, hide ring in pipe w/hiking log, pop the question.)
Step five: the ask. Well, towards the end of the meal, I handed a bag with the vase in it to Susan. The bag was a plain brown paper bag with twine handles and tissue paper to hide the 'bowl' from view ("I'd probably better not put this in a grocery bag with newspaper!"). I had also put some thin curly ribbon on the handle (provided by the gallery when I said it would be a 'present'). Things didn't go exactly as planned of course, Susan started pulling on the ring-strings as she was taking the 'engagement bowl' out of the bag, and she saw a ring before she could put the bowl on the table. That probably was for the best - if she hadn't seen the ring (she pulled the amber ring out first by the way), she might have keeled over from shock, and it's generally not too smooth to fall out of your chair in public. :)
So, long story made shorter: she liked the "engagement bowl" so much that she actually agreed to marry me! Tentative date: 08/09/07. (<---That's another story.)
...and I gave it to Susan and asked her to marry me. "Engagement Bowl"! It went down like this:Background. Two Oklahoma based artists, Matt Seikel and Denise Duong, have some collaborative vases showing at the JRB gallery in Oklahoma City. Susan and I have been visiting roughly every month (for "Art Walk", wine, and cheese!), and from day-one we both agreed that the Seikel&Duong vases were the nicest pieces in the gallery.
Step one: the ring(s). Don't most people hand a ring over in these circumstances? Yes. I actually had two (one amber, one turquoise) - both from the Natural History Museum. But neither qualified as 'special enough' to be an engagement ring!
Step two: the vase. I actually had a hard time buying the vase. I mean, how do you slyly slip away to buy a vase when you work all day, and your car has no rear brakes, so you have to borrow your partner's car to go shopping? Kind of suspicious, no? Well, this is where Oklahoma comes in and provides snow flurries ("Weather's nasty - can I drive your car to work today?") and the academic job provides flexibility to step out of the office for an hour and a half. (What office hours?) One phone-call ("Do you still have that orange and black Seikel&Duong vase? Yes? Can you hold it for me? I'll be there in 40 minutes."), one quick 25 mile drive ("What!? Only two gallons of gas in the car? ...I'll fill up when I get back. .... Nope. Can't make the round-trip, I'll fill up here!"), and a credit card ("Visa ok? Thanks!"), and I was set.
Step three: prep work. So now I have a bowl and two rings, and I start thinking. "Hide the rings in the vase? I could attach them to strings and have two little tabs to pull on outside the vase. .... Nice! Then we'll see which ring she chooses first (amber? turquoise?) and if the turquoise one comes out first, I get to pick the honey-moon! ....assuming she says, 'Yes.' anyway! Oh shoot, what if she doesn't say, 'Yes.'? ...I think I'd better drop by the liquor shop on the way home for some celebration/consolation whiskey..."
Step four: the big cliché. Cliché? Yes. Cliché. Dinner, up-scale restaurant, nice bottle of wine, Valentine's Day, wedding proposal.... And the only thing standing between me and our culture's most classically dull proposal cliché is the fact that I don't actually have an engagement ring - I've got an engagement bowl! Hooray bowls! (And this is proposal plan #3 by the way. #1A: Hike around Sibley Park, pop the question. #1B: Hike to the top of Grass Mountain, hide ring in pipe w/hiking log, pop the question.)
Step five: the ask. Well, towards the end of the meal, I handed a bag with the vase in it to Susan. The bag was a plain brown paper bag with twine handles and tissue paper to hide the 'bowl' from view ("I'd probably better not put this in a grocery bag with newspaper!"). I had also put some thin curly ribbon on the handle (provided by the gallery when I said it would be a 'present'). Things didn't go exactly as planned of course, Susan started pulling on the ring-strings as she was taking the 'engagement bowl' out of the bag, and she saw a ring before she could put the bowl on the table. That probably was for the best - if she hadn't seen the ring (she pulled the amber ring out first by the way), she might have keeled over from shock, and it's generally not too smooth to fall out of your chair in public. :)
So, long story made shorter: she liked the "engagement bowl" so much that she actually agreed to marry me! Tentative date: 08/09/07. (<---That's another story.)
posted by dpa at 6:32 AM
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