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Song Info (from Beatlesongs):”Honey Pie” is on the White Album, and was 100% written by McCartney. Nobody in the group had much to say about this one. 

Lisa Loeb has the right idea, I think.  When faced with two choices, try to take them both.  But some times it isn’t practical or advisable or not-rude.

For the most part, I’m a “cake guy.”  I’m a dessert guy overall, but in the hierarchy, I rank cake above pie.  That’s just in general, of course.  There are some pies I like above some cakes, and even some cakes I don’t really like at all.  But if you offer me cake or pie, I’m usually going to go with cake.

That said, there are some pies I get a hankering for every so often.  My all-time favorite pie is Oatmeal Pecan Pie, which is so good that it deserves the capital letters.  I was introduced to this pie at The Upper Krust, and I look for it every time I’m back there.  It’s basically a pecan pie (which are my second favorite kinds of pies) with oatmeal mixed in.  It cuts the sweetness of the syrup a bit, and it is just wonderful.  I haven’t had a piece in years, but I still imagine it every so often.  Someone made me one a few years ago (4, I think) on my birthday, and it was very good.  I keep thinking I will get a recipe and try it myself some day.  In fact, I have some pecans in my freezer right this moment (Texas pecans, even), and I think they are destined to become an Oatmeal Pecan Pie one of these days.  I need an occasion, I think.  As much as I know I could eat the whole thing myself, I don’t think I should.  I like my pecan pies cold.  Most restaurants serve it either hot or room temperature, and neither is okay by me.

Officially, my second-favorite pie is lemon cream.  I say “officially” because there are a lot of times I’m actually more in a mood for lemon cream than for pecan pie.  You know how it is, certain foods fit certain moods.  Lemon cream pie is more of an all-moods kind of pie than pecan is.  If you’re looking for a good version, try out your local Perkins.  They’ve got a very smooth and rich lemon cream pie.  One of the decisions I got to make for the upcoming wedding was the dessert for the rehearsal dinner… and they just happen to have a lemon cream pie at the place we’re holding it.  I did not get to try a sample, unfortunately, so it’s a bit of a gamble, but I’ve had more good lemon cream pies than bad, so I have high hopes.  Sorry, those of you who are coming to the rehearsal dinner and don’t like lemon cream pies.  Perhaps I can eat your pieces, too.  Bring some Oreos, I guess.

I’d never heard of sugar creme pie until I moved to Indiana.  It’s apparently the state pie?  Unofficially, maybe.  It reminds me a lot of pecan pie, if someone scraped all the pecans off the top of it.  It is served either warm or cold and, really, either is fine.  Do yourself a favor, though, and never ever ever have it room temperature. Room temperature sugar creme pie is a bit too phlegm-like for anyone’s good.

I don’t really care for fruit pies (most people don’t count lemon cream in the fruit category, which I think is a ripoff), not even apple.  I can eat apple pies, but I prefer not to.  I still like hot dogs and some Chevrolets, though, so my American-ness is not in question.

For those of you hoping this song title would lead to a discussion of pi instead, I’m sorry to have disappointed you.

Song Info (from Beatlesongs):”Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, and was 80% written by Lennon and 20% by McCartney. John said, ‘My son Julian came in one day with a picture he painted about a school friend of his name Lucy. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Simple.’ For the rest of his life Lennon consistently maintained that his four-year-old son Julian’s name for a painting inspired the title, which many thought was a reference to LSD. [Personal note: I believe it, since other songs that were about drugs The Beatles said, ‘Oh, yeah, that one’s about drugs.’ Wouldn’t make sense for them to not cop to all of them.]

If Hollywood has taught us anything, it’s that horrible things happen all the time, and even the good things that happen usually have horrible stuff happen along the way before it turns good.  It’s a rare movie where good things happen, and then more good things happen, and then everything ends up good.  Rambo never gets trained, gets in, gets the job done, and gets out – no, he’s gotta get captured or wounded or both before he can finally win, and even then the winning is usually tempered with some other Horrible Thing, like jail, or his girlfriend dying, or something.

Even romantic comedies suffer from this, but in different ways.  If the main girl is in love with a good guy at the beginning of the movie and meets a jerk 20 minutes into the movie, you can pretty much bet that by the end of the movie she has dumped the nice guy (who, in typical nice guy fashion, understands that she’s following her heart and so let’s her go because he values her happiness over his own) and proclaims her love for the jerk, who has loved her since that first meeting, even though he didn’t let on.

In the rare movie where a guy and a girl have been happily dating and are planning to get married, the Horrible Thing ends up being one or both of their families.  Has there ever been a movie where Boy tells Girl’s father that Boy wants to marry Girl and Girl’s father has been thrilled?  Usually the father hates Boy, or thinks Boy is not good enough for his daughter, or kills the Boy, or something.  It never goes well for Boy at the outset.  No wonder most guys dread telling the girl’s family he intends to marry her – the only model they’ve ever seen of it has always been something worth dreading.

I’m happy to report that real life isn’t necessarily like that.  Now, I’m kind of giving away the end of the story, I guess, but I think it’s okay in this case.

Earlier this year, I set up a meeting with Megan’s dad, mom, and sister.  They live about an hour and a half away, and I left right after work on a Thursday.  We met at Applebee’s, ordered dinner, and chit-chatted through dinner.  I kept looking for an opportunity in the conversation to segue into the little speech I’d prepared, but the opportunity kept not showing up.  I will admit to some nervousness, but there was no dread.  I’d been looking forward to this, and Megan knew where I was and why, even though she was not along for the meeting.

Finally, after I’d finished my meal and before the waitress came around to see if any of us wanted dessert, I decided to just jump in.  “I suppose it’s not really a secret why I wanted to meet with you all today, but I thought maybe I should tell you just so we’re all sure.  I love Megan and I’d like to mambo dogface to the banana patch.”

That may have not been exactly how it came out… I was nervous, but I don’t think I was that nervous.

Her dad, being a dad, asked me a few questions.  I answered them honestly, and he considered for a few minutes before saying, “Well, I don’t have a problem with it.”

That’s a direct quote.  I like it – it’s not a ringing endorsement necessarily, but it’s along the lines of “I think you’re an all-right guy,” and that works for me.  After that, Megan’s mom said she was okay with it.  She was more excited about it, but I don’t remember her exact words, I’m afraid.  Megan’s sister wasn’t allowed to disagree, I told her, but she and I get along pretty well, and I think if she were pressed, she’d say she was happy about it, too.

So then the question became, “How are you going to ask her to marry you?”  I didn’t quite know that just yet and said if they had suggestions I’d be happy to hear them.  Megan’s sister suggested I ask her at the top of the highest drop on a rollercoaster because that would be “awesome.”  Some other ideas were bandied about, but nothing was set in stone.  I headed back home, happy  and excited, but nervous about finding the exact right way and time to ask Megan to marry me.

It wasn’t too long before the right time presented itself.  Megan was visiting friends one weekend and wouldn’t be back home until Saturday night.  I knew having something set up and waiting for her was what I wanted to do, so it was just a matter of figuring out what.  She knew I was going to ask some time soon, and she had a pretty good idea that I had the ring already, so the only thing left to surprise her with was the way and time.

Once the time was set, I hit upon a way pretty easily.  Now it was just a matter of implementation.

On the morning of the Saturday in question, I went to a florist to get a dozen roses and another dozen roses’ worth of petals and then took them over to Megan’s apartment.  Then I went back home an nervously waited for Megan to call and let me know she was on her way home.  She was about two hours away and it takes me 20 minutes to get to her apartment, so I knew how much time I’d have to get everything set up when she called.

She called a little before 8p. Perfect.  But then I discovered she hadn’t called me right away, and was about 20 minutes into the drive already.  Okay, not a problem.  I still had time.  But then we ended up talking a lot.  And more.  And more.  Normally this is a good thing, right?  Not today!  I start freaking out a little.  I wander past my roommate and mime “What am I going to do?!?  AAAAGH!!!” which he finds to be somewhat humorous.  Somewhere around 45 minutes into talking, she says, “Oh, I need to call my dad back.”  Cool as a cucumber I say, “Oh, okay. Why don’t you give me a call when you get home so I know you made it home safely?”  I am the smoothest dude ever.

As soon as I get off the phone I quickly gather up the remaining stuff and run out the door.  Twenty minutes and three flights of stairs later I’m setting up her apartment: a dozen roses on the dining room table, with three candles lit, and a computer with a video file loaded and a Post-It that says “Press Play.”  From the door to the table I scatter the rose petals, and then I go sit in the laundry room, with plenty of time to spare.

I sat in the laundry room for about 20 minutes, the first ten of which I was nervous as a cat in a roomful of firecracker-laden rocking chairs.  I finally started calming down, and by the time I heard Megan’s footsteps on the stairs outside, I was excited but relaxed.

To hear her tell it, when she opened the door it took her a few seconds to figure out why there were rose petals on the floor and lit candles on the table.  It was probably around that same time after she opened the door that I heard her use my name as a question, but I held my ground and stuck to the plan and didn’t emerge.

I left the door of the laundry room open a crack, just enough that I could see her when she went to the computer and pressed play.  I had made a video slideshow of pictures of us and memories we’d made together, put to the song “Love Changes Everything” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and sung by Michael Crawford.  Even though I couldn’t see the screen from my vantage point in the laundry room, I could tell when she got to the last slide, because she laughed. here’s what she saw:

I wanted to be sure she wouldn’t freak out or mace me or something, you know?  You can never be too careful.

So I exited the laundry room on cue and got down on one knee in front of her and said a few things and then asked her to marry me.  It certainly looked to me like she couldn’t say “yes” fast enough, which was all right by me.

We are planning to get married on June 26, which isn’t very far away.  Things are coming together pretty well, but there’s plenty left to do.  It’s fun to make plans and talk about it, but I’ll do my best to keep this blog from becoming an “all wedding, all the time” sort of thing.  If I slip up, though, and write about it more than I plan to, I hope that your response will be somewhere along the line of…

“I don’t have a problem with it.”