Once upon a time, OmegaMom was a lonely single college girl (at the grand old age of 34). She went to a far, far away place on a whim, a lark, as an engineering intern. She met a guy, very cute and interesting. They fell in love. Then they both had to go back home. :( They cried. They spent a lot of time on the phone, long distance. (They also spent a lot of money; 7-hour phone long-distance phone calls are eeeevil, man!) She asked him to ask her to marry him during a phone call that started out with him asking, "Have you ever wondered how they make potato chips??" What can I say? It wasn't some weird anti-feminist thing--it was more like, "So when are you going to ask me??" They made plans. He found a little house for them to rent in the town where he was going to graduate school. They planned for him to come visit her (in the beee-yoo-tiful San Francisco Bay Area), help her pack, and move her cross-country (to boooring Lubbock) right around Christmastime. She told him she had never had a Christmas tree of her very own since she lived on her own. He said, "Hmmm." When he arrived at her little cottage that late December, he had a box. In the box was a miniature Christmas tree. He pulled out the tree. Then he pulled out an assortment of miniature ornaments. He decorated the tree. He pulled out a tiny string of lights and draped it around the tree. He put an itty-bitty tree-skirt at the bottom. She was laughing and crying at the same time. And then he took her hands, looked into her eyes, and said, "Every Christmas tree needs at least one present at the base." And he pulled out a little box wrapped with a little bow, placed it beneath her tree, and told her to open it. In it was an engagement ring, with a little diamond, the most he could afford as a lowly graduate research assistant at Texas Tech. It was one of OmegaMom's very best Christmases, ever.