Happy New Year's Eve!

It was New Year's Eve and I had flown in from California to visit Ben in Idaho.

It was 1999 and for weeks I had been telling him I wanted a memento, something to remind me of where I was at the turn of the century. I told him I didn't even care if it was a rock from the side of the road.

Just before midnight that night, Ben and I went for a drive out into the middle of nowhere. It was freezing but we stood outside the car, huddled together, and watched the far-off fireworks until we could not handle the cold any longer.

We jumped back into the warm car - it was exactly midnight - and Ben reminded me of that keepsake I had wanted. He suggested I actually go get a rock from the side of the road. We both jumped out, and as I rounded the front of the car in the pitch black, there was Ben on the side of the road - with the only light being from the headlights - on one knee holding my "rock" in a small black sparkly box.

I got my "Turn of the Century Memento" ten years ago tonight.

I am wearing it right now.

And more importantly, I got my Ben.