The Hoser is engaged!

The happy couple after Natalie says yes.

The final member of my Marquette Circle of Friends is getting married in the near future. I guess that’s the inevitable goal when one is engaged. I received this photo and mail on Saturday morning but waited for permission from José to post it. He never answered it. Too bad, so sad, I’m doing it anyway since I scanned his personal site, nothing new since the premiere of The Sopranos. 
 
Helen, Paul and I discussed it at some length. We have to work out the logistics of being there for the wedding. Course we don’t have any details yet but the Silders have two sons under 10, this will require some coordination. I am personally hoping the shindig will be in the Orlando area, where José and Natalie live. Then we can stay at the Nickelodeon-themed Holiday Inn! I think it would be a great in-person introduction for TJ and Jack (the Silders’ sons) to Uncle Maggi and Aunt Somara (or Sam, not sure what will stick in their memories). According to Helen’s explanations, it will finally prove to the boys I am their parents’ age. 
 
Back to José and Natalie. We’re all excited for him. I know getting married has always been important to him since our days at Marquette. I for one was never keen on it but the joke’s on me I suppose. Oddly Phil and I got married before José did, not like I was ever in any race with this expensive and tricky endeavor. (I treated it more like a game of dodgeball, then again, there weren’t prospective brides knockin’ down my door when I was in my 20s.) He met Natalie some time after our 2005 Vegas trip. Or maybe he had an initial meeting with her before then. I know he didn’t mention her. There were more discussions about another woman in Tampa who wasn’t working out. That’s the PG version of the conversations too. 
 
Anyway, I remember marriage being a bigger deal to José than me. It used to worry me too because he used to be very overweight. Let’s face it, very overweight people rarely get their first picks with relationships, unless they’re terribly wealthy (Roseanne would still be living in a trailer park with her original husband and Newt Gingrich would be another angry Republican with three chins). I feared he’d marry the first woman who really paid attention to him. Again, another PG version of what we in the clique would usually say. José deserves a 21-gun salute for having discipline, losing the weight (since 2003) and staying focused until he met Natalie. Believe me, there were a couple close calls named Isabelle and Darlene. There was even a tentative wedding with Darlene! 
 
Have any of us met Natalie? No. But José never met Somara. Sonia and Lee did so there was an approval from others I trust. It would’ve been nice to seal the deal with a hat trick nailed by a Marquette friend (more of my friendship with Lee is Austin driven). I hope to meet her because she’s awfully interesting on paper; a professor at UCF and in new media thingies (he told me about her students making a video game). Somara had a couple phone conversations with José, maybe I’ll have such luck with Natalie. Being an Apple employee, I have plenty of questions for her regarding her field. I think I can sell her a kick-ass Mac, ditch the Smell (aka Dell) she brought into José’s house. Besides, José said she keeps trying to make excuses of why she should be allowed on to his G5. Ha ha ha ha ha! I had Somara weened on to a Mac well before we moved in together. Now that I think about it, I was the bigger problem since I couldn’t afford a good Mac for a while. 
 
Update: As I was wrapping up this story, I checked my e-mail since I hadn’t all day Sunday (very tired from working at the coffee shop). José said I have permission to spread the news and picture. Orlando is the tentative destination. They’re paying for the wedding themselves. Obviously he proposed Las Vegas but that has been shot down by Natalie. She wants a church wedding so no legalized gambling for the bachelor party.