Elena and Ari met in January of 2022 when it was both very cold and very COVID-y. Their first date was a cold walk that ended with ice cream, so Ari knew she was a keeper. The second date was skating in the public garden which, looking back at the Strava (because, all together now: if it’s not on Strava it didn’t happen), shows that they skated for more than an hour and more than five miles because apparently they both liked each other’s company.
Not long after, and still dating outdoors, they had a very cold outdoor dinner at Russell House (it turns out heat lamps do not keep your feet warm), and a first kiss as Ari waited to take the 1 bus home from the stop across from City Hall in Cambridge. After the Birkie (the big ski race in Wisconsin Ari has now completed 17 times), dates became a bit more frequent, and even moved to dating indoors.
Eventually, they each moved from shared living arrangements to their own apartments, Elena got Thumper, the “pug in cat’s clothing” of her dreams, and they considered buying a home (paying two rents and deciding which apartment to have dinner in was getting quite silly).
As they were discussing buying a house, it also brought up this whole “getting married” thing. Ari and Elena both didn’t like how gendered the whole proposal process was. (Both remember themselves as the one who brought this point up!) Why does only one of the two people get to have the fun of deciding on the time and place to surprise the other person? Why does only one get to be the surprisee?
Ari also didn’t want to propose to Elena until she was ready to reciprocate, and she wholeheartedly agreed: they’d both independently plan an engagement and surprise each other at the time and place of each of their choosing. When both had popped the question, the proposal would be complete. (According to the Internet, this is not a thing for hetero couples, but eff the patriarchy! And for those of you planning an engagement, it works great.) Ari would get Elena a ring, and since Ari isn’t much of a ring-wearer, Elena would have access to his dad’s MIT class ring. (His dad can no longer wear it because of arthritis and Ari wears from time to time: he got it resized to go on his right hand so “he isn’t married to MIT”; Elena also used to wear hers on her left hand, but she’s now adjusting to wearing it on her right).
This happened at the start of winter, and they both had the same idea: their second date skating on the Lagoon in the Public Garden. There was only one problem: it was one of the warmest winters on record, and the lagoon never froze solid enough for skating! So they started looking for Plans B.
Elena went first. After telling Ari that she hadn’t brought his dad’s ring to the Birkie for fear of losing it (good call, the Birkie can get sloppy) he said “it’s not about the ring; any ring will do” and suggested a bent paperclip or tchotchke would be fine. Elena did him one better and, while waiting for snowstorm-delayed friends, she not-at-all transparently walked down the block to a gift shop and found “the least feminine of the three not-completely-feminine rings.” But he still didn’t know what, where or when anything would happen.
Every year after the race, Ari records his podcast (which Elena started helping out with and referred to as “our podcast” a few minutes in). This year’s recording was a bit less boozy than usual (Ari was recovering from an upset stomach) and had much more time in a sauna, during which time she went scouting for a location. When she finally hauled him out of the sauna—where he’d met a bona fide podcast superfan—he suggested going up and recording on the “International Bridge” which the race builds annually over US Highway 63. The bridge leads skiers on to the Main Street finish and was, coincidentally, exactly where she wanted him. As he obliviously recorded volunteers guiding skiers down the bridge’s treacherous lip, she finally had a pause to ask him “one more question.” And, of course, he said “yes.” No one noticed the race’s director (who Ari knows well) standing behind them, photobombing their pictures. It was perfect and she even recorded it, so stay tuned for that podcast episode coming … some time in the future.
Now the pressure was on Ari. His ring procurement process was a bit more complex: his grandma Arline had a diamond in a decidedly ugly ring (Elena was shown a picture post-engagement and said “oh, wow, yes, that is uglier than I’d imagined”). It was reset into a more contemporary (read: much less ugly) ring and went into the back of the sock drawer waiting for the right time. After a couple of cold nights he went back downtown to see if maybe the Lagoon had refrozen, but it was drained for spring cleaning, and standing on frozen mud seemed less romantic than skating on the ice.
Nothing would be a huge surprise, but he decided on a bit of subterfuge. Elena had been invited to have dinner with a student (this is a thing, apparently Harvard is, to quote Rachel Dratch, “like Hogwahts“) and he said “let’s meet in Harvard Square afterwards and walk to get ice cream.” He got caught up with something and went on a run later than planned, so when she texted him she was leaving he hadn’t made it home in time to shower and met her in running shorts. (So, a normal evening for us.)
But no matter. The ruse was on. While they were near an ice cream shop, he suggested walking a mile to the next Square, where they’d ended their first date. His plan was working: she was sure that would be the location of the proposal. But he had a trick up his sleeve. As they walked song, Elena remembered something she had to do and began to futz with her phone to send herself a note, but the phone wouldn’t connect, so Ari fully encouraged her to continue futzing while he got everything in position. Several blocks short of the ice cream shop he leaned over, gave her a smooch (requires leaning if we’re standing: our torsos are the same length but her legs are a bit shorter) and popped the question at the very same bus stop of their first kiss. She said yes, and a nearby ambulance crew was very excited for them.
Then he said “it’s too damn cold for ice cream.” We all know this is a lie but he hadn’t eaten dinner and was shivering and decreed that they would go to Russell House for dinner and eat indoors and we sat side by side and it was wonderful.
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