The world can change, between mouthfuls of salad

I'm not the sort of girl who ever craved the long white dress with tiaras and lillies. Or wanted to find an engagement ring in the middle of my dessert in a formal restaurant. Or daydreamed of a knight in shining armour, getting down on one knee.

But if you would have asked me a few years ago, I could have never in a million years guessed the moment would be in the middle of a perfectly normal afternoon, between mouthfuls of salad at the Cinema Cafe.

We had just come from looking at the apartment we wanted to buy one last time - and were full of self-re-affirmation of the choice we had made. Yes, this was the place we wanted to make our home. We strolled hand in hand around the block, perusing the new 'hood. Local deli? check. Dry cleaners? check. Pharmacy? check...

And we came to a stop outside the outdoor sidewalk tables of the cafe, inviting in the gentle afternoon sun.

"Lunch?"
"Absolutely, I'm famished!"
And it was there, between perfectly normal mouthfuls of salad,

"Do you think we should get married?"

I might have had a lettuce popping out of my mouth, even, and I quickly swallowed.
The question took us both equally by surprize. The spontaneity of the thought. The enormity of the decision. The excitement of everything else snowballing in our lives.

For the first time in weeks, swirling thoughts of brokers and interest rates and mortgages and floorplans suddenly shrank into a barely perceptible hum in a remote corner of my mind. This moment, this was big. This was no place for mundane thoughts like apartment-buying.

"Do you think we should get married?"
"Yeah."
"Me too."

We clasped hands across the table, and I distinctly remember thinking, I hope I don't knock the salt over and ruin the moment.

We smiled at each other in delight, newly bonded by this intimate secret, ours to cherish for the moment.
"Should we just walk down to the city court and sign the papers?"
"I couldn't think of a better way."

And with such simplicity it comes to be, folks, that yours truly is now effianced. On the road to betrothedom. Part of a gruesome twosome.

Who woulda' thunk.