P-R-O-P-O-S-A-L: My Favorite Moment of the Bee.

"You're back???" Miss Bernice had asked when I was the one who greeted her at the door at Atlantis' 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee's preview show.

Nope, I'm not back with Atlantis. I'm just ushering for this run of Spelling Bee. Charo, the usual head usher, had gone to the US, so Lawyn's sister Johanna and I took her place, alternately briefing the celebrity and audience guest spellers for each show.

I have to say, it's been a while since I've been with ushers from Blue Rep, but every batch is equally quirky, and I get pretty amused just watching them.

And so far, I have to say that last night's show was pretty eventful. First of all, there were no pasaway guest spellers unlike the previous ones since preview, hahaha. (Oh, the horror of those spellers from adult night.) Nikki had already been briefed the night before while I was chatting with Geli on YM. And Jinky? She followed everything to the letter, but she was laughing so hard while she was onstage that she was practically in tears, hahaha! Nice to know that she hadn't changed a bit after years of not seeing her.

Other than that, there's one special moment that made last night's show very memorable. Joel had proposed to Emy in front of the entire Spelling Bee audience! Woohoo!

But let me backtrack a bit.

Sometime last week, before one of Spelling Bee's preview shows, Lawyn and I were sitting in the audience just hanging around and waiting. Joel was talking in hushed tones with Bobby and Chari several rows in front of us. I accidentally overheard something that Bobby had said and tried to tune it out. I suddenly remembered this one guy who had also proposed to his girlfriend at Spelling Bee's previous run. Interesting.

Then another time, Joel approached the front-of-house and asked Ate Sally if he could let her accommodate a couple of his friends who just want to watch the curtain call of one show. The hushed conversation I accidentally saw slipped from my mind, and just assumed that these friends probably just wanted to see the Christmas medley that the cast performs for this run, hahaha.

(Maybe I'm just rationalizing, but I can't help but include this. The night before the proposal, I had a dream that I was being proposed to also. Weirdness.)

Anyway. I found myself slipping inside the theater during mic check before Sunday's evening show (to look for Lawyn, I think). I saw Joel, Bobby and Chari talking again in hushed tones, and this time with Cathy. I slipped back out of the theater so as not to be rude, but I was suddenly thinking, could this be the day? My question was answered when Bobby and Chari handed cameras to Lawyn to cover the show's curtain call. Lawyn's look confirmed what was going to happen. Hahaha, it was all super secretive, that even the cast (save for Cathy, of course) didn't know. Lawyn was even looking over a seat plan to find which seats were vacant so she could position herself there with the cameras. Because Lawyn was tasked to take photos and video, she handed me the video recorder so she won't harass herself doing both.

Before the show was about to end, Chari instructed us to cover the Christmas medley as well so we won't miss a single moment of the whole thing. So during the final song, Lawyn and I positioned ourselves into 2 vacant orchestra seats that had a decent view of everything. My gahd, funny thing was that my hands were getting clammy. Hahahaha, pati ako kinabahan kasi baka shaky ang pagkuha ko ng video.

Anyway, so after the Christmas medley, I was still recording and Lawyn was still snapping away. Cathy (still in character as Miss Peretti) then made an announcement concerning an audience member about some confiscated item, and called Emy up onstage. Murmurs and whispers filled the air, and once Joel had assisted Emy to center stage and went down on one knee, even the cast members' jaws dropped to the floor! Despite my giddiness, I'm still hoping right now that the video I recorded of the proposal wasn't too shaky, ahahaha.

Of course, because this was Joel, there had to be a classic Joel Trinidad moment. When he was about to slip the ring on Emy's finger, he had no idea which hand, hahaha! "It's my first time to do this." HAHAHAHAHA!

Congratulations to Joel Trinidad and Emerita Alcid! We're all so happy for you! And we're also glad to witness this awesome moment with you.

After the show, that's when I started thinking again about that dream I had. I once had a dream that I was pregnant, and it turned out that someone I knew was also pregnant. And strangely enough, I had a recurring dream of childbirth, but unfortunately, the same friend suddenly had a miscarriage. And now, I had a dream of a marriage proposal, and someone I know proposes to his girlfriend.

I was pondering over it with Nicco last night and he said na may powers daw ang dreams ko, hahaha. Labo. Hehe, sige, doncha worry, bro. If I dream of Glee's Jenna Ushkowitz, I'll be sure to let you know, hahahaha!