I’m engaged!

Who would have thought it possible? I, Tom L, has found a beautiful woman who doesn’t mind me. So how did you pull this? Well…

…it’s a partly sunny Valentines day…I pick up Leigh from her parent’s house. I’m shook: Leigh has a really pretty Valentines gift for me. It’s a red basket with hearts filled with goodies that she neatly wrapped. Each mini-gift has one of our pictures together taped to it, like a mini-memory. It’s the most thoughtful gift Leigh has given me to date. I on the other hand, got her a $5 hello kitty valentines basket with hello kitty sitting in a cup, because hello kitty.

I have a place planned out for the engagement but I need an excuse to go there, which is why I tell Leigh we are going to lunch at Bucketheads bar and grill. She loves the sandwiches there so it’s a believable lunch idea. She borrows her mother’s leather jacket and we head out.

She doesn’t know where we are going. As we pull into Bucketheads, she remembers and we get out. I was thinking we go after lunch, to the beach across the street where I’ll propose. But now I’m thinking, lets propose first then eat. I ask her awkwardly, “hey Leigh, want to go for a walk? I uh just want to see the beach real quick.”

Leigh: “erm ok?”

I think she knows what’s up. We dash across the 4 lanes of traffic and start walking to the beach until we are walking parallel to the shore. I stop, start thinking…do I propose her? Nah, lets keep going, I think to myself. “Hey Leigh, is this where we went last time?” I ask her. She thinks so. We keep walking. The ocean wind is brisk and chilly and I can see Leigh is freezing. So am I. This is not going quite the way I planned.

Suddenly, I see the weird gelatinous fibrous seaweed beached near us and point it out to Leigh; she’s always game to explore something odd and unusual lol. She exclaims, “oh it’s seaweed dicks!”… …This gives me a good excuse to get on a knee and as I look up at her, she still has her camera plastered in my face. Is she really going to keep filming me, I’m thinking. I push through, ask her for her hand, and start…

“Leigh, you mean the world to me.” She puts her phone down. I look into her eyes and … I forget the rest of what I had planned to say lol. She says yes.

We go back to Bucketheads and enjoy a nice lunch. Since Spirit of Norfolk cruises cancelled my reservation the day before Valentines day I had to think of something quickly, which turned out to be dinner and dancing at the Mambo Club in norfolk, at 6:30pm. We head back to her parents place, get changed into something more dressy and head to dinner.

We arrive and get seated at our round table surrounded by three other couples; one nerdy guy and date from tinder; one military couple; and one tattooe’d couple. No one is talking. Seeing as that there is champagne and I’m good at being a clown, I help get the conversation going with some self-deprecating humor. Soon, the food is brought out, which is puerto rican veggies and rice. Leigh isn’t very hungry, and it’s pretty tasty, so I eat her’s dinner too. The first dance we learn is kimbozo? kimbocho? I forget the name. Its from angola, and appears to be moving in a straight line, while trying to avoid stepping on your partners toes. The next dance is salsa, which oddly, is also moving in a line, over and over again. Leigh loses interest. I have a feeling she expected to be doing all the fancy stuff shes seen on tv. Baby steps lol.

By the time we leave the dance, it’s around 9pm. We head back to the oceanfront. The view of the waves never gets old…