I had the ring in the car when I picked up the Sabra last night, but the moment just wasn't right to do it.

Tonight was the night.

One of our first "dates" involved a rather long walk down Wisconsin Ave. At one point, we stopped at a church to sit on the step and rest for a bit. Before I knew it, we were talking about weddings and what we liked and didn't like in the weddings we'd been to, and what we would want and wouldn't want in our own weddings. Since then, we'd always joked that we should get engaged on those steps.

As fate would have it, the church lies just south of the Metro station we use to get to the gym. So, I'd been trying to see how I could manage it to walk past the church on our way back to the Metro, but we always seemed to switch sides before we'd get to the church.

Tonight, however, was different.

After our workouts, we took showers and changed clothes. Before I left the men's dressing room, I took the ring out of the box and put it in my pocket. These are relatively new pants, but I was convinced that I would suddenly and spontaneously get a hole in the pocket and lose the ring before we got to the church.

As we headed to the Metro, I kept us on the correct side of the street (the lights were also on our side and they were green most of the way so we didn't need to switch sides). When we got to the church, I asked the Sabra if she wanted to sit for a minute "for fun and old-time's sake." She said sure, and we sat.

I tried to steer the conversation toward the topic of marriage, but it just wasn't working too well. I was nervous, and I think she knew what was coming and was nervous too. I had already made a big deal that I wanted to go out to dinner, so after my stuttering to try to start the conversation, the Sabra said she was cold and hungry and wanted to get moving (she did have goose-bumps).

We went to Neisha, a Thai place in Tenley Town. I broached the subject again. This time I said, "what do you think? Can you see yourself with a ring?" and I took my ring off, and put it on her finger with the shank up so it looked like a wedding band. She said she didn't know. I pulled out the real ring and said, "well, what about with this one?" and put it on her finger.

She was a bit dumbfounded for a minute and then realized that this was it, I was really proposing. She was so happy, she almost cried. She didn't, but she did get up and hug and kiss me.

I think it was a very nice way to propose, but it wasn't the way I had it in my head. That's fine. We're both happy. Also, since it wasn't the official engagement ring, I still have a second opportunity to "officially" propose.

Well, for those playing along, you probably know that I have not been doing well, and I've been gaining weight. I was back up to 168, and that is just unacceptable. So, today, I started with Diet to Go again, but this time dinners only. We’ll see how it goes. Right now, I think I can handle breaksfasts and lunches, but dinners are the part that kills me.

Also, now that I am back on Diet to Go, I’m starting the gym thing again!

I went to NYC Sunday night. Because Saturday and Sunday were the Seders, I couldn’t leave for New York until late. My dad drove me to the train station in time to hop the 9:40 train. I didn’t get into the City until after midnight. I stayed at the Club Quarters, Midtown. It was quite nice and had a very European feel to it. It was on 45th between 5th and 6th. As I was walking down to Times Square on Monday morning, I walked by Connolly’s Pub and Restaurant, which is where Black 47 plays every Saturday night. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there on a Saturday.

Anyway, I was in NYC because I had to take a training course for my job. It was called “Stepping Up to Leadership,” and it’s really designed for secretaries, but that is how it works when you were an administrative professional for 2 years. I was really expecting to hate it and be bored to tears for the whole 3 days. But, I have to say that it was actually pretty fun. We had a good group who were all interesting, and all wanted to participate, so that made it much better than it could it have been.

So, this is a real abbreviated entry of 3 days, but all I really did was go to class, go to dinner, and go back to the hotel to go to sleep. As I made it to the gym every day last week, I am happy to say that I went down to the “fitness room” (that is, a room in the basement that had 2 treadmills, a bike, and a stairmaster) Monday and Tuesday—45 minutes each day on the treadmill!

People in my office piss me off! I scheduled a meeting for tomorrow around 11. Everything was fine. Then the Boss’s secretary tells me that I need to move it to 9. I try to tell her that there is a conflict, and that around 2 would work better. She says, “No, it needs to be 9. Can you take care of that? Thanks,” and walks away before I have a chance to respond further. So, as I didn’t get the memo that changed the rules, I decided to work on the last set of rules that I was told, which is that the Boss’s calendar drives all other calendars in our office. Now, the Ring Lady usually does her own calendar, so I have no idea what most of the stuff on it are. Also, anytime we have had to change the meeting, she always says that I should adjust it according to the Boss’s schedule. So, all of this means, of course, that I was supposed to know that the conflicting meeting was outside the building and that she really wanted to go to that. So, of course I got yelled at for not informing her about the change.

Well, technically I did. I changed the meeting around 9 this morning. We use Eudora for our email, and it has a nifty feature that allows me to be informed when people check the mail I send them. Well, when I changed the meeting around 9, I sent out an email informing everyone that I had made the change. The Ring Lady opened that email around 9:30. So how did she not know? And why did she wait until 4:15 to yell at me about it?

Then, after I calmed down enough not to yell back at her, I went into her office and offered to work with the Boss’s secretary to adjust the meeting to a better time for all. She said no, it was too late in the day to worry about…clearly she just wanted to yell.

But, I must admit that even with her condescending attitude, her penchant for yelling at people, and her odd, odd handwriting, I still enjoy working for her. When she isn’t acting like a meanie, she’s actually a pretty good boss, and she does seem to go out of her way to make sure that her employees are treated fairly. And, she is trying to get me a full-time, permanent position here, so she’s A-1 in my book!

It was an absolutely perfect, gorgeous evening, so I did one of my Tour de DC walks. I walked to Dupont Circle, reading as I walked. Once I got to the circle, I sat a read until it was too dark for my sunglasses. Then I got on the train, went home, ate dinner, and just relaxed.

Hmmm, where to begin. I guess if I’m going to talk about the weekend, the best place to start is on Friday.

I was supposed to go out to dinner with the True Renaissance Woman. Howe’er, she didst call nigh to the hour of our meeting, and forsooth did profess that our liaison was not meant to be. In troth, she did own that she regrettèd mine inconvenience, and beseeched upon my good graces to dine with her anon.

I was a little annoyed, but Friday was a beautiful day, and it had been a long week, so I walked to Union Station with the Walking Chick, and then headed down to Dupont. It was such a perfect evening that I didn’t want to go inside to eat, so I sat in the circle and caught up on crossword puzzles from old issues of the Express. When I finished all three of them, I pulled out Inside a U.S. Embassy: How the Foreign Service Works for America, a book the State Department sent me the other day (for a more detailed reason why the United States Department of State would send me a book, see My exciting news). After only a few pages, I got bored, so I pulled out my new book and started to read that, but I was a little self-conscious reading it in Dupont Circle. It’s actually a great book: Caroline Daley’s Leisure & Pleasure: Reshaping & Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900–1960. It’s a very fascinating and intriguing book into the perception of the body in fin de siècle New Zealand. Unfortunately, there is a rather provocative picture of a well-built, attractive, semi-nude male on the cover. So, being a good-looking, single man sitting in Dupont Circle reading a book about the body, I was a little concerned that I might get propositioned. Needless to say, that did not really happen.

Finally, it started to get dark, and my tummy was growling at me like a ravenous lion might growl at a young, slow moving member of a herd. I looked around the circle and picked my direction…that way. So, up I went to my favorite of favorite restaurants: Chipotle. I had a Fajita Burrito Bowl without beans and extra guacamole. It was soooooo good.

I was full and fully sated. But, I wasn’t ready to go home, so I decided to walk around the area. I went pretty far, but stayed on Q St. Eventually, I wasn’t sure where I was anymore, so I turned around and headed back to the Metro, and went home. I stayed up until 3 am playing on the computer.

Ages ago, when RC came to visit, I was under the impression that she wanted to see the new World War II Memorial on the National Mall. As I was not completely sure where it was, I decided to conduct a little investigation and proceeded to walk from work down there, figuring that I would eventually hit the memorial if I walked in the right direction. Sure enough, I did indeed find the new memorial, and while it was not officially open, which meant that the fountains were not running, it was still quite inspiring and impressive.

While I could talk a country mile about the symbolism, the majesty, the architectural themes, the impressions I got, or even the emotions that I felt, that is really not what this entry is about. Indeed, this entry is really about the journey to the fountain from my office and the path that took me from one to the other and how I have ventured forth on that path, and indeed further, since that time.

A few weeks ago I commenced the same walk, but did not stop at the World War II Memorial, or even a few feet away. In fact, I walked nigh the entire length and breadth of the District of Columbia’s Northwest quadrant. Here is the itinerary I took as I wound my way through the Nation’s Capital:

I left NASA Headquarters on E Street, SW, and walked down 6th Street to the National Mall. I made a left on Independence Ave, passing the National Air and Space Museum. I made a right onto 7th Street, between the National Air and Space Museum (on my right) and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Museum (on my left). I continued down 7th Street until I turned left onto Madison Drive and began strolling down the Street where I went by the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History. I crossed 14th Street, and made a right onto 15th Street and then a left onto Constitution Avenue. At this point I continued with the Washington Monument on my left and the Ellipse on my right, with the White House off in the distance. At 17th Street, I made a right and proceeded north, passing DAR Constitution Hall, the Corcoran Museum of Art, and the Old Executive Office Building (Eisenhower Executive Office Building). I took 17th Street up to M Street, made a left at M, and went all the way to Wisconsin, which is in Georgetown, then turned around and walked back to 16th Street, went up to Dupont Circle, and got on the Metro and went home.