How to propose 101? (edited & reposted from Cisco)

Well coming to the decision that you are ready for this step should be pretty easy if you truly are ready for the next level, at least I think so. Deciding how to go about actually popping the question and choosing the ring that will symbolize this great moment is a whole other story. In my case I have known for a while that Kashan was "the one". So making the decision to propose was not an issue, since I had decided a while ago that this would be done. Now choosing the "symbol" well that takes a lot of research, window shopping, and asking questions to everyone including the intended betrothed (all so slightly to try to keep a surprise and if not slightly then you will have to figure out how to throw her off the subject so she isn't trying to figure out when its going to happen). Even after all this, there can be doubts on the stone (diamond or not), size (a carat or more ........... less than a carat?), setting (solitaire, antique, Tiffany's?), ring size, price, when to ask, and how to ask.

The research, that started a whole year ago when we were on a trip to Hong Kong to celebrate Kashan's sister's engagement and to meet the family. I got to see her reaction to rings when she tried some on at a jewelry store. That day answered two questions, stone and setting. At least I thought it did. When we got back from the trip we saw a documentary on diamonds and that put the stone question back in the unknown column. Then Chinese New Year came around and the stupid horoscope said its not a good year, so the ring thing got put on the back burner.

Well that whole not good year thing turned out to be subjective so research resumed. I got answers for stone (diamond), size (around .7 carats), setting (solitaire maybe the one she liked in hong kong with the heart prongs), and when (between xmas and new years or on our anniversary on the 15th). But that wasn't enough as research had added more to the equation under the auspices of what is called the 4c's. So I set out to choose the ring and quickly got overwhelmed. So I asked Kashan if she would like to go shopping with me (ruining any surprise attack) but she said no because she trusted that I would choose correctly. So I commenced a disinformation campaign while I continued to look, I successfully convinced her that Tiffany's was overpriced and that this year was still not the year (at least I think mission disinform codenamed "Ari Fleischize" was a success).

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Luckily fate would play a role just in time for christmas in the form of friends Vimal and Tim. December 22, 2005 Vimal looses cell phone; enlists my help to track; cell phone located in Tim's car; Tim half way to New Jersey; Vimal without a phone to coordinate with Tim on how to get phone left in Tim's car. Vimal goes to our house to borrow Kashan's phone; decides to meet Tim in Westchester; asks Kashan if she wants to go to The Westchester; Kashan calls me; I say on my way home; I get home.

Kashan: Do you want to go to the Westchester mall.
Cisco: There's a Tiffanys there.
Vimal: And an Apple Store (he probably didn't say that but I will remember that he did).
Kashan: It looks like it has a lot of cool stores.
Cisco: Its expensive you can go with Vimal.
Kashan: Vimal can just borrow my phone and go because its late and we will only have an hour to shop.
Cisco: Its holiday hours they probably close at 10.
Vimal: Are you sure or are you making it up, I will call, yep they close at 10.

Cisco: Thinking ... maybe I can price out more rings. Ok lets go now.

On the way down I thought I can price out Tiffany rings and other rings there while Kashan is shopping. We get there at around 8, Vimal proceeds to Apple store, Kashan and I go to Nordstrom. I go to men's section and come back to say I will go look at other stores and I will meet her back there. I go to Tiffany's to price out the rings and find that Tiffany's markup seems comparable to the mark ups in some stores I've gone to. However this is Tiffany's so that means this is a good thing. So I tell Barbara (the jeweler) what I am looking for and price range. After looking at several rings I choose two that I really like, both classic solitaires. By the way all of the Tiffany rings seem to sparkle very well, no matter the grade of diamond, unlike all the other stores I went to. I say to Barbara you know what I've decided I am going to do this today and not wait any longer. Can you hold these two rings aside as I go get my girlfriend in Nordstrom and she can choose from one of these. Barbara says fine and I go find Kashan.

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Vimal meets up with us and I tell him I want to go with Kashan somewhere to have her pick something (he understands but thinks its something totally different). I tell Kashan I have chosen a couple of things I like at another store but want her opinion on them and would like her to help me choose. She says ok. On the way back to Tiffany's I tell her that I have built her a bear at a build a bear store and want her to pick the clothes. She says she doesn't want a stupid bear. Luckily we were already in front of Tiffany's so I walk in with her and take her to the ring section.

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I tell her to look but that someone will be with us shortly. Barbara comes out and I introduce them and Barbara tells Kashan that I have chosen two rings for her to look at so she can decide which she likes more. Kashan puts them on and looks at them (she still doesn't know I will be buying one), as she is trying them on, I see that something else has caught her eye. So I say is there any other rings you want to try? She points to a pink sapphire ring and Barbara takes it out. As soon as Kashan tried that one on she lit up like a christmas tree and started to smile. So I asked her if she really liked it. Since I hadn't checked out anything but solitaires I became a little nervous cause I didn't know the price of the ring she liked so much plus it looked like it was in the more expensive side of the display. But luckily I caught the price of the ring as she was trying it on and decided it was within my price range. So I asked Barbara what wedding band would match that and she took that out. When Kashan put the band on with the ring I knew that was the one. So I said is that the one you want and Kashan said yes and finally realized I was actually going to buy it.

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Barbara then moved us to the side where there was a semi private cove. Kashan was concerned about the price but I explained to her that everything was ok and I told Barbara that this was the ring I would be buying. Barbara then said that we would have to get it sized and that it would take a week and left to get some information. I turned to Kashan and told her "Hopefully I know the answer to the question but I want the ring to be they symbol of the question" and I went to pay for the ring. I told Barbara that this whole thing was only going to work the way I wanted if Kashan could walk out with the ring. Barbara agreed and said we could come back after the holidays to get it resized.

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I returned to Kashan and placed the ring on her finger. Barbara gave her the Tiffany's box and bag and we got up to leave. Then I said, "By the way will you marry me" and Kashan said "Yes of course." We left Tiffany not knowing what to do next and met up with Vimal who was the first to witness the betrothed.

Great News! Yes you guessed it, we're engaged! (reposted from Kashan)

Dec 22, 2005, a seemingly normal day. I took a day off since it's almost Christmas and I'm tired of work. Cisco was still at work. I was home, and the door bell rang. It was Vimal. He had left his phone in Tim's car when we went out to lunch earlier. He was here to borrow my phone to call Tim. Tim was on his way to Edison, NJ, but he was going home in Rhode Island later that night. Vimal was thinking to either go to Edison to get his phone or meet him somewhere in NY on Tim's way home. Vimal wants to go to the Apple store and he found a store in the Westchester mall. I was going to lend him my phone so that he can coordinate with Tim, but the Westchester mall seems like a cool mall that I would want to check out. I know I can't afford to shop at most of the stores there, but I thought it would be cool to look anyway. I called Cisco to see if he wanted to go with me, but he was on his way home anyway, so I told him I'd tell him what's going on when he got here. When he got home, I've changed my mind since it was getting late. By the time we get there, we would only have an hour to shop. We were thinking that they might have extended holiday hours, but Vimal didn't see that on their website. Somehow, we finally decided we could just call to find out (not that I wanted to go that much anymore, I actually wished it didn't open late since I was kinda afraid to spend more money). Vimal called, and they do close an hour later. I decided I would go. Cisco at first said that he didn't want to go and I could just go with Vimal, but then he decided to go anyway probably because he knew I wanted him to go. I jokingly said to Cisco that he could go so that he can close the Tiffany store there for me. So, we went so that we can chaperon my phone since we don't trust Vimal with my phone ;-) I went to Nordstrom and Cisco was of course getting bored and he said he would go to other stores and come back. He came back while I was paying for the cheapest stuff I could find in Nordstrom. He told me that he had pick out some stuff and he wanted me to see it. I figured that he wanted me to see some rings just to see what I like. He tried to confuse me and told me that he had made a stuffed bear for me. Of course, I didn't trust him at all and I told him that I didn't want a stupid bear. So we headed to Tiffany. He said the lady is going to bring out some rings for me to see. While we're waiting, we looked at the rings in the display. The lady came and brought out two diamond rings that look pretty much the same. Here I am, trying out engagement ring at Tiffany, I noticed I had dirty fingernails, how embarrassing! I tried to cover it up somewhat, it was pathetic.. I was getting confused at that point since I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I didn't know if I was actually supposed to pick one out. I didn't think Cisco was ready to buy it. Besides, he had convinced me that Tiffany is so overpriced and I didn't think he would get the ring there. I didn't really know which one of the two rings to choose, but he did notice that I had my eye on something else in the display case earlier, so he told me that I could look at other rings. So, I did. A pink sapphire ring had caught me eyes. I tried it on, and Cisco saw my face and knew that I liked it. Though I was still trying to decide which one I wanted. The pink ring was somewhat unconventional I supposed, and poor Cisco would have never thought that I would like that (I didn't either, but I saw it and I liked it). I knew Cisco didn't want me to see the price of the rings, but I didn't want to pick one that is way over his budget. Of course I have expensive taste, and I saw the pink one is more expensive than the two diamond rings (I researched afterwards and found out sapphire should be cheaper than diamond but that didn't happen in Tiffany). At this point, I was feeling bad since I liked the expensive ring and poor Cisco didn't do any research on sapphire since he thought I wanted a diamond ring which was what I thought too. So, I ended up picking the pink ring since it's so special. The ring was a size 6 which we thought was my size, but it was a little too big. The lady said that I won't get today since they need to resize it and I said ok. Good thing Cisco was thinking (I was overwhelmed), he asked the lady if we could get it resize it later so I can wear it for Christmas. I was glad that he did that. What fun is it if I can't wear it right away? On the way out of the store, Cisco asked me, "by the way, do you want to marry me?". I said yes of course. We met up with Vimal afterwards and I showed him my ring and he didn't believe we actually did it. I thought Cisco had told him, but Vimal thought that Cisco was picking out some other stuff ;-) We weren't sure what we're supposed to do after something like this and we just went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and have some drinks. While we were waiting for out table, I tried to call my sisters and my dad, but I got everyone's voicemail instead. So I thought I would call Coley and I told him to tell KaWai to call me back since he was picking her up from the airport. KaWai called shortly after and she told me when Coley told her to call me, she asked, "why, did they get engaged?". I know everyone was looking forward to this already so it's not a big surprise. It happened in a very random way, but we were very happy that it had happened. This is a pretty long blog, but I'm weird, I don't really call people and talk. I wouldn't be able to repeat all the details too many times anyway. So, I think this is a pretty accurate account of what I thought happened =) Special thanks to Vimal and Tim who made this possible! Oh, and no, we haven't set a date, we're so busy at work and probably wouldn't have much time to think about this. We have a lot of research and planning to do. We don't know when or where it's going to happen. You shall wait and see!

Check out the same story from different eyes if you don't have enough! (but I have the exclusive pictures, oh actually Vimal has the even more exclusive pictures since he had graciously walked back to the parking garage to get his camera while we're waiting for our table at Cheesecake Factory. You might be able to catch my dirty fingernails haha..)
Cisco
Vimal

Konfucious & Confusion Welcome

Well this is the first post on our new joint blog, our previous blogs can be found at Kashan's and Cisco's. If you haven't noticed the blog title represents a play on our initials, well kind of, since Cisco is really Francisco. Strangely Vimal was involved in that as well. Anyway we have made the leap to blogger since to our dismay, MSN decided to implement an imaginary border between internet users and MSN users. They shall get the wave of a finger for that; Tsk Tsk MSN. So in response to this outrage this will now be the location of our rants and observations. We'll see how far the scale tips and in what direction things will go. It probably will be like using a compass in one of the poles, but it should be fun. As a starter we will repost each of our last MSN blogs that brought about the change in venue.