two fell swoops

It was going to be our first dinner in our newly renovated kitchen.  In the days leading up, I pushed to make a big deal out of it and suggested a nice romantic dinner. That day, I spent most of the time finishing renovations and cleaning up and making sure everything was in place.

On the way home from work, we stopped at the co-op to pick up some fixings.  While we were there, Andrea realized  she’d forgotten her new kombucha mushroom at work.  Kombucha is a slimy pancake-looking thing made up of a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast that you use to ferment tea.  (Read all about it here.)  There is a window when you have to start the kombucha fermenting before the thing dies, so now added to the mix of our romantic evening was the project of brewing a batch of fermented tea (and researching how).

So we picked up the shroom, and when we got home Andrea started making dinner and I nervously worked on the kombucha project.  I had just moved all of our food prep tools and supplies into their new cupboard locations earlier that day, so Andrea had to keep asking me where things were.  And she was trying desperately to get things right using a brand new oven and cooktop for the first time, while I kept getting in her way trying to make a drink I don’t even like with what looked like a slimy live pancake in a jar of formaldehyde. Things got a little tense.

When dinner preparations were almost done, I set myself up at the sink and called over to Andrea, “Hey, could you come over here and stick your hand down the garbage disposal?  I think something’s stuck.”  She replied with a disgusted tone - “Um, no.”  “Come on,” I implored, “your hands fit easier than mine.”  Eventually she acquiesced.  “It’s not on, is it?” she asked.  “No, I answered, kneeling down to unplug it from underneath the sink.  She stuck her hand down and felt what I’d put in a few minutes earlier when she wasn’t looking.  “Um, yeah, there’s something in here,” she said.  Her hand emerged clutching a fancy little felt ring box.  She turned it over in her hands and asked, “What is this?”   I said nothing and just looked up, waiting for her to notice that I was still down on one knee.  When it finally registered, she started crying.  She opened the box and I read her a poem I’d written for the occasion.  To sweeten the deal, I brought out from the cupboard a chocolate cake (her favorite) that I’d bought earlier that day. With all the crying and hugging and my whole speech, the whole thing lasted about fifteen minutes. By that time, dinner had gotten cold and needed reheating.

But she said yes.