I'm engaged! Kind of.

While I was on my mission, a lot of people that I know from church got married. I missed all of their weddings and receptions. And it was fine.

This evening my best friend from high school got married. She and her man had been engaged for exactly 1000 days today. She had a classic wedding. It was at a country club, but it had a gazebo, and the same clergy guy who married her parents. And everything was gorgeous. She was pretty. He looked nice. They had bridesmaids, flower-girls, and a live orchestra. After the wedding we all went inside for a huge meal. I brought my mom as my guest, and the little card told us that we were to sit at table 19. We cooperated. Our table also had two couples that my friend knew from college (including one weird guy who kept flirting with me and another girl), a girl that remembered me (that I didn't remember) from high school, and a guy, Trevor, that my friend had known for-ever, that she had actually thought she would end up marrying (but didn't.)

At first things were a little awkward. None of us were really friends, except for the girl who thought we were. Mom and I teased her because she didn't know which silverware to use when. Everyone talked about school, and what they were doing with their lives, etc. We all became good friends.

And after a couple hours, it hit me. I wanted a wedding. I wanted the pretty dress. And to be in love with someone. And to dance together. And have someone to go grocery shopping with, etc. I told my table so. It was a nice wedding, they agreed. A little bit later, when there was a pause in the conversation I looked at poor, shy Trevor and said:

"Hey, wanna get married?" I was going to ask him by name, except that I kept forgetting whether he was a Travis or a Trevor.

His eyes widened, he jerked up, and he said "WHAT?" or "HUH?" or something like that. He about fell out of his seat. The rest of the table stared at the drama that was unfolding.

I was kidding. And he knew I was, too, because I don't think we ever even talked in high school. We knew of each other, you know, but I don't think we ever had a single class together or anything. We never hung out together. I knew that my friend liked him, and he knew that I was friends with her. But that was really it.

My table got very excited about my proposal, though. The girl who knew me got really into the whole thing and asked him what his answer was or something. He looked at her, still shocked. It was really funny. I grinned. I told him I was kidding, he didn't have to marry me. He told her that we didn't have to call it off so fast--he was still deciding.

The rest of the night there were jokes about my engagement to Trevor. When there was the boquet toss, they announced that engaged people should still participate because they weren't married yet. My table made sure I'd heard that part.

And then, Mom drove him home. She had offered since we live relatively close and gas prices are high. There was no point in someone driving all the way back out to the country club when we would be going the same way home anyway. We were talking about something during the drive and he commented about how I was still partially engaged to him. I told him that yeah, he should keep me posted on our wedding plans. He said he would. I said "yeah, and if we keep talking as much as we have since we graduated..." and everyone laughed. I hadn't talked to him at all since we graduated. Not once in the past five years.

It was all pretty funny, though. When I'm around quiet people, I do a pretty good job of pretending to be an extrovert.

In other news, I met with a Mexican chef to learn how to make tamales. I took long and detailed notes as he explained how to make them. We bought all the stuff at a Mexican grocery store (where all of the loudspeaker announcements were in Spanish!), and I'm going to make them this Monday. He'll come over and help get me started. I love tamales.

I have a ton of other stories to blog about from this week, but I'll save them for another post. I have another talk to write for a baptism that I'm speaking at tomorrow.

The end.