Allison quickly moved through those awkward unable-to-eat-with-utensils times and moved along to nursery school. When she left nursery school, she went to elementary school. Nothing new there. After she escaped elementary school, she moved along to middle school, where she majored in nerdiness. When she got to Livingston High School in New Jersey, she joined as many extracurricular activities as she could fit in to her busy schedule. Allison continued the dance classes that she had taken since she was 2, tutored, volunteered, joined clubs, and regularly pulled all-nighters to get her homework done. Gradually she grew up and improved herself and found her niche in USY. And what a niche it was! She made quite a mark on the USY of the mid-90's. People have been talking about it for years. Seven years. It's quite amazing.

After doing ridiculously well in high school, she attended Cornell University. Like in High School, Allison wanted to take part in lots of extracurricular activities. The winter of her freshman year, she did the sorority rush thing and joined Delta Phi Epsilon. Allison then decided that she wanted to take up dancing again, and so she re-founded the Nitsots! Israeli Dance Troupe. In 1999, after four short years, she graduated with a BA in Biology with a concentration in Genetics and Development.

Graduation brought a choice of career. In fact, all through college, Allison had a new career choice every three months. Graduation came during a three-month period when Allison wanted to be an environmentalist. The place she chose to work was in Arlington, Virginia, at the Sierra Club. For three months she got their books in order and generally made their lives better. But she was bored and wanted more. She interviewed for a part-time job as the USY advisor for Tikvat Israel in Rockville. The interviewers were Elissa Malter and Jason Schwartz, who were due to get married in September. She and "Lis" hit it off immediately, and Allison is invited home for dinner the following week. She and they became fast friends, and she was invited to Lis and Jason's wedding, to take place over Labor Day weekend.

Let's take a moment and examine Allison's mind. At this point, she's just a few months out of school. She's moved to a new state and taken a great job only to find that working for a nonprofit sucks (and, in fact, she's about to quit and move back to New Jersey for a year to take the job she's always wanted). She has few friends in the DC area. She has no thoughts of permanence or long-term-ness or of the future. She knows there's lots of time for that; for now she wants to have a good time, learn about the "real world," and see who she is and what she wants from it.

On September 5, 1999, she shows up at Lis and Jason's wedding in Long Island, wearing a slinky black dress...

Gradually, as he grew into childhood, he developed a keen intellect and the relative absence of a desire to exhibit it. Sure, he was brilliant in his classes. He was reading far ahead of his peer group, and devoured many of the books in the school and city libraries. He was voracious in his reading, often staying up late to finish a book, even with a flashlight under his covers or under his bed. Yes, our young Daniel was growing into a colossally nerdy fellow. To add insult to injury, he:

• brought a pink towel to camp as an incoming second-grader because he couldn't tell the difference between pink and white (his first taste of the social stigma of red-green color-blindness).
• wore glasses starting in 3rd grade.
• wore the same outfit (different actual clothing, but every day he wore a white turtleneck and gray slacks) because he kept forgetting when he needed to be dressed in good clothing for the school assembly (every Friday and occasional other days) in 4th through 6th grade.
• was relegated to the "husky" (this, not this) section of the clothing store.

He was not well-loved among his classmates.

In high school, after 8 years of twice-weekly Hebrew School and 8 years of Sheridan elementary school, he was able to throw off the shackles of super-extended school days. Instead, he went to the Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland, where every Tuesday and Thursday the school day continued for an extra hour and a half. While he can't be said to have prospered, it can be said that he managed to escape without killing anyone. He dipped his toe into USY, toyed with hacking, and generally annoyed people. Dan began to develop his skill in tweaking the system.

Four months in Israel after graduation (Jewish high schools are so cool) left him with a strong taste for the freedom and the responsibility that comes with it. Fortunately, he went off to Rutgers, a school that cares so little about its students that the unofficial mascot is the "R.U. Screw". The R.U. Screw (seriously!) wasn't real, of course...it was a philosophical construct, a boogeymonster meant to scare freshmen and seniors alike. And it worked. Fortunately, Dan knew how to get around it -- know the rules better than the rule-makers. The R.U. Screw passed him by and he graduated with a dual degree in English (with a creative writing concentration) and Computer Science. (If you can find his Rutgers web site, marvel at how long he's had it since his relationship with Rutgers ceased!)

After college he looked for a job for a while. Well, two days. Then he heard about a project that needed doing at the National Institutes of Health. The project turned out to be Edison and his company, Turner Consulting Group was off! Eight years later it's a multi-million-dollar company employing more than 20 people. But that's now. We're talking about then.

Dan loved going to weddings. He went to a lot of them. (He's been in 12 of them...his own will be number 13! Lucky!) In 1998 he went to the wedding of Mike Scheinberg and Kyra Schuster on October 18.

He was, of course, in Mike and Kyra's wedding. So he was all dressed up in a tuxedo, looking sharp (even though this was his second tuxedo rental in two weeks, having just attended Daniel A. Terner's wedding, also in Florida). There, he met a very nice woman named Elissa Malter. Unfortunately, she was dating a nice guy, Jason Schwartz. Of course, being three nice people, they all hit it off. A few months later, he was invited to be in Lis and Jason's wedding.

Now let's check on Dan's state of mind. His company is 5 years old. He's dated a handful of lovely women. But it's never been "right." He knows the right woman is out there, but he is starting to think he'll never meet her. Yes, he's only 27. Youth is kind of funny.

Tuxedoed and looking dapper, Dan sings (really!) at Jason and Lis's wedding and then descends upon the reception food...

Well, the except was a biggie. She clearly was not attracted to me. I tried to dance with her, but she wanted only to dance with Brian, another guy at our table (as two of the young single folks, we were put at the young single folk table). (Brian only wanted to dance with Emily, whom I later dated briefly, but that's another story.) It was almost a lost cause. Then I managed to determine that she needed a ride back to DC...and as an incentive I determined that Brian also needed a ride. So I drove them both. Long car trip, but Allison slept most of the way while Brian and I talked. Nice guy. Not my type, though. Anyway, she woke towards the end of the trip. I dropped off Brian first and I remember that I was very aware that I had only about 30 minutes alone with her and had to make a really good impression. I didn't do badly -- when I got to her place we sat in her driveway for two hours and talked. The a/c was on because it was warm and muggy out (it poured on the way to DC but stopped by the time I got to her place), and I left the car running the whole two hours. The headlights stayed on because I wasn't sure how to turn them off (relatively new car) and I didn't want to fumble with them. Unfortunately, one of the things I learned during those two hours was that one of the things she'd done while she was in New York was have an interview in Northern Jersey, where she grew up, and got her dream job working with teenagers at the local JCC. She was moving back to Jersey! In less than a month!

Well, it didn't go well after that. I got her to go on a date with me, to Lauriol Plaza. She insisted it wasn't a date, but I think we both knew it was. It was futile. She just had no interest in me whatsoever. I helped her pack stuff into her rental truck, and she drove off.

I couldn't forget her, though. I dated a couple of people but nobody serious. I just couldn't do it. I knew I wanted only her. Lis and Jason tried to get me to give it up. Often. Sometimes daily. They said we weren't compatible, that we could never get together. That we were looking for different things. I knew all that. And I wanted her anyway.

She came down to visit DC a few times for conferences and the like. I made sure every time she did I was around and that I got to spend some time with her alone. I went to New York to meet her (and her boyfriend sigh). I took her shopping. About six months later she decided she was definitely not going to stay in her job, and wanted to return to DC. I was elated! But she was clearly becoming annoyed at my persistent attempts to enchant her, so I cooled my heels for a while. She moved to DC and stayed with Lis and Jason for a while, so I made sure I was over at their place fairly regularly.

Soon she found her own place, and boy, was I happy to learn that the place she found was only a half-block from my parents' house (and my office, in their basement). Wow! Would that be convenient! But of course she was dating someone. (All the most wonderful women can get any of a number of men, and Allison took advantage of it.) So I settled for being friends and hanging around her place a lot. I felt like someone from Friends (my mantra was "Not Ross! Not Ross!" She was no Rachel -- she knew exactly what I wanted...), dropping by all the time and hanging out. Odd feeling. I'd thought I was too old for that. Clearly not.

At this point ALL my friends knew about Allison. I'd been talking about her for over a year. They were all convinced it was a losing cause. I was becoming convinced of the same thing, but I figured I'd wait till she broke up with her current guy and I'd give it one last shot. My chance came in January 2001. She'd just broken up with a guy and the next guy (I could see him coming already) hadn't quite sealed the deal yet. I made my move. And...I failed again. He beat me out the very next day.

I won't say I was despondent. I know, and knew, that there are at least 10s, possibly 100s of women who could make me happy. I knew Allison was one of them. But I couldn't get her and I finally decided it would be best to just move on. Allison introduced me to a very nice woman and I started dating her.

On my birthday (April), Allison and her boyfriend and my girlfriend and I went out for a birthday dinner (I've gotten pretty bad at having more than 5 people at birthday parties...maybe I'll figure this out as I get older) to Dave and Buster's. I had a very nice time. Sure, I was jealous of Allison's boyfriend, but I had someone to be there for me, and I was OK with it. Allison, however, was not as OK with it as I was. From my perspective, she suddenly, finally, realized what she was missing...and started to want it.

From then on it was pretty quick. She let me know what she was thinking. I agreed with her that we might give it a shot. I broke up with my girlfriend (very badly, but I'd never done it before so I plead inexperience). She broke up with her boyfriend. We started dating. That was May 5, 2001.

And boy, let me tell you, was I happy! Whew! It took exactly 20 months, from the time we met to the time we started dating, but it was worth the wait. Kinda. Actually I'd have been just as happy to start immediately, but Allison wasn't ready for me yet.

It was clear from the outset that we'd either get married or come to hate each other, and I figured it'd be pretty obvious pretty quickly which way we were going to go. I had told Allison early on that I wanted to marry her someday, and that's part of the reason she'd been running so fast in the other direction for so long (the other reason is that I'm a huge geek, so who wouldn't run the other way?). Amazingly, I managed to not annoy her, and vice versa. In August we first looked at rings. In December I bought a diamond. I'll leave the rest for the engagement section...

This is Dan writing it...Allison will fix what I've gotten wrong...

Allison had chosen the ring style (we got the platinum), and she'd seen the diamond already, so she knew what was coming. What she didn't know was how it was going to happen. She was getting more and more concerned as we got closer to the date she thought it was going to happen, in early February. I knew what date it would happen -- February 2^nd -- 02/02/02 and Groundhog Day (we do all our cool stuff on holidays -- we met on Labor Day (weekend), started dating on Cinco de Mayo, etc.) and Ice Cream For Breakfast Day, which always falls on the first Saturday of February.

To ease her mind a bit, and to throw her off the scent, and because I thought it would be way cool, I booked us for a two-day massage class workshop at a spa/resort for the weekend after Valentine's Day. Then I got Lis to call Allison and tell her that she was sure that I was going to propose during that weekend. For the first weekend in February, I'd told Allison we were going to go to two events: I'm Not Rappaport at the Ford's Theatre (with Judd Hirsch and Ben Vereen! Front-row seats!) on Friday and the Vagina Monologues (last show in DC with Eve Ensler, and the second-to-last show with her (at least the touring version) ever!) on Sunday. In between I'd responded positively (via evite) to our friends Don and Nina's Ice Cream For Breakfast Day party invitation in the morning on Saturday, and to our friends Seth and Barbara's invitation to dinner Saturday night. Allison had been convinced that I was going to do it during the first weekend in February, because it had looked like a special weekend, but the complete booking of all available time threw her off and she became convinced by Lis that it would happen at the resort.

Of course, I'd told Don and Nina that we weren't coming, and I'd told Seth and Barbara to invite us but that we wouldn't come. The shows were for real.

Being a man, I waited until I was sure to order the ring...that meant waiting until the end of December. Since I had the diamond already, I had to take it to the jeweler in DC, who had to send it to JFA Designs (FedEx, heavily insured), who had to work on it FOR A MONTH. What the heck are they doing there? No idea. Anyway, I was supposed to receive it on time. Barely. The store got it Friday morning, February 1^st and I picked it up (along with a very pretty leather box and a small bottle of champagne, courtesy of the store).

I knew we wouldn't make it to the party because the party started at 9:00 and Allison never gets up on Saturday before noon unless an alarm has been set, which I explicitly didn't do. I don't mean to make her seem like a slugabed. On the contrary, it's one more indication that she's perfect for me. Anyway, I'd purchased her favorite kind of ice cream (mint chocolate chip, which all women who love ice cream and chocolate (98% of women, in my unscientific survey) adore), some ice cream for me, and a new flavor I thought she might enjoy, Samoa flavor (as in the girl scout cookie). I'd told her about the purchases because (a) I knew she might want to have some, and (b) when you're having an ice cream party for 100 people, it's always BYOIC, so it made sense for me to buy some to bring.

I couldn't sleep very long, of course. I got up at 10 AM, my heart pounding, and went to my home office to play some games to take my mind off what was going to happen later. That worked pretty well until she came around at about noon and came over to see what I was doing. I'd decided that if she said, "Let's go have some ice cream" I'd take it as the signal and go through with my plan. I'd told only a few people what I was going to do, so I could still back out of it if I needed to.

Allison and I made some plans for the massage weekend and spent some time on their web site, then she said, "I'm hungry. Let's go have some ice cream." I never anticipate her words THAT well, so I figured she'd been listening to my thoughts and it was time to do it.

We went to the kitchen and I got her the paper and told her to read it while I put together the ice cream. She was properly appreciative and let me perform my task. I'd hidden the ring in the icemaker tray -- because neither of us uses ice in our drinks, I knew it'd be very safe there. So when I took out the ice cream, I also took out the ice, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. I asked Allison what flavor she wanted. I didn't know whether she'd like Samoas Cookie flavor, so I figured she'd choose Mint Chocolate Chip. But sure enough, she chose the untested one. Sigh. I put the ring, still in its little plastic ziploc baggie, in a bowl, and started to cover it with ice cream. I quickly realized that in a big wide bowl, it wouldn't take enough time for her to find the ring, and that made me nervous. So I got out some big Xando-sized cups. When I slid the ice cream from the bowl to the cup, there was a loud "tink". I looked around at her. She hadn't noticed. Whew! I finished getting the ice cream and took our cups over to the table and gave her a spoon. Feeling a little queasy, I tried to eat my ice cream, read the paper, and not look like I was going to vomit.

Of course, she didn't like the ice cream.

Well, I hadn't planned for that one. I didn't know what to do. "Do you want me to just toss it and I'll get you some more?" I could just see her throwing it away into the garbage disposal and whoops, there goes the ring. Fortunately Allison isn't one to ever turn down ice cream, no matter how gross it is. "No, that's OK, I'll pick out all the cookie pieces." She went back to eating.

Soon thereafter, she found a bit of plastic. She assumed that I'd forgotten to take off the plastic that is sometimes on ice cream when you just buy it, and had simply scooped it into her plate. She held it out to me and said, "Dan? What's this?" It was covered in goopy brown ice cream goo. She really had no idea what it was. "That?" I asked rhetorically. "That would be a ring."

"Oh," she said.

Then I got down on one knee and told her how wonderful she was and asked her to marry me sometime before 2010. She laughed.

Then she said, "Yes." Very quietly. So quietly that I wasn't sure whether I'd heard her or not. I made her repeat it twice.

Then we called everyone we needed to call and all was well. And now here you are!

1. Allison and Carol Turner (Dan's sister) went to Cornell at the same time and graduated at the same moment. Dan was at Allison's graduation (but didn't know her at the time). There are a few coincidences related to that relationship.
2. Carol had a refrigerator when she was at college. When she moved out to Los Angeles, she didn't bother bringing it and instead gave it to Dan to use in his office. When his refrigerator at home died, he brought the work refrigerator home to use until he got a new regular one. When he had it running in his place, Allison saw the top of the fridge for the first time. It had a "Big Red Shipping and Storage" sticker on it, and Allison's handwriting on the sticker! See, Allison and Carol never met in college. Not exactly, at least. During college Allison worked for Big Red Shipping and Storage Company, a company that stored stuff for Cornell students over the summer. Carol, obviously, used Big Red Shipping and Storage Company. This shouldn't have had any repercussions, since Allison worked in the office instead of going out on pickups or drop-offs (one assumes they used big fraternity jocks for those jobs). But, in fact, on two occasions, during crunch times, Allison went out on pickup runs to help out. One of the runs was, of course, to Carol's apartment to pick up the refrigerator previously mentioned.
3. It's possible that Carol was a TA for Allison's wines course. Neither remembers the other from that.
4. Carol has two friends who were friends with Allison. Alana Zahn, one of Allison's friends when she was in elementary school, roomed with Carol at Cornell. Mara Hilman, another of Allison's elementary school friends, is Carol's good friend in Los Angeles.
5. One of Martha's roomates, Jen Madden, was friends with Allison in USY
6. One of Martha's roomates, Jen Madden, was friends with Allison in USY.
7. Allison's parents and Dan's parents got married in the same synagogue. Scarier, there was one person who was in BOTH sets of wedding photos. Apparently the caterer often stood in for the rabbi in photos of the wedding. Both parents' albums used the same guy for the photos. (They may have actually used the same photographer!) The two couples also used the same marshmallow-like Chupah (hey, it was the 60's!). More frightening was that both mothers-of-the-bride wore the same dress, which would have been tacky if the couples had known each other...fortunately they got married a year apart.
8. Dan's employee David Cassidy's wife's sister is going to marry a guy who not only knew Allison in USY (and has pictures to prove it!), but who is good friends with Allison's boss's son.
9. Of course, there's the whole Lis and Jason thing but that's less coincidence than cause.

So, in essence, we didn't travel in the same circles at all. But once we did find each other it was clear we were...well, actually, nothing at all can be gleaned from this list. It's just amusing.