April 23, 1999
Well, after a series of phone calls to the jewelry store, and their promise that the rings would be in sometime after 4 pm today, we realized that Shrike would have to leave for work around 3 pm, so we wouldn't be able to pick them up until tomorrow. However, Whozat decided to surprise her by going to get them this evening. Of course, the very nice guy that we ordered them from wasn't working, so she had to ask the little old lady behind the counter for them. She was a bit worried that since they were ordered in Shrike's name, she might have some trouble, but little did she know that was the least of her problems. Of course, she was a bit worried about them fitting, so she decided she should check them first. She's wearing a ring of Shrike's until the actual engagement rings come in (Shrike's wearing Whozat's college ring!) and, as luck would have it, Shrike had been wearing that ring on her "wedding finger," so she figured she could try Shrike's rings on her pinky (the only finger any of Shrike's rings fit on on her!) where she's wearing the other one and if it fits there, it should fit Shrike. Sooooo.... Little Old Lady hands Whozat two teeny-tiny ziplocks, each containing an engagment ring and a wedding band. Whozat opens one, looks at the rings, and decides that since they're tiny, they must be Shrike's. She slips them on her pinky and they fit. "Perfect! Now to check mine," she thinks. She opens the other bag, pulls out those rings and they are -- ALSO TINY! Little Old Lady checks and tells her that one set is a size 6 and the other a 6 1/2. Now, one of those is probably the size Shrike ordered (but which one?) and Whozat ordered a *9 1/2*! Since there doesn't seem to be a record anywhere in the store of the original order, with the sizes listed, and she doesn't know which of the rings would fit Shrike, Whozat gives up on the surprise and calls her at work to tell her the problem. Shrike says she *thinks* that she'd ordered the 6 1/2, but she isn't sure. Meanwhile, LOL is re-checking the sizes and reports that they are *both* 6 1/4! So, the cat is out of the bag for nothing! Thankful that it's her rings that are screwed up, not Shrike's (since Shrike will be leaving for PA on Sunday) Whozat arranges to have one of them sent back to the jeweler to be enlarged -- THREE sizes! LOL swears that enlarging it that much won't make the band (which is already thin) noticably thinner -- Whozat will believe that when she sees the finished ring next to Shrike's. Whozat is supposed to "check back on Wednesday" to see if her rings are ready. She'll believe that when she sees it, too.
THEN LOL asks, "Are you going to pay that off today?" Now, originally we were told that we had to put 20% down and we'd have a year to pay, and he told us how much it would be per month and no interest for 90 days, and so on and so on. We ended up putting twice that amount down and Whozat had set back some money to give them that much more in May, hoping to get it all paid off before the interest kicked in. So, she tells LOL, "No, I'm just going to make a payment." "Oh," says LOL, "then I can't let you have these," and takes back Shrike's rings! Well, after all the trouble she'd been through with it so far - and considering that LOL, although she's being totally nonchalant about it all, is probably freaking out that these two women have ordered engagement rings and wedding bands - and because she's just too embarrassed to argue with her, because what if we had misunderstood the whole arrangement in the first place? - Whozat just said "OK" and paid them off. *NOT* what she had planned to do with that money - she was thinking more along the lines of paying the phone and electric bills! But, it should work out OK, since by the time those are due, Shrike should have some money from her new job to send to her, but still!
But wait! It gets better! Whozat, after giving up on her trip to Wal-mart *and* on buying the $30 toasting glasses, thanks to the extra $$$ she gave LOL, goes to her car to leave. Once in the car, she can't resist, she just *has* to have another look at Shrike's rings. She opens the lid and Shrike's wedding band *leaps* out of the box and into the console between the seats. Breathing a sigh of relief that it is safe, Whozat reaches to pick it up and it (showing amazing agility for a piece of gold) slides off the console and under the passenger's seat! After trying to reach it from driver's seat (and almost getting trapped between the console and seat and scraping the hell out of her arm trying to extricate herself) Whozat crawls into the back seat, practically stands on her head and looks under the seat. There, looking as innocent as you please, is the ring, right under the middle of the seat. Finally, she manages to retrieve it and return it to the box.
Eventually, both Whozat and the rings made it home safely and at the moment are waiting for Shrike to get in from work. Whozat will be mighty glad to get that ring on Shrike's finger and the wedding band into Shrike's jewelry box so they can be *her* responsibility to keep up with!
More news as it happens.....

April 23, 1999 - Moments later...
Shrike is home, the rings fit and Whozat's college ring is back in her possession (it was a nice idea, but it's been bugging the hell out of her not having it on her finger!)

April 25. 1999
Well, Shrike just left for PA, but you can read all about that on the "What are Shrike and Whozat up to These Days?" page, so I'll save this space for better news. We went out to the mall yesterday to pick up a few wedding things. We bought the toasting glasses - which are absolutely beautiful. We're waiting on the engraving, though, because we figure nothing will screw up the availability of the wedding date like engraving it on the glasses! We went to the dollar store first, though, to pick up the bubbles for the reception. We've seen them packaged specifically for weddings several places, but they're like 24 for $6 and the $ store had packages of 6 for -- a dollar (duh). So, of course, when we went to buy them they were out. Whozat went and asked the cashier about them and she was real damn helpful: "Were they on the back wall?" "Yes" "Well, if they're not there, then we're out of them." "Will you be getting some more in?" "Who knows." Gee thanks - Bitch. We figured if they don't we're only going to spend about $5 more to buy them elsewhere - but it's the principal of the thing, you know? Oh well. Before that, though, we went in this little boutique by the mall, just scouting out dresses. They didn't have anything we were interested in, and we couldn't have afforded anything there, anyway, but Whozat knew that the owner is a lesbian so she wanted to at least take a look there. So when Shrike asked if she had anything in white and she asked us "what kind of white are you looking for, what is this for?" what did we say? NOTHING! We decided we're going to need a little more work on this if we can't even come out to another lesbian!

April 28, 1999
Good news! Whozat now has her rings! After all the mess with them earlier, she didn't expect them to be in today, but after lurking around the mall outside the store for the woman to get back from picking up things at the jeweler's - she finally got them! And they both fit! Of course, she had to try on the band with the engagement ring a few times - just to see how it looks - but not in the car!

May 10, 1999
No new news lately, but check out the pic of Whozat's engagement ring. Shrike's looks just like it, except the stones are reversed.

August 5, 1999
Yes, Shrike and Whozat are still engaged, don't let the lack of posts on this page worry you. We've just been really busy with the rest of our lives and haven't had much time to do alot of planning lately. We have been doing some talking about wedding stuff in the last week or so, and Whozat's been working on the "script" for the ceremony and looking over the "To Do" list. Whozat sent off a letter last week to a woman whom we'd like to have perform the ceremony, and we're waiting to hear back from her - keep your fingers crossed for us on that! Guess that's about all the developments lately, sorry we don't have anything more interesting to share!