Okay, so I know it's Wednesday.  I know it is, but really ...this is the sort of shit that only happens on Mondays.

I woke up late this morning to discover I had somehow gotten a charlie horse in my left calf muscle.  Awesome.  I'm late, and hobbling around my apartment trying to get myself together.  Then I discover I've officially lost too much weight to wear my favorite spring skirt, because it literally just fell off my hips.  I got out to wait for the bus to find it's both cold and raining.  My umbrella is at work.  The bus finally comes and it did one of those fabulous "Sex and the City" splashes all over me.  On the bus I realize I left my lunch on the kitchen counter, which means my apartment will smell like spoilt chili when I get home.  I get to work to find an e-mail informing me that my date to my next wedding has bailed.  I mailed the RSVP yesterday.

Does someone have a blanket I can crawl under?

Yay vacation!  I'm supposed to be back Monday...if I can force myself to leave Europe.

The featured "How To" on my iGoogle page today was "How to Land an Airplane in an Emergency."

By this time tomorrow I'll be at an airport waiting to take off for London...

My next-door neighbour is moving.  This probably shouldn't be either as devastating or as surprising as it is.  We certainly aren't BFF's and she's lived in her tiny studio for three years now.  But she has been an awesome next-door neighbour.  She's quiet, friendly, and has a great sense of style.  I can't say I blame her either.  I fully understand the desire for a seperate bedroom and kitchen counter space.   But she was the only other sane person in my hallway!  Seriously, out of the eight or so apartments on my floor, five are currently occupied by high-functioning mental patients.  My building partners with the city to provide affordable housing for this group of people, which is great.  Except when they repeatedly burn popcorn at 2:00am, or when they start screaming at themselves for hours as soon as the sun goes down.  Tia is...normal.  We would often commiserate over a bottle of wine. 

Her apartment will be available for renting to new tennants on 1 May.  I dread my potential neighbour and balcony-mate.

There's a very unique movie theatre in the Big City metro area called the A.F.I. Silver.  I love this theatre.  Not only are they the premiere theatre to see most any art film that comes out, although that's a big plus.  It's also a charming building inside and out, with remnants and "artifacts" from classic hollywood displayed proudly in the lobby.  You can buy a beer, wine, or even champagne here to enjoy during your movie.  I admit that's not a great selling point, but it certainly adds to the charm.  Finally, I love this theatre because along with the modern art films they also do screenings of the great classics from Hollywood's golden era.  Currently they are screening "Casablanca" as part of their Valentine's Series.  While I normally avoid all things V-Day, I couldn't resist this.  The chance to see Bogart take Ingrid Bergman by the chin and give her that final, confident "Here's looking at you, Kid" on the big screen was far too tantalizing to pass up.  So I called up Kermit and Sarge (recently back from their honeymoon) and we all decided it seemed like the perfect way to spend a Saturday night.   We were right.

If you ever get the chance to see this movie on the silver screen, the way it was meant to be seen...for the love of god go!  I'm not one to cry in movies.  It's happened so rarely I can count the occurances on one hand.  Casablanca always gets me a little misty-eyed.  Sitting in that theatre on Saturday night, both Kermit and I were weeping like little girls.  Poor Sarge was cringing in his seat trying hard to not be associated with the two girlie-girls crying next to him.  We had a great time though, and agreed that the upcoming screenings of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "It Happened One Night" were also worth looking into.

Also, they're doing a "Paul Newman Remembered" series in March.  Anyone up for "Cool Hand Luke" or "Cat on a hot tin Roof?"

My taxes are done.  Finished.  Finito.  I could not be more relieved.  I always try to get my taxes done early.  The thought of standing in line at the post office in hopes of getting that postmark date of April 15, or constantly refreshing a computer screen in vain because the TurboTax website is overloaded gives me hives.  I normally try to have my taxes done by mid-March at the latest.  With my trip to London quickly coming up, I decided it was better to get them done as early as possible this year.  After all, it would be nice to have a heafty tax return in my pocket when I leave to vacation in the most expensive city in the world.  By Tuesday of last week I had received all but one of my W-2's, and was chomping at the bit for my last one.  This last one, of course, was my W-2 from The Restaurant.

I knew better than to expect this one to come in the mail.  Last year the miserable, unethical, little oompa-loompa handed out employee W-2's, and then laughed as he held all the ones belonging to people who no longer worked there.  "If they want these, they'll have to come and get them!" He declared that proudly, and held to it.  He held last year's tax forms through at least June, when I finally got sick of the place and quit.  There was only one way I was going to get this W-2.  I had to go over there and get it.  ::: Shudder :::  Considering the fact that I still get a gross, nauseated feeling in my stomach when I pass that place walking down the street, I was not looking forward to this.  Fortunately my stylist is just a few blocks away, and my Wednesday appointment gave me a great excuse to not have to spend any more than twenty seconds in that place.  I called the restaurant at 4:45, and when The Owner refused to come to the phone, I told the (poor) manager on duty that I would be there in exactly fifteen minutes, and I expected my W-2 to be at the hostess stand upon my arrival.  He asked if I was having a bad day, and I retorted quickly that no, I wasn't.  I just think it's dispicible that I had to track down something The Owner was legally obligated to send to me, and hung up.

As I walked up to The Restaurant, the nausea hit me full force, but I knew I had no choice so I faced it head-on and walked in.  Sure enough, that smarmy little oompa-loompa was waiting for me with his greasy "Hi, how are you?  We miss you around here."  If my expression changed at all, it went from blank to "Don't mess with me. Seriously."  He gave me my W-2, with some slight admonishment for coming in during the "dinner rush."  "Oh, you're right.  How rude of me to interrupt...your piano player."  Okay, it may have been a snarky retort, but the place was seriously empty; there wasn't a soul in the place except the employees.  I grabbed my W-2, spun on my heel and left.  When I got home 2 hours later, I settled in to do my taxes.  I went through all the W-2s, DC government, and other paperwork, and was appalled when I opened my W-2 from The Restaurant.

That sad little man lied on my W-2.  He claimed he paid me almost double what I actually earned (according to my last paycheck), reported I made three times as much in tips as I actually did, and claimed that no federal taxes were taken out of my paychecks.  That little bitch is trying to cheat me out of about $200.00 in federal tax returns in hopes that I'll just file the way it is.  If I do that, whatever I'm owed from the IRS regarding that W-2 will go back to the restaurant.  I'm willing to bet he's trying to cheat all of his former employees out of money just so he has a hope of keeping the restaurant alive and open for another month.  I filed based on my last paystub, as advised to do by my accountant, and then reported him to the IRS. 

With any luck the IRS will shut that place down before the end of the month.

Suki and her boyfriend has been invited to one of the (many) inaugural balls.  This is exciting for them.  Apparently Cap'n never went to his senior prom - something about him being some sort of genius and already in his sophomore year of college during his senior year of HS.  For Suki it's the same as it is for most any other girl: the chance to get all dolled up and put on a fancy dress is fun.  Also, it means you get to go shopping for a new dress.  This was around the time when I needed to buy a dress for the now infamous wedding, and neither Suki nor I have bought a formal since our senior proms (which we did go to). Needless to say we preferred to go shopping over revisiting  the (now terrible) prom fashions of our past.  So we picked a free Saturday and headed out to Tyson's Corner.  Tyson's is by far the largest mall in our area, and a rather high-end one at that.  If you want designer clothes you go to Tyson's, so we were expecting some fabulous fashions.  We figured this year would probably be better than most considering the fact that the majority of people in this area are on the market for some sort of breathtaking garment to wear to one of these balls.  We were absolutely shocked at what we found.

Apparently designers have decided that this winter everything will come down to the Marys.  Every dress we found was designed to make a woman look like the Mother Superior or the Whore of Babylon.  The Mother Superior dresses weren't all that interesting.  After mocking one or two of them all the jokes began sounding the same, so we moved on.  The Whore of Babylon dresses, however, were quite a spectacle.  Designers gave us the parade of the ages.  There were slutty swingers, harlot hipsters, and about a thousand other varieties of alliterated ways to dress a woman up as a lady of the night.  Neither one of us were willing to be seen on camera with the immoral-mod dress, but here some of the real gems of the day.
( Also, the '80's are apparently back. )

One of my new year resolutions was to continue my journey on being a healthier person.  In saying that, I don't just mean physically.  While that is the majority of my goal with that, I also meant socially.  My social life in 2008 consisted mostly of working situations, either through theatre or the restaurant.  While I came out with some awesome friends, I also realize that I didn't really go out and try new things or meet new people.  I took a big step towards that this past Friday night.  I auditioned to be lead vocals in a band.  I have to say, I had an awesome time.  In fact, the time was awesome enough that if this band doesn't want me I might continue to look for a band to join, but that's beside the point.  The point is that I put myself into a new situation with new people, and really enjoyed doing it.  My audition was at a gig they were playing out in VA at a bar, and they let me sing an entire set of songs with them.  They had sent me the music a couple days before to learn, and told me based on how the first song went I could be asked to sing anywhere from just the one to all four songs.  I sang all four, and it was awesome.  I had forgotten how much fun it can be to be in a a band.  I didn't even bring Suki or Apple with me.  I actually went by myself and spent an evening out in a place I'd never been with people I've never met.  It was healthy for me.  It was very good to get out and do something new and remind myself that it's possible to have fun without being at work.  It was very refreshing.

Of course, what's the point of auditioning for a rock band if you don't look the part.
( Clicky for glam-rock amber. )

I had this brilliant post.  It was almost completely typed up and ready to be posted.  It was about the twelfth day of Christmas, the Epiphany, and an actual epiphany I've had from my own experiences.  Then my computer decided to restart on it's own.  When I came back my brilliant, beautifully thought-out post was gone.  Vanished into the ether.  Perhaps I'll be able to summon it  back down, but I won't be able to post it on the portal for Holidailies.  So instead of spending the next two hours trying to figure that out, I'll simply bid my fellow holidailiests adieu for another year.  I had a great time once again reading through the various blogs, and found some I know I will continue to read through the next year.  So until next year...so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, and goodnight.

I get the feeling my cats are feeling a little bit unloved these days.  Since the moment I got home from work tonight they have been sitting either right next to me or on top of me, turning me into a piece of furniture at any available chance.  When I haven't been letting them do that, they've been fighting with each other when one of them gets too close to me.  Sage is particularly good at this game.  See, normally she is stand-offish from the other two.  She doesn't like them to come near her.  Tonight she's been cunning.  She's luring the other two in with signs of affection...cleaning the tops of their head or being slightly playful.  Then, when the get too close...BAM!  She punches them in the face.  She actually balls up her little paw and gives them a rather accurate right hook.  Poor Gus has been pouting in a corner for the last twenty minutes.

This was the first weekend at The Lake in 2009, and overall it was awesome.  We sat in front of the fire, told family stories, and drank ourselves silly.  Friday night pretty much ended with Suki, Cap'n, and myself collapsing in laughter after a game of quarters went terribly wrong.  Saturday we were joined by Shade, BritSkip, and Periwinkle.  After fighting off our hangovers (with Bloody Mary's), we took a walk around the lake and fished off the boathouse.  It was a very quiet day, which is exactly what the doctor called for since it was quickly followed with another night of extreme debauchery.  Charades, more quarters, a 4 hour political debate, and a LOT of vodka and rum.  I have to say, this was overall a great way to start off 2009.

I have a confession to make.  I hate weddings.  I understand that I am a girl, and therefore required by laws of nature to get all teary-eyed and giggly at the mere mention of the word "wedding."  Honestly, I hate them.  I guess I'm wired incorrectly or something, but the thought of going to a wedding, especially as a jobless guest, sort of makes my skin crawl.  The pressure of finding a dress to wear, a date to go with, and deciding months in advance if I would rather have chicken or salmon on a specific day makes my stomach do little flip-flops.  That being said, I always willingly go to weddings.  I understand the importance of being there to support my friends on one of the most important days of their lives.  I enjoy watching friends get married, but that is vastly different from going to a wedding.

Kermit and Sarge were married this past Sunday.  The ceremony was nice, and the reception hall was beautifully decorated.  Thier taste as a couple as well as their individual tastes came out fairly clearly.  As far as weddings go, it was very well done.  In fact, I'm sure that if you weren't me, you had a wonderful time attending this wedding.  I, however, was trapped in wedding hell.

I arrived in New Jersey early, which was nice.  I needed to find a place to get lunch, and a place to buy proper undergarments for my dress.  Having been coaxed into spending Saturday night in Smalltown with the family, I realized while driving to Jersey that I had left all dress-appropriate garments in Big City.  I mentally thanked my mother for the GPS system she had gotten me for Christmas, and found the church.  I confirmed with the organist that I was in the right place, but was told the wedding was an hour earlier than I had thought.  That's fine, it gave me an hour and twenty minutes to hunt down the appropriate items and get back to the church.  My GPS pointed me to a Marshall's less than two miles away, and I was happy.  Apparently two miles can be a long time in Jersey.  I forgot about their weird no-left-turn thing, and passed my turn off.  It took me fifteen minutes to work my way around again, but I finally arrived.  I fought my way through the weekend-after-christmas crowd, and eventually found what I needed.  The store clerks were nice enough to allow me to change for the wedding in their dressing rooms after I had made my purchase, and I was on my way back to the church.  I made the same left-turn mistake, and took another detour...twice. 

I was pulling into the church parking lot five minutes after the time the organist had dictated to me, and was upset at the thought of being late.  Except that I wasn't late.  The organist had to be there an hour before the ceremony to rehearse with the vocalist, so instead of being late I was now an annoying fifty-five minutes early.  Ugh.  After much debate about whose side I should be seated on, one of the groomsmen finally seated me on the bride's side...in the second pew.  I sat down feeling very self-conscious about both my early arrival and my (unappreciated by the Catholic church) exposed shoulders, curtesy of my halter dress.  I love this dress, and it fit me so well it looks like it was made for me, but as you can see from the picture, the sheer material at the bosom and the exposed shoulders aren't really something that's Catholic-church appropriate. 


I mentally cursed myself for not thinking to buy a wrap at Marshall's and waited for someone to be seated next to me.  Except...no one was seated next to me.  As the church began to fill up with invited guests, I became more and more aware of the fact that I was sitting in a rather prominent pew...completely by myself.  The family seated behind me noticed too.  For forty-five minutes I listend to them hypothesize about why I was seated alone.  They whispered everything from my date hadn't arrived yet to a family member who couldn't fit in the first pew.  Then, just as the ceremony started, I heard the wife whisper to the husband, "Do you think one of the groomsmen hired her to be his date?"  As the ceremony went on, I realized they were having a full Catholic wedding, which meant communion.  I began to panic slightly, and my palms got a bit clammy.  I haven't willingly taken communion in almost two years.  However, the bride and her family are Irish Catholic and the groom and his family are Italian Catholic.  Literally everyone except me was planning on taking communion.  As we did the Catholic Mass Dance (how low can you go in quick sucsession?) I determined I would not be conspicuously seated alone and not take communion, so I braced myself and approached the priest.  He gave my dress a glance, and handed me my wafer with a disapproving glance.  As I sat back down, I heard the husband behind me.  "Well, if she is a whore, at least she knows how to behave in church."  Excuse me?!  I felt myself turn about a hundred shades of red and cried at a wedding for the first time in my life.  At least I knew I could pass them off as happy tears for the newlyweds, and determined that once I got to the reception everything would be fine.

Until I got to the reception.  I was supposed to be seated at a table of  eight with some college friends I shared with the happy couple.  One of those seats was for my date who bailed the day before the wedding, so I knew that seat would be empty.  What I didn't realize was that two of the other couples at my table had RSVP'd, but did not actually show up at the wedding.  Then I was told the third couple at my table came to the ceremony, but had to leave immidieately afterwards, so they would not be joining me.  My table of eight became a table of one.  It wasn't even the table in the back corner halfway into the caterer's kitchen.  It was the table next to the cake.  Anyone who came over to look at their (beautiful) cake also make sure to look at the lonely girl at the table.  So I sat quietly and ate my dinner.  It was about then that the bride and groom noticed.  They came over, and very apologetically told me how sorry they were and how bad they felt.  They offered me a seat at the head table with them, and my mind whirled.  Which would be worse?  Sitting by myself, or being moved out of pity to the head table?  I decided they were both pretty much even and jumped at my chance to leave early.  I (sincerely) thanked them both, but made my excuse of having to drive all the way back to Big City that night.  I told them the service was lovely and the hall looked wonderful, hugged them, and left.

I ran into the evil couple from behind me as I exited the hall, so I decided to give them a parting shot.

"I wanted to let you know I heard you in the church.  My rates are $500.00/hour.  For an extra $100.00 the wife can watch."

I've been seeing commercials all day about creating the "new you."  I understand the charm of New Year's is the opportunity to improve your life, your self, and your situations.  But why all the stress on a completely new you?  I have to say, I've been this me for twenty-something years now, and for the most part, I quite like being me.  I don't see a need to tear myself down and then put myself back together again in an entirely new design.  Are there things about me I would like to improve?  Yes.  Are there negative things I would like to change?  Yes.  Do I see the need to make everything shiny, glittery, and brand-spanking-new?  No.  I understand I have knicks, bumps, and bruises.  I know there are newer models and improved XP editions of me running around out there.  Overall though, I'm generally satisfied with the simple version 2.0 that is me.  So no Macys, I don't want to go and spend hundreds of dollars on new packaging.  And no Oil of Olay, I don't want you to redesign my features in a fashion similar to Barbie's (total restructuring) facial makeover.  I do, however, have some minor upgrades I'd like to see happen in the year 2009.

1.  I will be unplugged more often.  One of the things I've realized about myself in the past year is that I seem to be constantly connected to something.  Whether it's an iPod (Damn you Steve Jobs!), my blackberry, my computer, or my tivo there is always something on and connected.  Occasionally it's just for background noise/motion, but more often than not these electronic devices have at least half (if not all) of my attention.  So I say that 2009 is the year ambereternal goes unplugged.

2.   I will spend more time outdoors.  The weekends I spent at the lake over the summer or shopping for groceries at the local farmer's market were some of the best times I had last year.  While I'm sure the company of good friends had a lot to do with it, I'm also certain the natural light and fresh air played a part.  I remember loving hiking, camping, and skiing as a kid.  While I don't hope to become the next great outdoorsman (or woman...) I do hope to spend more time outside.  I would like to see a weekend ski trip or two through the rest of the winter, and I would love for a short hike to replace my Saturday t.v. time every once in a while.

3.  I will cut down my Tivo list.  Currently my tivo works overtime.  It records twenty different television shows each week.  If I can cut that down by half in the next year, I'll save myself from ten hours of t.v. per week.  Imagine what you would do with that extra time...

4.  I will continue my journey to becoming a healthier person.  I refuse to put into writing a number of pounds I would like to lose.  I feel like that might be setting myself up for failure.  I will say that I want to continue to make healthier eating choices, keep my physical activity level up, and generally just continue to be a healthier person.

5.  I will quit smoking.  I know this is going to be hard.  I know it will take a lot of will power.  I also know I need to do it.

6.  I will make better financial choices.  I am going to develop a budget for 2009 and I am hell-bent on sticking with it.  Come unemployment or promotions, hell or high water, etc. I will come out of 2009 financially better than how I spent the majority of 2008.

7.  I will read more books.  My goal is to have at least half of the time I'm gaining from cutting my tivo-time to be spent on reading books.  I have three in my bookshelf I haven't read yet, so that can get me started.  I am updating my library card on Monday.  This will be a very good thing for me.

8.  I will continue to wake up early enough to have a well-paced morning.  Late for work be damned!  I have learned that no matter how much I like my job, I cannot function without my morning cup of coffee.  I can only truly have this if I wake up on time in the mornings.

9.  I will take public transportation to work.  I'm hoping this one won't be hard.  I haven't had a car in the city in almost two years, and in that time I have learned to be reliant on the public transportation.  I've also discovered it's probably far easier to use that than to drive every day anyways.  But I fear I may become lazy about it.  By holding myself responsible for not driving every day, I'm hoping to curb the potential lazy and thus make sure my carbon footprint stays small.

10.  I will not attend a wedding without a date.  This one sounds strange.  This one probably is strange.  This one will be explained at a later date.

There you go.  Those are my ten resolutions for 2009.  I will check in on them from time to time and write about my progress.  Hopefully by this time next year these aspects of my life will have seen some vast improvements.  Also, I expect that eventually I'll knock number ten off the list and replace it with a commitment to regularly donate to a charity. 

I read a quote tonight that I find particularly apt tonight. "Optimists stay awake on New Year's Eve to ring in the new year.  Pessimists stay awake to make sure the old one leaves."  I can't remember who said it, but that doesn't diminish the applicability of this quote for me this year.

I'm ringing in the new year with Moop.  We're basically just hanging out and watching tv shows from the BBC that I cant get at home.  (Yay Top Gear!)  It's very quiet, and understated, and not my normal celebration at all.  I usually love New Year's Eve.  I love the prospect of the fresh start and being able to start new things, or try again at things that didn't work out so well in the past year.  This year, I'm not so much excited to have the new start in 2009 as I am to get rid of all the shit from 2008.

The bottom line is that over all 2008 has been a truly crappy year.  Not just bad, or slightly less good than bad.  It has been actually shitty.  While I had the high points of starting a new job, two good theatrical experiences, and supporting two friends at their weddings, the bad was far more pronounced.  I lost two friends, the patriarch of my dad's family, and helped a friend through the loss of both of her grandparents.  I found out my grandmother is sick, and probably not going to get better.  I spent six months on unemployment.  I experienced what is the most embarrassing experience of my life (to date),  and I suffered a heartbreak.  Even with the recent joy of the holidays, they don't even come close to balancing out.

So this year, I'm taking the pessimistic approach to New Year's Eve.  I'm keeping my guard up until midnight, just to make sure that 2008 actually goes away.  I'll have hope for 2009 tomorrow.  Tonight I see a glimmering light at the end of the tunnel, and I need to make sure it's not a train.

And with all of that, I leave you with three thoughts for your New Year's celebrations.
1. May 2009 treat you better than your forthcoming hangovers.
2. May your troubles last only as long as your resolutions.
3. And remember...Bailey's says to drink responsibly.

Happy New Year's Eve everyone!

So a friend of mine and I had dinner tonight, and he gave my my christmas presents.  I have to say this is the most awesome list of Christmas presents from anyone I have ever gotten.  He gave me a fantastic calendar of Wegman's photographs of dogs.  He got me an awesome shirt that has the lyrics to "It's Friday I'm in Love" in caution signs. Then it was the icanhascheezburger book.  Finally, he got me a crazy cat lady action figure.

My life is awesome.

I'm not one for writing prompts.  I like to think of myself as creative, witty, and occasionally even funny.  I know my life is dramatic; sometimes it even as an element of interesting.  Today, however, I found myself with very little to write about.  I could write about my experience at Kermit and Sarge's wedding last night but let's face it: no one likes weddings.  I didn't have a terribly interesting day today either so I had no inspiration there.  I turned to the Holidailies writing prompt, hoping to find something inspiring there.  The prompt for today was "Baby, it's cold outside."

This is my second year participating in Holidailies, and I've found my experience this year to be very similar to last year's.  The beginning of Holidailies flowed.  I got so caught up in the preparation and anticipation of Christmas that I find myself remembering things long-forgotten, inspired by the lights and decorations of the season, and excited to write about it.  Occasionally I found myself staring at my screen waiting for a topic to come to mind, but for the most part things were easy.  The week of Christmas I found my daily posts to be relaxing.  They were easy because they were my chance to unwind from the craziness of immediate preparation and the excitement of everything.  Then the week after Christmas hit.  Things to post about became more difficult.  Although I've never run a marathon, I can imagine this week of posting is similar to the third quarter of a race.  You're far enough away from your starting point that you can't really remember why you started, but you're far enough from the finish line that you can't really see that either.  You know you have to keep running, but you're having a hard time figuring out why.

Today's prompt can be interpreted in two ways.  On one hand, the panel could be prompting people to write about the super-cute Doris Day duet that was later featured in the movie "Elf."  On the other hand, the panel could be feeling the same slump I am and simply couldn't think of any better conversation topic than the weather.  I'd like to think it's the latter.  I like to imagine the panel was sitting around trying to decide what today's prompt should be, and simply had writer's block.  I like to imagine they got so frustrated with their writer's block they simply decided to ask us all to write about the weather.  I prefer to think this because it gives me the hope that I am not the only one suffering topic-inspiration writer's block.

"Smalltown was a great place to grow up, but I couldn't live here now." 
"It's a nice place to visit, but I could never live back here."

If I've said those two statements once, I've said them a thousand times.  Ever since moving to Big City I have had a difficult time tolerating life in Smalltown.  You see, Smalltown tries to be like Big City except that it lacks the ability.  You can't walk anywhere, nothing is easily accessible or convenient, there is no public transportation system to start of.  Smalltown is so small there is only one Starbucks, and that just came in last year.  This might be the only non-rural-town in America to have only one Starbucks.  It takes twenty minutes to get to anywhere.  Everyone knows everyone, and everyone is in your business.  In the past all of these things have added up to a very frustrating visit...  In the past, most of my visits have lasted for a maximum of 48 hours.

This visit has been different.  I arrived in Smalltown on Tuesday evening, and now it's Sunday.  I haven't stayed this long in Smalltown since I left for college eight years ago, and when I made the plans I assumed it would be difficult.  I knew the first couple days would be easy.  Everyone would be swept up in Christmas preparations and Christmas day itself.  It was the rest of the visit that made me somewhat timid.  In the past I've scurried out of town and back to Big City on Christmas Day night, or at the very latest the following morning.  I had been itching to get back to my city with its busyness and almost-constant movement.   As it turns out, it was rather easy to stay.  Bug was so happy to have me home she almost never let me out of her sight.  I had a moment of Smalltown-cringe when I discovered I couldn't buy tickets to the matinee we wanted to see online.  Had I been in Big City, fandango would not have failed me.  Here in Smalltown, fandango simply laughed at me.  That irritation dissipated when Bug, the parents, and I had settled into our movie seats and were (mostly) enjoying The Tale of Desperaux.  That evening, yesterday, and even this morning have been easy as well.  It's quiet here, and calm in a way I don't have in Big City.  For the first time since leaving I can picture how my life would be if I were to move back, and for the first time that picture doesn't make me shudder from head to toe. 

There is a tiny little flip-flop in my stomach though.  So ultimately I'm glad to be going home.  My place right now is in Big City, and I know that.  But as the saying goes, it's nice to know I can always come home.

Today was a day of paradox, in which  all things three things were found to be new once again: a car, a friend, and a movie. 

The Car:
I woke up today more excited than I (or possibly even Bug) was on Christmas morning.  I jumped out of bed, made the coffee, and cooked everyone breakfast in record time.  I took the quickest shower in the history of women taking showers.  While I did dry my hair, I completely skipped the primping process and threw on the first clothes I pulled out of my suitcase.  Believe me, this last part is a big deal.  So what was the cause of all this excitement?  Today was the day I got my car Zippy back.  I have been saving money, preparing for, and anticipating this day for months.  Dad and I left for the mechanic at about 10:30am.  By 11:00am I was turning the key.  I heard the familiar purr of the engine, accompanied by the wind going through her slightly gimpy driver's side window.  I felt the low rumbles as gears shifted.  A sudden feeling of completion washed over me.  I haven't driven my Zippy in over eighteen months, and I'm sure she thought I had abandoned her in some cold mechanic's lot.  My joyous reunion with my Zippy had me driving down the interstates surrounding Smalltown for about two hours.  It was wonderful.

The Friends:
When I got home from my joyride, I was told that we would be going to dinner with some friends.  The friends, I was told, were Nick and Jodi and the names stopped me dead in my tracks.  I had not heard those names uttered together since I was twelve years old.  Nick and Jodi were my parent's oldest couple-friends.  When my newly-married parents came back from being stationed in Korea Nick and Jodi were the first friends my parents made.  Dad and Nick were stationed on the same base in the same division.  I grew up playing with their two sons, who were both within two years of me.  We even lived on the same street as them during my formative years.  Then, rather suddenly, they were divorced.  My parents told me that Nick and Jodi wouldn't be coming over anymore, and we wouldn't be going to see them either.  That was all I was ever told until tonight.  Apparently after so many years apart, Nick and Jodi have decided they can't live without each other and are getting back together.  We were all going out to dinner to celebrate with them.  Dinner was pleasant, if not a little bit awkward at times.  It became clear when I ordered a glass of wine to go along with my rissotto that they clearly still saw me as a twelve year old.  My parents have plans to see them twice more in the upcoming week.  I have to say I'm very interested in seeing how this one turns out...

The Movie:
After dinner Bug and I watched "A Muppet Christmas Carol" together.  She had never seen it before, and was thrilled with it.  The singing vegetables made her giggle with delight, and she cringed away from the Ghost of Christmas Future.  It was exciting to watch this with her for the first time.  It's been a part of my Christmas tradition for years, and tonight she made it a part of hers.

While I'm not completely convinced that all things should be made new, or that revisiting the past is always the best idea, I have to say tonight was a pretty good night.  After all, 2 out of 3 isn't bad.