Okay, it's after Thursday night now, so I can tell this story:

I was flying home to Berkeley from Burbank on Tuesday and overheard the person sitting in front of me (window seat) talking to the older man on the aisle and the woman in the center. It seems that the guy was flying up to Portland, solely so he could catch a plane on Thursday night going from Portland, through San Jose, and back to Burbank. Specifically, he needed to be on the plane in San Jose before people boarded because his girlfriend was taking that flight to visit him in Burbank, and he planned on serenading her (guitar and voice) on the plane as she boarded, and asking her to marry him! I haven't seen The Wedding Singer, but apparently this is where the idea came from.

The people in front of me spent the rest of the flight having the most interesting, mature conversation about marriage, a man who's been married for 20 years, a woman who's been married for two, and this man who's about to propose (apparently for the second time. I don't know what happened to the first fiancee).

All in all it was more interesting than my book. My favorite part was when the older man asked him what he thought she'd say. The guy (okay, so the cast of characters in this story seems to be 'the guy', 'the woman' and 'the older man') anyhow, the guy says that he and his girlfriend decide everything, where to go out to eat, what movie to rent, all that, by playing gin rummy, and winner's way goes. He's pretty confident that her response to his proposal will be 'Get the deck.'

Later I asked him if he'd considered stacking the deck, but he said if he wins he wins, and if he loses he probably wins anyhow. Personally, I'm curious whether the girlfriend would say yes if she won, or if she'd play to lose.

Anyhow, cute story and I wanted to share it with you. I didn't want to say earlier because a few different experiences lately have shown how remarkably well info can travel from this weblog to a reader and on to someone else who the entry directly applies to, and I didn't want to wreck his surprise. I just hope the flight wasn't oversold and the girlfriend wasn't enticed to take a later flight with a $200 coupon!

Also, later that evening I had dinner with Rick and Ammy, showing up a little late, and apparently missing just an interesting conversation they overheard between two older women about the evolution and comparative nature of Christianity and Judaism. After the women finsihed their meal Rick confessed how much he enjoied thier conversation. He even gave one of them his email address, so maybe they could all continue the conversation!