Getting Engaged – (Part 2)

We were almost ready to leave for San Francisco.  The reservations had been made and confirmed, our bags were packed, and as I mentioned previously, I had my eyebrows and nails done on the Wednesday before the trip.  I mention this so you’ll understand when I say that the next day, Thursday, my eyebrows had begun to itch.  When I went to work on Friday, they had started to turn red.  I covered them the best I could with concealer but no amount of concealer could stop the itching which was followed by scratching and subsequently, the removal of the concealer.  By Saturday morning, the day we were leaving, my eyebrows had swollen so that they looked like one puffy, red unibrow.  We boarded the plan at 6:30 am and because it was so early and we had such a long flight, I decided to let the brows go sans makeup.  That may not have been the best choice.  I wanted to cry as a mother and her daughter stared at me while we were waiting to board the plane.  And keeping my hands from scratching my forehead was near impossible.

We landed in Oakland and I didn’t even wait until we left the airport before I called my dermatologist.  Being the great man that he is (and having obviously heard the panic in my voice) he listened sympathetically to my tale of woe.  Then he kind-of chuckled (he obviously had never had a unibrow on the weekend of his engagement) and proceeded to tell me that there was not really a lot I could do but use over-the-counter ointment and a cold compress.  Only time would make it go away.

Dejected, I hung up the phone and told my sweet CPA the bad news.  I also told him that I wanted to stay as far away from people as I could over the next few days.  Thankfully, my fiance/husband is an understanding man who knows when to lie and when to tell the truth.  So he smiled and said, ‘Honey, it’s really not that bad.’  And because I wanted to, I believed him.  Thankfully I couldn’t really see the pictures in my camera that well:

(For those of you who don’t know me, you may not realize that my eyebrows are normally half that size and are blonde.)  Needless to say, I didn’t take a lot of close-up pictures that first day. 

I did, however, take some pictures of our first stop – the LDS temple in Oakland.

It was located in the hills so it was a little drive up.  But it was well worth the drive - just look at this fantastic, albeit hazy, view.

And the temple grounds were immaculate – well groomed, lush, and colorful.

It was the most beautiful place – so peaceful and serene. 

Full of fountains..

and palm trees…

and flowers…

and of course, my CPA. 

The best part of the whole place.  So I stopped feeling sorry for myself and tried not to worry so much about my silly eyebrows.  Instead, I concentrated on why we were here in this beautiful place.  I thought about the reason why we had flown thousands of miles to visit this warm and sunny coast and what we were going to do while we were here. 

And suddenly, I felt much better…