Ron, Jeremy, and Hans
Sunset at Flagler
the "normal" picture of me and Jeremy at Flagler
me (and the scarf from Val!) at Jazz Night
Lindsay, me, and Em at Jazz Night
After many deep breaths and much meditation (and a jazz night at Palate with Em and Lindsay) my week has leveled out. I always say that these things seem to happen for no good reason, but when I look back... they happen for a perfectly logical reason! My computer fried because it's 10 years old. I mean, we had to wipe it and start over three times around Christmas! I left my phone in Unadilla because I wasn't paying attention, and it's not the first time I've done something like that. The belts on my car snapped because they were 12 years old (which, according to Jeremy, is twice as long as they're supposed to last) and though it should have occurred to me, the battery died because the belt connecting it to the alternator snapped the previous night and it totally drained. I need to start taking my own piece of tough-love wisdom: shit happens.
Jeremy, God love him and so do I, thinks I'm a little too hard on myself, and maybe I am. Perhaps it's being the oldest, perhaps it's being the child of an alcoholic (children of addicts tend to take on too much responsibility either to compensate for that parent or to prove to themselves that they won't make the same mistakes), but he's right-- I do need to start cutting myself some slack. Worrying takes years off your life, after all!
My weekend down there was really fantastic, a few pictures are above and if you want to see the rest they're up on
Flickr with the jazz night pictures. Friday we went and had dinner at Ron and Kathy's with Hans, hung out for a long while and played with Sarah, their new Weimaraner puppy who was absolutely beautiful and absolutely bonkers off the wall hyper, and Harley, the sugar glider.
Saturday was pretty low-key, we watched movies and then went down to the beach at sunset with Ron and Kathy and took a walk and watched the sun setting over Ft. Mantanzas. It was really nice, quiet, and even a little romantic. We also saw a Boxer puppy I wanted to take home with me.
Sunday, I had intended to go to Easter services with Jeremy, but the fan kept me up the night before and I only got about 2 hours of sleep! I was sad, I'd even brought something nice to wear, but I would have felt worse yawning through services or being cranky with the nice old people. That afternoon, we went down to Flagler Beach in the afternoon and took a walk about a mile up the beach and back, stopped at Steak'n'Shake and got a milkshake to split, and then went home and lazed around. I brought a nice bottle of
Verdejo up from work, and I had the recipe for the tarragon corn relish that was served with the steak special on Valentine's day so I made that and paired it with a baked swordfish steak. It was pretty darn good if I say so myself! We watched some TV and had dinner, then went for a walk, and came home and curled up for a while since I was leaving in the morning.
The drive back on Monday was harrowing, to say the least, and probably didn't help my distracted state when I left my phone in Unadilla. The storm I got caught in was really intense, and even though the speed limit was 70, traffic was settling in at about 55 for somewhere around 50 miles at a stretch! I kinda felt like an extra in Twister and couldn't see 10 feet in front of the car for the rain. There are some pictures, but I haven't gotten them off the camera yet-- had everything but the cows. (that was for you, Dill) I hit it about Tifton (about 200 miles south of Atlanta) and rode with it to around 20 miles south! I have driven in some really intense stuff, but this was possibly the worst I've encountered-- I was really surprised there hadn't been an actual tornado when I got back.
Speaking of getting back... when I got back, I realized that my phone was gone. I left to head to work, but all the roads were blocked off by fallen trees and power lines! I had to back up (as in, drive in reverse) for a few blocks because nobody bothered to stop me going the other direction to say there was a power line down. I was a good neighbor, though, and did stop people once I got turned around to tell them they couldn't get through. Nobody wants to get to a stop light and find a) a stalled out school bus and b) a power line looped so low it's almost touching the ground. A 30 year old oak tree fell in a neighborhood behind mine and took out three or four cars, lots of power lines, and half a house. It was really shocking! Then, when I got to the Oakhurst area, there were (shocker) loads more oak trees down. The power was out, so work was out for the night... I got home and went to get on Skype to talk to Jeremy and that's when my computer decided to spaz out. I was so upset I was shaking at this point, so I talked mom in to taking me up to Kroger to pick up sushi and Sweetwater, and I came home to wait for Casey. We were both pretty sure that the hard drive was fried, which really didn't make things better, and then I got twitchy and started moving things around and knocked over an entire 12oz bottle of Sweetwater!
Since then, things have been a lot better, you know how those days go. The computer decided it would work again, much to pretty much everyone's shock-- my brother thought I was joking with him when I told him it turned back on and was working fine! Thursday, I went to jazz night with Emily and her friend from work, Lindsay, who was really awesome and a lot of fun to meet. Nicole played, and when we were talking afterwards she said she'd love to play the wedding! So we'll have an hour of live jazz at the wedding, and Nicole has such a great voice, AND a sound system we can rent for cheap! Huzzah for wedding planning!
I think that's QUITE enough for now, so I'll head to bed. Everyone pray for and send happy thoughts to Emily, she's trying to get through something right now and could use all the support she can get!
