So, Thanksgiving was a truly wonderful event. In fact it sealed the deal for me in multiple ways. The entire family was telling me how highly they thought of Maria and that I should stop delaying the inevitable and just marry the girl! Even my dear abuelita, who had always told me that I shouldn’t rush to get married, the one who told me I need to see the world — yes, that dear abuelita sold her grandson out. She said I needed someone to share in my travels. My mom was at wits end as to how else she could impress upon me her desire for me to get married to such a wonderful and caring woman. The cousins all love her. My friends all love her. Most importantly, I LOVE HER! But I digress….

So the thought had been in my head that it was just about that time for me to take that next step. I had already taken her to a jewelry store to see what kind of rings she liked. I even put money down on a particular ring, but after some research decided I could do better.

So, I called on my trusted jewelry advisor, June Jimenez, to visit a few jewelry stores with me and give me some unbiased input. We visited a few stores and probably learned more about diamonds and the diamond selling business than I truly care to know.  Between my online research and visiting multiple jewelers, we were both getting pretty tired.  We decided to go to happy hour (is it truly Happy Hour on Saturday?) and try one more jeweler.

This last jeweler caught my attention.  I came armed with all this knowledge and my vision of what the perfect diamond would be.  He sat me down and showed me different diamonds for comparison.  If there was something that I asked for he called his diamond dealer and asked for a price.  This is pretty standard, I guess.  What I did notice is that he didn’t steer me to the top of my budget.  He found me the most brilliant diamond he had and recommended it to me as the right diamond for the perfect woman.  Funny that I kept staring looking at others and I tried to compare against what I had seen earlier in the day.  Something about this diamond called to me, almost as if it were saying, “my precious!”  It truly was the most beautiful diamond I had seen the entire day.

So, I went for it!  I chose the diamond and was ready to pick a setting.  Maria had fallen in love with this one particular setting, both for aesthetic reasons, but true to her utilitarian mindset, for the way the diamond was secured in the setting.  I explained to the jeweler what I was looking for and he breaks out an entire catalog with pages of variations on that setting.  So June and I rub our eyes, trying to focus and go through the different variations.  Again, one setting in particular kept calling out to us, “my precious,” letting us know it was The One.  Then came the discussion, platinum, white gold, palladium.  What?!?!  Que es palladium?  Okay class, take out your books and open to the periodic table.  Okay, I won’t go into the detailed lesson, but damn! I was impressed.  Sold!

So after a little paperwork and a bag of gold coins later I was the proud owner of a ring designed by myself and June, with an assist from the jeweler.  Of course June starts squealing in excitement and jumping up and down.  I’m kind of calm about, probably in shock from taking that next step.  It was all so very real for me.  The next step would be when to propose

To be continued…