August 9th Read Free Page B

and I suggested we fly down to LA that day which happened to be a Saturday, check into a hotel, have a nice dinner and then go see Pink Floyd at the LA Sports Arena. Then on Sunday we could visit our families. Since my family lives in North Hollywood and Maggie’s in Santa Monica, we could make both stops, visit with our parents and still get back to LAX for our flight home Sunday night.
    It sounded like a fun weekend, but I left out a few details. First, we weren’t visiting both families on Sunday. Although I said her folks would be our second stop it was our only stop. I spoke with her parents and mine a month before and set up a surprise birthdayparty for her at 1:00 pm on Sunday. Since her actual birthday was the day before I didn’t think she’d expect a party, especially not a surprise party, the next day. Her parents helped me with a guest list and I added a dozen other names. Oh, there was one other little surprise, our engagement. Maggie and I constantly talked about getting married when the time was right. Well, I thought the time was right, and her surprise birthday party seemed like the perfect opportunity.
    Sometimes I really appreciate tradition and a week before her birthday, while Maggie thought I was at work, I flew down to LA and met with her parents to ask for their blessing to marry their daughter. Not surprisingly, they had an idea I wasn’t there just to discuss the party arrangements and proudly gave me their blessing. I called my parents with the news from the airport just before my flight took off.
    One of the guys from the office recommended a jeweler and I picked out a ring in about twenty minutes. Maggie is so unpretentious I knew she’d appreciate anything I gave her but since this was the only engagement ring I’m ever going to buy, it was time to splurge. I did my best not to give anything away the week before the party and even came home from work at 6:30 one night so we could do a little shopping and Maggie could pick out something new to wear for the weekend. I like to think I know a little something about women.
    The weekend was a smash hit and a double surprise for Maggie. She was totally unaware of what awaited her as we walked into her parent’s house. The expressionon her face, when fifty guests jumped out from everywhere and yelled “surprise,” was wonderful. About an hour later I grabbed a half filled champagne glass and tapped it with a spoon to make a toast. I asked Maggie to join me where everyone could see us and I proceeded to toast her birthday. Then in the middle of my toast I knelt to one knee, pulled out the ring from my pocket and asked Maggie to marry me. I’m not sure who started to cry first. All I remember is her shaking her head up and down and saying yes, yes, yes. Now we really had something to celebrate. There was a wonderful moment a little later on when Maggie and I were joined by both sets of parents. They told us how proud they were of us and the responsible adults we’d become and we told them how blessed and thankful we were to have them as parents. Moments in life don’t get any better.
    As for our wedding it looks like next June. Now that Maggie has her Masters in psychology she has a big decision to make. What does she want to do? Her options include teaching, therapist or research and that may mean even more school. We’ll see.
    I forgot to tell you about Pink Floyd. They were so rad, especially the second half of the concert which featured songs from The Dark Side of the Moon. I’ve never heard music quite like it before. Incredibly, they performed five concerts on consecutive nights at the Sports Arena. There were fans around us who loved the group so much they bought tickets for all five.
    Tess, I’m not sure I’ll ever go to another concert without seeing you. Strangely, even though I’ve writtenabout my new job and my engagement it doesn’t seem to affect my reality as it relates to you. I know that probably sounds crazy but you seem