Project Esperanto

 or

How do you let your girlfriend know that you want to marry her? Go to Atlantic City and Teller!

I’m engaged to Anne!!!
I called this secret operation Project Esperanto:

• ‘Esperanto’ means ‘one who hopes’ – ‘I hope we’ll get married’
• an offshoot of the language Esperanto is ‘Ido‘ – Get it?? “I do”
• I found out later that Penn & Teller tried to learn Esperanto (Penn & Teller will quickly become relevant to this story)

I was originally going to propose on our cruise to Bermuda, but I came up with a last-minute plan, which fell on our 11 month anniversary:

• After seeing a tweet from Teller that he arrived in Philly, I look online and discover that Penn & Teller are performing in Atlantic City this weekend.
• I buy two of the last tickets for their Friday night show. I also (secretly) buy a new deck of cards and bring it to the show, along with the engagement ring.
• Anne & I drive out to the show, and enjoy it a lot.
• Knowing that Penn & Teller hang out in the lobby signing autographs after their shows, I get in line with Anne, to see Teller. Anne thinks that I’m shaking & nervous because I want Penn & Teller to sign a book, & because I want gush to them about being my heroes. Little did she know…
• I quickly whisper to Teller, telling him my plan, and asking him to do a card trick for Anne.
• Anne picks a card from the deck, the Ace of Diamonds, and Teller ‘fails’ to find it. He prompts her to identify the suit of her card – she says ‘diamond’.
• At this point, Teller motions for her to turn around: I’m on one knee, holding out the diamond engagement ring, and ask her to marry me.
• She says “Of course!” :-)

Teller tweeted (and Penn retweeted) about the proposal here.