10/10/10

A few weeks ago Daniel said, “You want to go to the pumpkin patch and get a pumpkin this year?” 

That was a strange suggestion from him, but I DID want to go to the pumpkin patch and get a pumpkin, so I decided to roll with it. On Thursday or Friday Daniel said, “Are we still on for the pumpkin patch? You want to do it Sunday after lunch?” I said, “sure.”

After lunch we headed just down the street to Gnismer Farms to pick my pumpkin. As soon as we pulled in I could see there was a problem. The pumpkin field was barren, desolate, plowed under, not a darn pumpkin in sight.

“What!? No Pumpkins!?"

This was a serious let down because for real, I wanted a pumpkin. Daniel said, “Well, let's go talk to the farmer and see if he has another field.”

The farmer said, “Oh yeah, sorry- all the pumpkins are gone. We had caterpillar problems this year, and what we did get in were all bought up the first weekend we opened.”

Blasted  caterpillars . . . 

Then Farmer Gnismer helpfully suggested we explore the corn field maze. I grumbled about it for a while. “I don’t know, maybe we should just go find another pumpkin field . . ."   

Daniel said, “Well, let’s try it, since we are here.” 

I said, “Fine.”

The farmer's wife was very encouraging about the corn field maze. 

She said, “Oh yeah, it will be fun, you’ll love it! We’ve hidden clues all over the field, you need to find all of them, then when you come out we’ll give you a quiz.”

So- in we went to the corn maze, the maize maze. The corn stalks were tall, but there wasn’t any actual corn on them. We started walking and finding clues- and if I have to take a quiz, I’m writing the answers down, so I got out my pen and my note pad and started my list: “Corn, sorgum, green chilli, Illinois, night shade, grass, curcubic, green” when we got to “Ichabod Crane” I saw we were near the exit and I said, “We can’t go out yet! I don’t have all the clues!” 

Daniel said, “OK! But at least get these clues and we’ll turn around and go back in.” 

So I went to the next “clue” which was on a bigger tag than the rest of the clues and read, “Shannon"  I thought that was funny, but I got out my pen anyway, then I read the rest of the sentence, “Will you marry me. – Daniel” By the time I’d figured that out Daniel had moved in front of me and had knelt  down with the ring box. 

He asked some question and I said “YES!” He asked another question, I said, “YES!” to that one too.

I only vaguely remember that the questions were something like, “Will you be my pumpkin for ever?” and “Will you marry me?” Whatever- I already had the question in writing in my hand- YES! (He had planned on being in a pumpkin patch and asking me to be his 'corn on the cob for ever' doesn't have the same ring to it, so he stuck to the pumpkin plan- of course I had no idea at the time.)

When I looked up there was the farmer with his camera and all the people who had gone through the maze ahead of us. They had seen the sign and were hanging around to see what would happen next.

Someone asked if I cried; I didn’t because- a proposal in a corn field was a bit surreal . . . on the way in I was thinking about Children of the Corn, and that scene in X-files where they are running through the corn fields .. . . not about rings and proposals.

The farmer was super excited and after he had taken the pictures he cut off my “clue” and gave it to me. Then he cut off the top of a corn stalk and gave it to me as a memento- he also asked if I wanted a corn bouquet- but I declined.

Daniel had planned on writing his message on a pumpkin so that I could find it in the field. But when he went to the farm on Friday he found out about the caterpillars and the lack of pumpkins, so he and the farmer and the farmer’s wife made this plan . . . 

Daniel said he thought I was going to figure out what was going on because he had the ring box in his pocket and he thought I’d ask him about it (because I’m pretty curious) but I never noticed- I was concentrating on the pumpkins, and the corn clues. 

 The only strange thing I really noticed was that had tucked in his t-shirt and was wearing a belt to go to the pumpkin patch. Sort of formal for a pumpkin patch, I was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Zombie chick.”

I told him later that I should have known he was up to something because the date was 10/10/10 and he’s all about the numbers. He said he had originally planned to wait until Halloween, but he couldn’t pass up 10/10/10 as a once in a life time date.  Also apparently 101010 in binary code = 42.  42 is the answer to the question to of "Life, the universe, and everything."  42

My ring is custom designed and made. Daniel bought the opal 10 years ago thinking to use it as an engagement ring. It has 4 round white diamonds and 3 marquee blue diamonds. The third blue diamond is on the palm side of the band. There is a scrolled heart and our initials on each side of the back diamond. There are 8 stones all together because we met 8 years ago.

behold

the weinermobile

I was feeling sad today- so far the week has been going poorly.  Monday I forgot to go to work, Tuesday I called to see if the agreement that I didn't have to go to work today was still on in light of Monday- to be informed that I had that wrong too- that I was supposed to come to work today for sure because the Assistant Director had the 14th and the 21st on her calendar while I had the 5th and the 28th on my calendar for days off.  Strange . . . it doesn't seem like me to schedule days off so close to each other- I usually try to spread them out.

The more I thought about why I would have chosen those dates and written other dates on my calendar the more irritated I was with the situation.  I decided to look up the email to see what went wrong.  I learned I had said the 5th and the 28th- I don't know where the 14th and the 21st came in.  Uhg- clearly none of  us has very good memories.

Witch shoes

It looks like I have long legs (and cute shoes!)

Anyway, on account of being upset about Monday and Irritated about today I did what any sensible woman would do- I went shopping.  I also did what any poor-sensible person would do- I went to the thrift store.  I didn't expect to find anything good, but I found two pairs of shoes and a jacket that made me happy.  One pair of shoes is for Halloween.  I'm going to be the Good Witch Glenda.  I've got the dress, shoes, wand, jewelry and the glitter, but I can't find what I need to make the crown.  The crown is the best part- I'll look for the rest of this week for the plastic sheeting I need, but I might just have to buy a crown.  That would be too bad, but a girl needs a crown to be a good witch.  The shoes I got are pink-low-healed-pointy-toed-mules with  buckle!  I would never buy such shoes for real purposes, but as I already have them for Halloween, they may grow on me.  It's hard to explain.

The other pair of shoes are red Mary Janes with a gold buckle and tiny heals.  So cute!

The jig up at work- they're on to me!  I had the easiest job in ever, for about 8 weeks.  Well, take them as they come, I say.  Easy come easy go.

For the past 6 weeks I've just had to show up for the majority of my work hours- ok there was some button pushing, some watching students push buttons, and a little bit of reading involved, but nothing outside of the work hours, which in absolutely heavenly as a teacher.

They just put it all together and decided that it doesn't take someone with a master's degree to push buttons and do a little bit of reading. (ie they don't have to pay the amount of money they are paying me to push buttons and watch students push buttons.)  Bother.

To top it off I forgot to come to work this morning.  Dang it all!  I was supposed to fill in for the Assistant Director this morning, but I TOTALLY forgot.  I showed up 20 minutes before my class, looked at my calendar and realized I was 40 minutes late for the class I was supposed to fill in for.  I went to the class and all the students were just sitting there, at the computeres- watching Youtube, writing emails, etc.  One said, "We have been alone."  So I went in and told the Director that I'd messed up.  He said, "Well, that just goes to prove that we don't really need anyone for that time slot, none of the students even came to the office to ask where their teacher was."   SNAP!  The students don't even care!

Uh- what does this mean for me?  Well, it could mean far few hours at work.  It could mean that I'll actually have to do "work" at work.  I hope it's the second.  I could stand do some work at work, but no work and no money would be so sad for me.