With that said, and apologies given, let's continue with the story.
I don't know what time I woke up on the morning of New Year's Eve, or even if it was still morning at all. I just remember that I woke up in a strange room, mostly naked (sorry for the mental image there, folks), and that Daisy was nowhere to be found. I smelled bacon. Daisy's father, before we'd gone to bed, told me that he was going to make bacon for everyone in the morning, so my Holmes-like deduction skills led me to believe that everyone was downstairs and were having happy family time. So, I got up, dressed, went to the bathroom, and then descended the stairs -- where I met Daisy's four-year-old nephew before anyone else. The kid's adorable -- and a little blonde ball of energy, running around and screaming a lot, because that's what four-year-olds do. I silently made a plea to whatever deities that could hear me that I want daughters, not sons, since (hopefully) they'll be less rambunctious. After all, I was four years old once too. But, again, the kid is very sweet and fun to spend time with, even if seeing a child run around as much as he does makes me feel much more like an old man than I actually am. At this time, I also formally met Daisy's mother -- who I'd talked to via Skype before (albeit briefly) and have had conversations with on Facebook, but had never met in person. I got to meet Daisy's sister as well, the mother of the aforementioned child, who is but a year or two younger than me. Remember, Daisy is still the "baby" of the family.
I've mentioned before that Daisy's family, in the very limited interactions I'd had with them up to that point, had always been very receptive, warm, and nice to me -- they'd invited me up numerous times, told me to feel welcome and to make myself at home anytime, and this didn't change -- they are wonderful people. Everyone was happy to meet me, and I felt truly welcomed with open arms. I don't feel this way in a lot of situations, really, especially not in the homes of people I'm mostly unfamiliar with. Hell, I don't feel that at ease in most of the homes of my own extended family members, yet with Daisy's family I didn't have any of my normal social anxiety or nervousness -- just the opposite, actually. I relished in getting to meet them, getting to mingle and talk about my life and all sorts of different stuff. In me, Daisy's father also found someone to share "guy stuff" with, as he is constantly surrounded by women. He had found someone to talk to about computer stuff, someone to show his knives to, and someone who can appreciate subjects and objects such as these on multiple levels. This was comforting to me, as well; it was like talking to my own dad on a certain level. Daisy's father and my dad are both aging hippies who love tie-dye and work on computers for a living, though (as far as I know) my dad doesn't collect knives. But I do. Oh, I do.
Ahem. Anyway, where was I?
Oh, right. So, plans were set in motion to do a big New Year's Eve dinner/finger-foods/party thing with everyone there. Daisy's other sister, who lives a little more than two hours away from her, couldn't make it in, so it was just the six of us -- me, Daisy, her parents, her sister, and the kid. There was a lot of cooking that was happening around me -- Daisy had made a vegan quiche while I was sleeping (which was really, really good), and cheesecakes, breads, dips, and other snacks would be made for the evening. Daisy's father threw steaks on the grill for those of us meat-eaters, and it was eventually decided that we needed some other stuff to make the party platters complete, so Daisy and I headed out to Whole Foods.
I'd never been to a Whole Foods in my life. They don't have them back home in West Virginia, nor do they have them anywhere around me here in Kansas. Wichita was supposed to get one a while back, but if they ever did, I haven't heard about it. Regardless, Whole Foods was a completely enlightening experience for me, as well as one which tells me that if I ever want to shop there on a regular basis, I must have a six-or-seven-figure income. No, that's not a joke. 12-ounce bottles of fresh-squeezed orange juice? $2.79. For twelve ounces. For people with average mouths, that's basically two swallows (and there is another rather creepy mental image for you). For those of you interested, I believe the half-gallon jug was something like $14. For orange juice. Yep. That, in a nutshell, tells you about Whole Foods.
Mind you, the store is gorgeous, and not everything is that expensive, but that's just an example. And, I'll add, the store was packed with people shopping. Clearly, people who live in Omaha -- and Daisy's family lives in a really nice section of the city -- have too much money to spare. For a guy like me who worries on occasion about whether he'll have enough money to eat and feed his cats, and who turns down (or turns off) his furnace in the winter whenever possible because the electric bill is so high, it made my mind spin. I was, shall we say, overstimulated by the sheer amount of opulence in this store. I'm not sure Daisy overheard the cashier (who was one of her friends from high school, or something) when she read the total to the customers in front of us, but it was over $200 -- and they had, maybe, four grocery bags full of things. I didn't dare ask Daisy how much it was for the stuff we picked up. Well, I probably did, but I don't remember how much it was; her parents had given her the credit card and told her to get whatever she needed.
To put that into perspective, I am thirty years old. I lived with my parents as well until I was Daisy's age (she's twenty-four; I moved out a month before my 24th birthday). Never, ever would they have trusted me with one of their credit cards to get groceries or anything else with. Hell, even now, my parents don't even trust me enough to borrow and drive one of their vehicles, even though I'm the safest driver I know -- which I've written about here in the blog before.
But, again, I digress.
I really liked the Whole Foods experience, but it became abundantly clear within the first ten minutes I was in the store that I would never, ever be able to afford to shop there. Unless being a very highly-paid university professor or Poet Laureate is in my career future, I'll never be able to justify shopping anywhere more expensive than Walmart. Hell, even Dillon's (the Kansas version of Kroger/Baker's) stores are a bit pricey for me most of the time. If you think the prices for orange juice were high, you should've seen the prices for fresh produce, coffee, or nuts. Good lord.
Daisy has told me multiple times that she lives a "life of privilege." I was beginning to see this a bit more after visiting Omaha. My house here is nice enough for me and the cats, but compared to her parents' house? My place is a slum. Her parents have one of the nicest houses I've ever been in. Now, mind you, I come from simple folk living simple lives in West Virginia, and I make less than $10k a year as a GTA, so I'm not necessarily used to the, ahem, finer things in life. I usually find it troubling enough just to survive, keep the cats fed, and keep the lights on. I use Dollar Tree dishwashing liquid as laundry detergent, for example. I put on a good show -- I always make sure I look good and smell good, I make sure my clothes and body stay clean, etc., but that's mostly just me trying to take my (and anyone else's) mind off the fact that I am, in reality, dirt poor. That's why things like the Whole Foods experience (and my shopping experience the next day, which I'll get to in a bit) were so jarring for me. I so rarely treat myself to anything because I can't generally afford to; I've mentioned to Daisy before that it is very rare for me to buy any sort of clothing for myself that I don't absolutely need, for example -- most of my underwear, socks, and t-shirts are over ten years old. Most of my pants are over five years old. With the exceptions of a few pairs of shoes, two coats, and some ancillary stuff like gloves and long johns, I never get myself any sort of clothing until something's falling apart and needs replaced.
I'm mentioning this because, to use the word again, I've seen a lot of opulence over the course of my holiday break. This isn't a bad thing, of course; both my own parents and Daisy's parents have made careers for themselves and can afford everything they have. But, I will say that it is, to use another word again, jarring. I've never been a big fan of money in general, not even the concept of it, but I do know that it is one of those necessities in life. And, additionally, seeing not only my own family but Daisy's family as well living quite comfortably makes me wonder if I'll ever have that sort of life, because -- given my chosen field of study and marketable skills -- I don't know if it will ever happen. I'm not saying this out of envy or jealousy, but rather out of a growing sense of hopelessness for my future and my ability to survive and provide not only for myself, but for Daisy and our probable future children, as well. I'm also saying this out of a sheer sense of awe, as over my break I've begun to notice things -- little things -- that never popped up on my radar before, but things that I definitely notice now. Being a poor grad student, I don't know anyone in my circle of friends that has a car less than ten years old, for example. My Monte Carlo is seventeen years old and has almost 230,000 miles on it. Yet, Daisy's family has three cars, one for each of them, all of them relatively new (or at least made in this century). My parents have two vehicles -- granted, my mother's truck is twelve years old, but she never drives it. Is it just because I'm a poor graduate student that I'm noticing these things, or is it that I've made some really poorly-planned life choices over the years? Is it both? It's these things that keep me up in the middle of the night writing blog posts and worrying about whether I'll ever be totally self-sufficient or financially comfortable, unless I fall ass-backwards into money (like via the lottery, or something).
Ahem. Anyway. I've digressed again and steered this story waaaaaay off course.
We returned home to Daisy's house and had a wonderful New Year's Eve dinner; as mentioned before, Daisy's father prepared steaks on the grill for us manly-meat-eating-men (I don't know whether Daisy's mother or her sister had one, but I know the two of us had them), and drank champagne. Good, tasty champagne. I was told to eat and drink as much as I wanted, and I did -- though in moderation. I'm not a big drinker. I could count on one hand how many times I've been drunk in the past three years. I also don't eat a whole lot; my body has, over the years, become accustomed to only eating what (and when) I can afford to, and thus I usually only eat one meal per day -- even when I'm home from school on breaks and the like. Daisy keeps telling me to eat multiple small meals every day, but I just can't do it -- it will make me physically ill to eat that much or that frequently. Believe me, most of the money I spend at Walmart over the course of any normal shopping trip is spent on three things:
1.) Cat food/litter/supplies
2.) Coffee
3.) Cigarettes.
That being said, I have been eating substantially healthier since Daisy came into my life...I just don't eat seven or eight times a day, because not only would I gain a ton of weight back that I've lost over the course of the past six years or so, but I would make myself ill. Therefore, even when I'm told to make myself at home and that anything I want, I can have while I was visiting Daisy's parents, I ate relatively little -- when they cooked, I ate, and aside from that, I only drank some orange juice (not the expensive, Whole Foods kind, but normal juice), had some coffee and a bagel, and whatever snacky-stuff Daisy offered me -- I am now hooked on something called "veggie straws," for example. I do have discipline, tact, and respect -- I've never been the kind of guy to say free food? well, don't mind if I do! and eat the entire contents of someone's refrigerator or pantry. I see that sort of behavior as advantageous and disrespectful.
Anyway, after dinner all of us sat down in the living room to find a movie to watch; Daisy's father has the network hooked up to the television there, so with Netflix and Amazon Prime, they can run basically anything into that television. After a while, we settled on Firefly; this was of great interest to me as I'd just purchased the entire series for Daisy on DVD for Christmas, and I hadn't seen any of the series itself since its original television run ten years ago (also why I purchased the Blu-ray set for myself a few days ago, to get back into the series). Daisy's father started off at the beginning, with the two-hour pilot. About half an hour into it, the ladies of the house were bored with it and went upstairs to bed -- almost all of Daisy's family goes to bed early, with the exception of Daisy herself. Her father and I watched the entire pilot episode, and then, after I had a smoke break, he told me that he was going to bed as well, as he wasn't nearly as nocturnal as I was. Knowing that Daisy certainly hadn't gone to bed herself, I went upstairs to see what she was doing -- only to find her bedroom empty. This meant that, more than likely, she'd fallen asleep with her mother.
Mind you, this was around 10PM on New Year's Eve, and I suddenly found myself the only one fully awake in a house full of people a full hour before the ball dropped in Times Square. Daisy came downstairs again shortly thereafter, as (I presume) her father woke her up and dragged her out of bed away from her mother, so he could go to sleep. We had some snacks and watched the ball drop, watched some of the TV festivities for the New Year, and played Wii for a while before going to bed ourselves, rather unceremoniously (we were both really tired). In the interim, she snapped a beautiful New Year's photo of us:
It is one of my favorite photos of us we've ever taken together, and yes, I did dye both of those shirts myself.
The photo also shows just exactly how large my head really is. Physically, I mean. I have a big skull, apparently.
Yes, she put on lipstick for that photo. Because that's Daisy for you.
I will also add that New Year's Eve in Omaha isn't much different than anywhere else -- as soon as midnight strikes, there is an ungodly hail of illegal fireworks being shot off in all directions, everywhere, as well as (I can only assume) quite a few firearms, lots of screaming and yelling, and mass chaos. Daisy and I stood outside on her back porch for a while to watch/listen to it all before we became too cold to continue to do so (the temperature in Omaha that night was in single digits). I can only imagine the craziness here in Newton, as there's, ahem, less law out here where I live on the southern side of town, and almost all New Year's Eves here (as well as other holidays such as July 4th) are nuts with fireworks and other assorted redneckery.
Anyway, let's continue.
The next morning, the beginning of the new year, Daisy and I had plans -- she was going to show me the mall and some other shopping areas around Omaha, since it was too cold to go to the city's other attractions, and we'd be going back to Kansas on the 2nd. There was little time to do much else, and when it's cold and I'm somewhat sleep-deprived (read: if I'm not sleeping in my own bed), my energy tends to peter out quickly. Add to this that I don't know my way around Omaha, and it was basically up to Daisy where we were going to go. I'd told her that I wanted to see the mall there (if she didn't mind), to see how different/better/worse it was than the one(s) here, but other than that it was up to her what we did; I was her guest, and she knows the town and its locales much better than I do, of course. So, she decided we'd go to the mall first, and then go meet up with a mutual friend at Gordman's (which is, apparently, a department store chain, but I'd never heard of it before) before going home. She wanted to show me Trader Joe's, too, but by the time we were done with everything else, we decided not to go there for several reasons, which I'll get to.
One of the closest malls to Daisy's house (because, yes, there are multiple huge malls in Omaha) was Westroads Mall, which is sort of a goofy name, yes, until one remembers that an absolutely horrific shooting took place there a few years back. So I was going to a mall with, ahem, a history of violence. It was also a massive place; Two floors, four walls of shops (think of the mall laid out as if it were an elongated letter H with stores all along the contours, both inside and outside, of the letter). Some of the larger stores had three or even four floors within them, though I didn't explore them all, and was overall quite impressive. If I thought I was a bit overstimulated going into a Whole Foods for the first time, that paled in comparison to Westroads Mall. We wandered through the mall slowly; I tried to hurry, of course, as Daisy's feet tend to hurt if she walks around too much (I swear, I need to get that woman some better shoes at some point). I could've spent twelve hours in that mall and not looked through everything I wanted to look through.
However, the mall itself was rather frustrating; apparently, everyone who lives in Omaha and shops at a mall for clothing must be thin, because nowhere had clothing in my size. Case in point: we went to Old Navy, a store which I love, because the clothing there is nice and it's also fairly inexpensive. I found a new wool peacoat, a really nice one, to replace the one I have that's falling apart. It was also 60% off of it's original price, so the final price would've been about $30. While that's more than double what I paid for the one I wear now, it was absolutely an amazing deal. Except that they didn't have it in XXL. I tried on the XL; it fit, but would not comfortably button across my stomach. This is in Old Navy, for fuck's sake; I can usually find XXL in anything at Old Navy. In this store? I didn't see one single item of clothing in XXL, not even in the t-shirts. The shoes? Yeah, no size 13, which is what I wear. The pants? Nothing above a 38 waist (I wear a 42). Most of the other stores we went to were similar, as well. Nothing in my size. Only JCPenney had pants in my size, but they were too expensive -- ironic, since if I'm shopping in a mall, I tend to get clothing from Penney's a lot. After about two hours in the mall, Daisy's feet hurt and I was becoming really frustrated. Yes, the mall was nice, but if I couldn't find anything, I felt like I'd not only wasted my time but wasted Daisy's time as well -- we could've been doing something else, something more romantic together.
Finally, at the very end of the mall on the top floor, I found an oddity -- one of the very few remaining brick-and-mortar Suncoast stores. I was awed; I didn't think Suncoast stores even existed anymore, because I hadn't seen one in almost ten years. They used to have stores in the malls my family went to in Pittsburgh when I was younger, but I thought they closed them down years ago. To actually enter a Suncoast store again was like stepping back in time to 1999, before most of my nerdy clothing and movies would be purchased from places like Amazon. I have many fond memories of Suncoast stores; some of my favorite films have been purchased from them, as well as some of my well-worn favorite t-shirts. Needless to say, I was stunned that any of them were still around.
It was in that store which Daisy and I made our only purchases in the mall -- I bought the DVD set of the new Beavis and Butt-head episodes that aired last year for $10, and she bought a copy of one of the Rugrats movies for her nephew. I could've spent much more money in that store if only I could afford to spend it. With that, we left the mall; Daisy's feet were already sore, and we had to get to Gordman's before it closed (it closed at 6PM on New Year's Day for some reason) so that we could meet up with our mutual friend who worked there.
Gordman's was an enthralling experience as well; as mentioned before, I'd never heard of the store. They don't have them where I'm from, and if they have them in Wichita anyplace, I've never been to one. I would describe it, roughly, as akin to a Kohl's store, or a much nicer T.J. Maxx. It's a big department store sort of place, but one that's a little more upscale than most, and it sells a little bit of everything. It was in that store which I had a little more luck finding some clothing; I bought a Nirvana shirt (I used to have two Nirvana shirts, but my ex took them with her long ago), three bags of coffee, and a mug/nuts/chips gift set -- the latter two items being deeply discounted in after-Christmas sales, as they were Christmas-themed things. The coffee was Christmas-branded (but believe me, all coffee is coffee) and the mug was part of a "Man Cave" gift set; on the side of it, it says MAN CAVE: Eat, Drink & Whatever. Grand total: $20 for everything. Daisy bought some coffee and one or two other little things, though I can't remember now what they were. The coffee, I might add, was not for her to drink but rather to leave open, in the car, to make her car smell like coffee. Yep.
Truthfully, I could've spent a lot more money in Gordman's as well, if I'd wanted to. There were many things in the store that I wanted and could reasonably afford, but it came down to what I needed more than anything else, and what I would reasonably use. The coffee was cheap and will provide me with inky black caffeinated goodness for probably two months. I will admit, however, that I bought the Man Cave mug and Nirvana t-shirt solely because I wanted them.
It was at this point, upon leaving Gordman's, that Daisy saw that she'd had four missed calls from her parents and sister. Apparently dinner was ready and we were going to miss it if we didn't come home then (we hadn't left for the mall until around 2:30 PM or so, if not later). Therefore, we didn't go to Trader Joe's on the way back home, nor did we stop at the other Old Navy store that Daisy wanted to take me to in order to see if I could find that coat in my size there -- we just went back to the house and had dinner. Dinner was stuffed pork chops (again, for us meat-eaters), beets, squash, and baked potatoes, and white wine.
I am not a huge fan of beets or squash. I say this here because I was too apprehensive to tell Daisy's parents this fact. While I will eat squash in certain dishes and in certain ways, I usually eat it smothered in butter and cheese, or breaded and fried. Beets, on the other hand, I've never eaten unless they came from a can, and even like that it's probably been fifteen years since I've had any. Luckily, the pork chops were huge and the potatoes were even larger, so I was able to fill up on those and avoid the issue...until Daisy brought it up at the table that I hadn't gotten any beets or squash.
Dammit, woman! You blew my cover!
I did eventually eat a beet at the table with Daisy, but I did not get any for myself. When she cornered me in the kitchen later and asked why I hadn't gotten any, I told her that it was because I wasn't a fan, and begged her not to tell her parents this before I went home, so that they wouldn't feel bad about it -- after all, they'd cooked a wonderful dinner, and the potato/stuffed pork chops were, believe me, more than enough to fill me up. In classic Daisy fashion, she waited until I was out of the room before telling her parents this fact less than five minutes later, and I felt like a complete asshole. It was fine, of course, and they understood/didn't mind, but I just wanted to let the subject drop.
As an aside, I'm really not a picky eater and don't want to be pigeonholed as one; however, when one is in a serious relationship with a hardcore vegan, one will find that vegans eat lots of weird fruits and vegetables. I've not yet come across a fruit I didn't like, but certain vegetables -- and only certain vegetables -- rub me the wrong way. Daisy, for example, makes "bacon" out of eggplant, which is on my (short) list of foods I can't stand. Other items on that list include asparagus, pickles, mushrooms, olives, baked beans, etc. Yes, she loves all of those things too, and calls me a picky eater. Hm.
I'll let the sheer irony of that last sentence sink in for a moment before I continue. If you don't get the irony, I'll spell it out for you (for my own mother brought it to light when we were discussing how I cook when Daisy is in town) -- Daisy, a vegan, is calling me a picky eater. Yep. There's your irony for you.
Despite this, I love that woman with all my heart, and wouldn't change a thing about her.
Ahem. Anyway.
Throughout all of the day's events, I also found out that Daisy had a yeast infection (don't worry, she said it was okay to write about all of this). That night, her mother gave her a one-dose pill that would cure it "in 24 hours" or something like that. She took the pill and didn't think much else of it, and it made it go away.
Until the side effects kicked in.
The next morning, we were planning to get up early to drive back to Kansas. The plan was to leave sometime around noon so that we wouldn't have to drive in the dark, get back here, and then for her to stay the night, sleep in as long as she needed to, and to get some breakfast before heading back up to Omaha. I would again fill her gas tank before she left town so that she didn't have to worry about that, either.
All of this happened, of course, but it didn't happen on the timeframe we expected it to -- and, for once, this wasn't able to be blamed on Daisy Standard Time.
When we awoke the next morning, Daisy was sick and in pain. Like, not your normal, casual stomach sickness and pain, but the kind where she was very upset, writhing around, crying pain.
Daisy doesn't do this. Daisy actually has a very high tolerance for pain and discomfort -- it takes a lot to get her feeling bad enough to cry and moan about it. Even when she's really sick, and she's been sick a few times since we've been together, she's only moderately whiny about it. This time was apparently much worse -- and she knew exactly what had caused it. The side effects of the yeast infection pill were listed as cramps and nausea, and she had both in spades. She was pale (yes, more than usual) and in cold sweats, in bed, crying because she felt so badly. She called her doctor, who said to eat a light diet of things like bananas and rice until the feeling passed -- which, of course, didn't help her much in the then and now. Her mother asked me if the cats would be okay an extra day if we couldn't make it back home that day, and I responded that yes, they should be fine; I was fairly certain they'd have enough food/water/litter to last them an extra day, if necessary, though at the time I was more concerned with Daisy's health and well-being. My cats had just survived a full week on their own during my trip to West Virginia, and had been just fine. If I'd been forced to stay in Omaha an extra day because Daisy was sick, they would've been just fine then as well.
Daisy stayed in bed and her mother looked after her, making sure she was okay. I stood on the back porch and smoked, worried about my beloved, but also knowing better than to get between her and her mother when she was feeling bad. Daisy is close to her mother, which is a good thing. Her mother later confirmed to me my thoughts -- it takes a lot for Daisy to show pain and/or cry from it, and that made her worried as well.
Daisy came downstairs a bit later, feeling somewhat better. The pain and nausea was coming in waves, but between those waves she was mostly okay. Her father got her some sort of nausea medicine in pill form -- I can only assume it was something akin to Dramamine or the like -- and she took some of them. We laid on the couch together, and as her father had gotten the network running through the TV again, we watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. You know, the old Disney movie. Her mother and sister had gone out shopping, and her father was working upstairs, so it was just the two of us downstairs on the couch. I sat with her to take care of her and did my best to help her feel better -- rubbing her feet, cuddling with her, etc. I just wanted her to be okay.
After a while, she said she felt better. It was still coming in waves, but each wave was less intense than the last, and she was beginning to feel mostly normal again. By this time, it was about 3:30 PM, and she felt good enough to get up and leave the house -- so, very slowly and gingerly, we got our stuff together and I told her father goodbye, making sure she got some extra nausea pills for the road, and we left.
I don't know if I've mentioned before that Daisy, in order to not become nauseated when she drives, has to snack and munch on something. At least when driving long distances, anyway. I offered to take over for her once we got out of Omaha if she needed me to, but not until we got on the straight-and-narrow path back to Kansas, since I didn't know how to navigate around the city and didn't know where I was going until we got out of the city itself. Again, Daisy's car is fun and easy to drive, but I wasn't going to risk driving in afternoon Omaha traffic when I have no clue how to get out of that mess of a metropolitan area. She says that it's easy to figure out where you're going once you get used to it -- yeah, sure it is, if you've lived there for years. To me, it's a mess of snaking highways and by-ways that is one of the most confusing sets of interstates I've ever seen. And, mind you, I drive into a massive city myself (Wichita) four days a week. It didn't matter, however; the further we got out of the city, the better she felt. We had things to munch on in the car, and I think putting something on her stomach helped her feel better. By the time we got to York, it was getting dark, and we stopped (once more) at Walmart, because she wanted Subway. It's sort of a tradition for her to get a footlong veggie sub at Subway whenever she makes a trip to or from Kansas. This time around she was lucky; they made the sub, but were having problems with the cash register -- it wouldn't turn on or work. The cashier told her just to take the sub for free.
If I would've known that was going to happen, I would've gotten the biggest double-meat, double-cheese steak sub they made. Alas. Daisy told me once we were back in the car that this is the second time that's happened to her at that particular Subway. And, for the record, the veggie sub she gets is vegan -- she doesn't put any mayo or cheese on it, only mustard. And she loads it down with all of the veggies they have, including pickles and two different kinds of peppers. Good for her, I say; she's found a fast food place where she can actually eat something.
By the time we got back to my house, she was feeling just fine -- and she'd already eaten, so I didn't have to cook anything for us. She was, however, exhausted. Running around for the past several days had worn her down just as much as it wore me down, and she was super-tired. It was also about 10:30 at night when we rolled in here, the cats were incredibly happy to see us, and it was really cold (as I'd yet again turned down the furnace so that it wouldn't run all the time while I was gone).
"Well, I'm going to go to bed and read Twilight," she told me.
"I'll be in my room on the computer, drinking copious amounts of coffee and smoking," I told her.
"I know," she replied. "I love you. Wake me up when you come to bed."
"It probably won't be for about..." I looked at my watch. "Six hours or so."
"At four in the morning?"
"Probably."
"Okay. Still wake me up so we can cuddle and go back to sleep."
"Deal."
We mesh so well.
And with that, she went to bed. I joined her myself around 3AM or so, and did as she asked. We slept until around 11, and then I cooked her breakfast before she left around 2PM to go back home. She got home that evening just fine as well.
And so ends my very, very long New Year's recap post. Now, on January 9th, I can actually start writing about things that are in the present once again. Took long enough, didn't it?
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