Countdown to flight home: four days
Daisy has now left; she should be arriving safely back in Omaha in about two hours. I always hate to see her go; I am immediately lonely and listless when she returns home after being here for a few days. I adore her and miss her, the cats adore her and miss her, and the house is quiet once she's gone. I mean, it's usually quiet anyway, but it's much more quiet when she's been here and has left. It's times like these when I begin to realize how alone I really am out here in the midwest -- but that loneliness and listlessness will soon disappear when I go to visit my parents at the end of this week. My excitement for the trip is slowly building, coupled now with the excitement that I have four days in the interim (counting today) that I really don't have a whole lot to do -- I can relax and rest up a little while I prepare to travel. And really, those are my plans. I'm not going anywhere I don't have to go, I'm not doing anything I don't have to do, I'm just going to catch up on sleep, take care of minimal shopping and household stuff (like paying the rest of my bills and the like) and I have to prep the house for the cats to be warm, well-fed, and safe while I'm gone for a few days.
But really, that's not what this post is about. This post is about our "Christmas."
As you folks probably already know, because I'm flying out to my parents' for Christmas, Daisy and I decided to do our own Christmas early. I wrote about this a bit in my last post here, what with our dinner and all, but I didn't get to our gifts (because we hadn't opened them yet). We now have, obviously, and I took pictures of the haul. Behold -- below, you shall see what I received:
Doesn't look like a lot, but trust me, it is. I've number-coded all of it for you so that I can explain it all fully:
1. The memory foam pillow Daisy got me for my birthday. It doesn't have a pillowcase on it yet -- the instructions (because, yes, apparently some pillows need instructions) say to "wash before using" and to let it air out for a few days before use to eliminate the foam-rubber smell from the memory foam itself. I'm not going to wash it, but I have been letting it air out since I opened it on Friday night.
2. The king-size electric blanket Daisy got me for my birthday to go along with the pillow. It's microplush, very soft, very thick, and machine-washable. I was thrilled. This will definitely help on those really, really cold mid-winter nights when the temperature drops into the single digits here in Kansas. Oh, believe me, those nights are coming...and I'll be ready for them.
3. A really nice St. John's Bay hooded sweatshirt/jacket that Daisy's mother got for me. Daisy has one exactly like it, so now the two of us will match when we wear them together. I might wear it home over Christmas, as it's oversized and will allow me to wear more layers beneath it. Daisy's mother is awesome.
4. A blue, Beatles "Abbey Road" t-shirt that Daisy got me. Note: this was one of the few gifts I knew she'd gotten me, because I purchased a "Let It Be" shirt at Target while we were out shopping on Saturday, and she hastily told me she'd gotten me a Beatles shirt, but she thought it was different, so that I wouldn't end up getting the same one she'd gotten (she didn't remember what the design was on the one she'd gotten for me). Very thoughtful. I love it.
5. An Old Navy collared pocket t-shirt, in denim blue, from Daisy. You can barely see it in the photo, as it's layered between the Beatles shirt and the other one, but it's nice. I love Old Navy stuff, but it's near-impossible for me to get anything there since I can never find anything in my size. Might wear this back home for Christmas as well.
6. A button-up plaid casual shirt from Old Navy, from Daisy. Daisy knows how to pick out the stuff I like, it seems -- and I also noticed a pattern: "I like you in blue," she told me. "You look good in blue." Fair enough; I agree. I put this one in the closet until it's warm enough for me to wear it, as it's thin and button-up.
7. The first of the two big, expensive presents, a Hamilton Beach ChefPrep food processor from Daisy's mother. Daisy must've told her at some point that I needed a food processor (as all I have is a blender right now) so her mother got me one via Amazon. This could not have been cheap, and I was stunned -- this was so something I would have never seen coming, and didn't. But, I do need it. I've been unable to do a whole lot with the blender; having a food processor now will make a lot of cooking and food prep much easier than before. Again, let me reiterate -- Daisy's mother is awesome.
8. "Fall In Love" ground coffee, in "Caramel Nut Delight" flavor, from Daisy. I've not yet tried it, but it smells heavenly. I told Daisy a long time ago that one of the most wonderful, easy go-to-gifts for me is coffee of some sort, any flavor but cinnamon or amaretto (both make me ill). It appears she took that to heart. The girl has a fantastic memory.
9. Ah, so it's come down to this, the big-big gift that I knew I was getting, but did not want to reveal it until I knew exactly what it was. That unassuming cardboard box contains a brand new Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop. Daisy got it from Amazon as a Black Friday deal, as long long ago I told her that the only thing I needed was a new laptop because the old one I use at work (and leave in my office there) is eight years old and slowly dying. That laptop was probably more than everything else on the couch combined, but it's the one big thing she wanted to get for me. I opened it up and checked it out, but I haven't turned it on yet or messed with it, so I don't know the specs of it. All I know is that it's a 15.6 inch laptop and that it has Windows 8 on it (which will immediately be wiped off of it in favor of Ubuntu Linux on its first boot). However, it's obviously going to be much more powerful than the eight-year-old secondhand laptop I currently have on my desk at work. I would take it with me to West Virginia to mess with it and play around with it, but it's a huge pain in the ass to get laptops on and off planes these days -- so I probably won't play with it until I get back home. Of course, I can't tell you how grateful I am to get a new computer from my girlfriend -- I certainly didn't expect her to actually get me one when I told her, half-jokingly, that all I really needed was a new laptop. The fact that she did, and basically told me she did (I was going to tell my parents that's the only thing I wanted/needed if they wanted to get me something for Christmas, and she stopped me from doing so) is mind-blowing.
"Wow, Brando, a new laptop!" my mother said this morning in an email. "She must really like you!"
Yes, yes, she does.
I also forgot to include possibly one of the coolest things of all -- a DC Comics coffee mug, with all of the popular characters on it in little checkerboard squares. I forgot to include it in the photo as it is currently being washed prior to use.
I, of course, got Daisy an assortment of stuff large and small, but nothing like a laptop. I enacted, very early in the shopping season, the plan that I called (in my head) Operation: Nerd-Up-The-Girlfriend, or ONUTG for short. Once I put ONUTG into effect, I realized that I wouldn't be able to just do that, as it would be small-scale (and I knew by this point that she'd gotten me the laptop). Here's a list of things -- what I can remember, anyway -- that I got for Daisy:
- The Firefly complete series DVD set
- Superman: The Movie, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, and Superman Returns
- The first three discs of Young Justice
- The Rocketeer
- Blade Runner: The Director's Cut
I figured those would be good to start her off with -- a bunch of movies and shows that she needs to see. I did, however, get her some other, non-nerdy stuff as well:
- A full-length bathrobe
- At least four pairs of gloves and one pair of mittens
- Two scarves; one blue and knitted, and the other brown plaid and fleece
- A kit which will allow her to buff and shine her fingernails and toenails with an electric buffer and tooltips, plus nail health cream (she loves this stuff and paints her nails all the time in eccentric patterns, so I knew she'd like it)
- A pair of really soft fleece pajama pants with multicolored snowflakes on them
- Two beautifully tie-dyed tank tops for her to wear (and work out in) at the gym
- A box of other Christmas gifts that she is not allowed to show her parents until after I give her parents their own gifts, as there is a running theme involved with the entire set of them.
That last part is true; it's nothing scandalous or anything like that, but I don't want her to ruin the surprise for her parents, and I won't be giving them their own gifts until I go up to Omaha for New Year's. Long ago I planned a theme for the three of them -- Laura and her parents -- and I executed said theme well, so there are a few presents she has to keep hidden from them for the next two weeks or so, or otherwise can't tell them about, otherwise her parents will know exactly what said theme is and what I've gotten them. I did, however, send her parents a sweet Christmas card last week telling them that I'd see them soon and would arrive in Omaha bearing gifts once I got back from West Virginia, so that's a plus.
Then again, shortly before we fell asleep last night, I told Daisy that if for some reason my plane crashes going to or from West Virginia, she could keep the computer. Oh, and that her family would be the proud owners of an extra car, as well, since it'll be parked in the lot at the airport -- but they'll need to get the only key to it off of my plane-mangled body.
"Why not just...leave it there?" she asked.
"You know they charge six dollars a day for parking, right? So it would rack up all of those charges, those fees, and they'd be in my name because my plates and registration are on it, and....look, just go get the car, okay?" I said, laughing.
"I'll also make sure your cats are well taken care of," she added. In the dark, I couldn't see her, but I could sense she was rolling her eyes as she said that.
So that was our early Christmas. It was really fun and relaxing; I'm glad I was able to spend some time with her without having to worry about responsibilities, about how many books I had to read or papers I had to grade, or setting an alarm to wake up really early, or anything like that. It was wonderful. I slept until 9 this morning, got up and came upstairs, and she slept until 10 before I went back downstairs and we went back to sleep together for a mid-morning nap before she left. Lazy, peaceful, and loving times like that are all I want out of life, really.
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