I didn't think anything could top last year's "cinema-perfect" New Year's Eve story in Manhattan, but somehow it did.
It all started in the afternoon on New Year's Eve day. My mom had called me from her hotel room sounding completely exhausted by her third arrival in France in under seven days. Understandably, she wanted to skip the holiday dinner party that I had planned for her and a few of our friends that evening. Instead, she offered to take Séb and I out to a late lunch to wish us a happy new year and to give us the confetti and glitter tiaras she had picked up for us at Party City on Long Island. Had she not cancelled coming to the dinner, the plan was to get her back to the hotel by 10 pm so she would have enough sleep for her early morning pick-up back to Charles de Gaulle airport. I didn't realize until that evening - once our party was in full swing - the amount of pressure that I would had been putting on myself to get her back safely and on time without interrupting the flow of dinner. The new plan to meet up earlier really did work out better for everyone, as I also suspected that my mother was invited to a dinner with other flight attendants down in the hotel's restaurant. Good for her!
One thing about my mother is that while she really is a simple woman, there's one thing she's major div about: she will only buy hosiery in Europe. In London, she goes to Harrod's and here it's Printemps, and with that she had us meet her at the Nation location for her bi-annual stock-up. My mother doesn't speak a word of French yet she caught on early that minceur is the French equivalent to our "control top".
After sharing her thigh-sucking discoveries with us on the street that Séb politely feigned interest in, the three of us wandered the area looking for a decent place to eat. A lot of the smaller cafés off of the main drag were closed presumably for the holiday, leaving our options limited to large brasseries where you never really know what you're going to get. Is it going to be overpriced? Are the servers going to be rude? Is the meat going to be good? We just wanted a quick bite; nothing fancy but you know, nothing shitty.
We finally picked a restaurant called Marco Polo because my mom liked the name and the menu had everything imaginable on it, making it close to impossible to not find something to eat. We nestled in a table snugly tucked between two others, ordered a pichet of red wine and a few plates for the table; six oysters, a salad, side of frites, and an omelet. As my my mom was wrapping up a story about how the entire first class cabin was wasted on their trip over, Séb pulled something out of his pocket, which slipped out of his hands and rolled onto the floor. At the same exact time, my mom and I both went to pick it up and banged our heads together so hard that I saw black spots. Some call them stars, to me they're ugly ink blots. In our frenzy, I ended up kicking what felt like a hockey puck under my chair to the table behind us. Séb had gotten up to get it but was interrupted in his tracks as the server triumphantly arrived with our plates. My mom and I were rubbing our foreheads from our crash, the server was making comments about the state of chaos at our table, the guests behind me pushed their chairs back into mine which jolted me forward, and Séb looked like he was going to die. Also, my mom screaming "holy shit!" over and over, and splashing herself with finger sprinkles of water from her glass did very little to help the hullabaloo.
As I was looking for a tissue in my bag because my eyes were starting to tear up from the pain of bashing my head into my mother's, Séb returned from retrieving his mystery item from the table behind us where I could here him offering his apologies to the patrons who probably just wanted a quiet lunch in Paris, but were unfortunately sat near us. Poor things. My mother irritatingly also had her hand in my bag looking for a tissue, because she figured two hands in a deep bag was better than one. When we finally stopped bickering, and I stopped whacking my mom's hand to go away with the little packet of tissues, hovering over the incredibly still steaming cheese omelet was Séb holding an open black box...with a ring in it.
He re-proposed, this time with a ring...and my mother.
I know, I know. We're a little backwards with this engagement. While House Hunter's took some liberties with our story (like how we met!), one detail that was accurately conveyed was that up until two months ago, we were living on a single salary so we had to watch our spending. Food, rent and life temporarily trumped jewelry - diamonds to be exact. Mon dieu! What would Marilyn think?
My mother let out her famous "Oh. My. God." followed by a "Hold on! Let me get my glasses!". After seeing it on my finger, she started crying...and then I followed. For the rest of the meal, every server that passed us was stopped by my mother who grabbed my hand, and in English (of course) she said, "Look!" which I swear pressured them to offer us three complimentary glasses of champagne.
After saying our goodbyes to my mother who is just relishing in her newly appointed MOB role, our night was capped off with dinner and dancing with friends, and many bottles of champagne to celebrate the end of a great year and to hope for the best for the new one. I could not have asked for anything more this holiday season. I was with family, in my new home, in my new city. I'm truly grateful for the way things have unfolded. Let's see what happens in 2013...
How did you spend your New Year's Eve?
