Late Night Booty-Call

This past May when I first came to Umzimkhulu to begin our work here, I was sitting in Thabiso’s office, the young man who works for the local municipality and with whom I have worked extensively on this project. As I sat in his office, typically waiting for him to come from who knows where (he’s a busy, busy boy who I believe will climb the political ladder quickly), a nice young woman with a wonderfully picked afro and gold front tooth entered the office. We quickly introduced ourselves and began chatting about this and that while we both waited for Thabiso. As soon as he arrived and I spoke with him about whatever was needed for that day, I took off to work for the day.

After supper and while I was watching some movie at the B&B where I was staying, my phone rang. Not knowing the number, I picked it up to hear a strange female voice on the other end. The voice introduced itself as the woman I met earlier in the day. After the initial greeting, I asked how I could help her, to which she responded by rambling on something about how she hoped I didn’t mind that she got my number from Thabiso (I never gave it to her) and that she was on her way home and was wondering what I was doing that evening. Wait, is this a booty call? I told her I was just relaxing, watching a movie and that I was likely to have an early morning. She then asked if I would like to meet her at a bar in Ixopo or if she should come by and pay me a visit! She prefaced all of this by asking me if I got lonely or not, working out here all by myself. Yes, this is a booty call!  I did my best to feign tiredness and even told her that I had a girlfriend, to which she did not respond. She pressed the issue, but I thanked her again and politely hung up. Don’t worry; Christy was the first one to hear about this entire episode!

The Ring

I’ve had a few people ask me about the ring that I proposed to Christy with, in particular pictures of it. Well, unfortunately I do not have any pictures readily available, but Christy has posted two very good pictures of the ring on her blog, so please feel free to check that out, plus her interpretation of the story I’m about to tell. You can find a link to her blog to the right.

I had been thinking about proposing to Christy for some time now, particularly since arriving in South Africa last December. As I contemplated this upcoming event, I thought it would be nice to use a family heirloom as the symbol of my love. In particular, I had my mental eye on my grandmother’s, Mormar, engagement ring that has resided on my mother’s hand since Mormar’s passing when I was a child. It just so happened that I was going to be going back to the States for a conference and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to set this entire thing in motion. Well, upon arriving in Dallas and being whisked away to a friends wedding reception, I quickly discovered that Mormar’s ring had undergone a face lift. As part of our dinner banter, my dad asked me if I had seen Mormar’s ring, to which I responded, no (with the dramatic elongation of the o that was oh-so appropriate at the moment). It was then that I remembered that her ring had been reset with a pair of diamond solitaire earrings of my mothers. ‘Damn’, I thought to myself. There goes that plan. Now, quickly come up with a backup!

After sharing my plans with my parents, we immediately called a jeweler known by the family to see if it would be possible to obtain a ring with my specifications (and there were a few of them) in a little over a week. I was assured this was possible and that upon my return from Houston I would be able to view such a ring. So, I left for Houston a bit lighter with the knowledge that a Plan B quickly was developed. Now all I had to do was to speak with Rick and Nita Hotard to obtain their blessings. Of course I procrastinated and soon Tuesday turned into Saturday and I still had yet to contact them when out of the blue Nita sent me an email. How nice. After dispensing with the pleasantries and apologizing for ‘butting-in’, which of course she wasn’t, Nita made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse: to use her mother’s original engagement ring AND wedding band. Mind you, this email was out of the blue and Nita was unaware of the fact that I was on the brink of calling her to ask for her daughters hand in marriage. All I could do was laugh to myself and call my mother over to read the email, to which she laughed and told me to get on the phone immediately, which I did.

Well, according to Nita, they were surprised when their phone rang and the name Rosenfield popped up on their TV (caller id attached to the television, who knew?) less than 4 hours after sending her email. We chatted, I told her of my plan and all we could do was laugh at the amazing coincidence that she should write such an email at such a time. So we arranged to have the rings Fed-Ex’ed to my parent’s house, hoping they would arrive the day before I departed for South Africa. Luckily they did!