September 21, 2005

• That big ass fountain depicted in many movies set in Chicago, the Buckingham Fountain, is a candidate. It would be nice if you could time it so that it comes on seconds after you get a "yes"- assuming that you do you get a "yes". The fountain is on for 20 mins per hour, so that shouldn't be too hard to arrange witha little research into it's exact timing. Good Luck!
• BTW spin, the link on your profile is messed up- it has the monkeyfilter address in front of the address you intended thereby leading to a 404.
• (remember, kids, if you don't put "http:" in front of your links, they don't come out right)
• Buckingham Fountain is fine if you don't mind a few hundred tourists with white shorts and "I ♥ Chicago" sweatshirts swarming around you. My pick would be the Chicago Botanic Garden. They have many different gardens to choose from. The Japanese Garden is an amazingly romantic place.
• Well if you go late enough at night, the fountain is still viable. However, Argh's suggestions are very good.
• For god's sake man, don't be a fool!
• Arf!
• The control room of the captured U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry!
• Assuming that you're both from Chicago, you should take a few hours (days?) to think about places you both have been and things you've done together. If you've made all of your fondest memories in Arlington Heights or Elmhurst, maybe downtown isn't even the right place. Anyways, consider places you've been together and the memories they invoke. Perhaps you've done lots of things downtown - you could choose one of those places or perhaps you could take her on a tour of your memories together before going to the place where you want to propose. As guys, we tend to want to come up with grand ideas and really big, cool things. Women like these things too an extent, but they sometimes prefer personal, sentimental, "small" things. "Remember the time we went to that hotdog stand by the lake and..." - Stuff like that goes a long way too. If it helps, consider thinking of it in terms of: 1. Where we've been 2. Where we are and 3. Where we're going. (On Preview: I realize that I do some of my best thinking with my wife's underwear on my head.)
• Never been to Chicago in me life, but best wishes to you and your beloved.
• Do it under the bean/cloud sculpture in Millennium Park. Yeah, there will be a ton of people there. But it might make it harder for her to say no. http://www.slywy.com/nassim/cloudgate.jpg OK. Maybe that idea ain't the best. There has to be a restaurant at the top of one of those skyscrapers or something.
• buck09, he's not from Chicago, hence the question... As for me, I think all of the gravel around Buckingham Fountain de-sexies it up a lot. As for most sexiest? Easy. At night, in the top floor restaurant/lounge at John Hancock. Best view of the city in the world, and absolutely dripping with awesome. Cons? Poor service, but, who cares? But, I kinda employed buck09's strategy. I proposed to my wife on the anniversary of our first date. I put together a set of cards each representing a different month we were together (basically 13 cards in total, considering the we had gotten together in the middle of August - so one for August 2003 and one for August 2004, and one for each month in between). I put each card in an envelope, labeled with the month, and kept them in my pocket. Each card had a set of reflections on our history together, our dates, arguments, adventures, meals we cooked together, places we had been, etc. And, I devised a trip to New Orleans, where we stayed in the Hotel Monaco (sure, a chain, but a terrific one - located in an old Masonic Temple). So, we basically just spent the day together, at, at noon, while we were waiting in line at Plum Street Snowballs (yay!), I handed her the first envelope. Each successive hour, we went to different places in the city we loved (PJ's uptown, Magazine Street, the giant windows at the Wyndham overlooking the city, the Red Fish Grill, and about 5 other places), and every hour, on the hour - I handed her another envelope. Anyway, we finished the evening, at the stroke of midnight, on the upstairs patio outside of the Ritz-Carleton's French Quarter Bar (drinking champagne) - when I handed her the final card. When she finished reading it, I proposed.
• Art Institute of Chicago (Says the guy who's never been.) Select an appropriate painting beforehand, propose in front. Appropriate paintings include: Wood's "American Gothic", Magritte's "Time Transfixed", Caillebotte's "Paris Street, Rainy Day", and of course, Seurat's "Ile de la Grande Jatte". They're all iconic images -- if you propose in front of one of them, it'll be "your" painting, and when you see that image inevitably repeated elsewhere, you'll be brought right back to the initial moment. Or Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple, just because.
• There's an excellent Art Museum in Chicago. Check out the list of current exhibits here. I'd recommend the photographs from Paris, right under a shot of the Eiffel Tower. Ooo la la!
• Of course, there's always the Billy Goat Tavern, too. http://www.cityinsights.com/chicago/billygoat.htm
• Awww giant squid, you made me cry.
• Stomper: Crying makes the squids happy - creating a more agreeable aquatic environment for us all! Capt. Renault: Unity Temple is wayyyyy out of town, in Oak Park, a ten mile trip, 30-45 minutes by train. And, at this time of year, it's oppressively hot (no A/C) - and also kind of small. And full of tourists. I dig the AIC idea, but only if spincycle's an art nerd (or his lady is).
• I really dug the Museum of Science & Industry, but I am a really big dork. Unity Temple seemed a bit...tired? when I was there. Needed a fresh coat of paint or something. But that was three years ago. on preview: Mrs. Squid is a damn lucky woman :)
• How about under the big dinosaur at the Field Museum. With marriage being old fashioned and everything...
• Extra points if you can tie it to a screening of Bringing up Baby. C'mon -- Hepburn at her fiestiest! Cary Grant at his Cary Grantiest! Romantic comedies don't get much better than that...
• Is it the Museum of Science and Industry that has that elliptical whispering chamber? That could be fun.
• Maybe I am a tiny bit of an art nerd. I like the idea of proposing in front of art, especially if you know your proposee is a fan of it or the artist. By the way, that millenium park "bean/cloud" sculpture is impressive. This thread is very much making me want to visit Chicago.
• Yep. Museum of Science & Industry has the elliptical whispering chamber. Or you could hike across the street to the Adler Planetarium and propose under the stars. I'm not much on the Hancock restaurant, but you do get a great view of Chicago. Please don't go to U.S. Cellular Field and have the proposal on the scoreboard. Even if the White Sox are sort-of OK this year. After you propose, and she says yes, and then she begs you to "kiss me where it stinks," remember that Gary, Indiana is but a half-hours drive southeast.
• Hello Gary, my old friend, I’ve come to smell your stench again, Because a reek softly creeping, Left it’s seeds while I was sleeping, And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the smells of Gary. In restless dreams I drove the Skyway Headed toward the Gary grey. ’neath the halo of the smog I turned my nose to the cold and fog When my nostrils were stabbed by the flash of a steel mill I sensed it still It was the smell of Gary And in the hazy light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more. People retching without speaking, People holding noses without smelling, People wincing from the reek And no one dare speak Disturb the smell of Gary Fools said i, you do not know Smog like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you, Take my arms that I might reach you. But my words like silent acid rain fell, And echoed In the smells of Gary And the people bowed and prayed To the steel mills they made. And the Skyway sign flashed out it’s warning, In the words that it was forming. And the sign said, the words of the prophets Are written on the steel mill walls And tenement halls. The next seven exits, are still Gary.
• UM, did she say yes?
• Woo-hoo! "The news became official on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005, at around 9:00 p.m. when I asked Mary Pat O'Connor to be my wife aboard a dinner cruise on Lake Michigan, below the Chicago skyline. To my utter delight, she said yes." Awwwww.
• Reminds me of when I asked my ex to marry me. Imagine it if you can. It was a beautiful evening. There was a low murmur in the night. The excitement was palpable. Suddenly the calm is broken by a night club door slamming open. I stumble out with my arm around my girlfriend, musci blaring behind us. "Hay....... wait, wait," "WHAT!" "Oh Yeah! Hey, lets get married." "Fuck it, who cares." It really didn't unfold like that, but I dream of an engagement starting like that one day. *bites lip, crosses fingers*
• Well 'aint that the bees-knees! Nice to see a thread dusted off with a happy ending... Argh's Gary poem has left me speechless. Spot-on for Gary...