Flowers and cookies!

After getting home from Emporia today and taking a quick little nap, I headed to to the car to drive us to supper. Before I could get in the car, Russell ran back into the house, then back out again with something behind his back. Turns out he got a couple roses on his way home from work. He'd placed one leaning against my steering wheel sometime between when I got hom and when we decided to go to supper. So he handed me one and I discovered the other. :)

When we got home, I wandered back to the bedroom, took me shoes off, and felt tired. After a few moments, he caught up as I went down the hall and handed me another bunch of flowers, some yellow & red cute ones. (I'm not very good at official flower names...red and yellow works for me!)

Not only did I get flowers, but I got two sets in one day!

After that, we put on our jammies. Russell disappeared after donning his. A few moments later I headed towards the kitchen. He heard me coming and said something about me wanting to watch tv...or something...right?

Ummm, okay, yes, of course I want to watch tv. Yes. Because he's amazing with the wonderful surprises today. :)

So a few moments later, I got to shut my eyes. When I opened them a few moments later, cookies and milk had magically appeared in front of me. And not just any cookies, molasses cookies.

Oh yes, he loves me. :)

Not much to say...

Well, I haven't had a whole lot going on lately. I've gone down to Emporia to visit friends, hung out with my parents, seen my sister a few times...it's been a quiet life for a while. Russell and I have been having a few, er, difficulties, and we're working on them. Those have taken up most of my thoughts for a while now. I don't really want to write it all out here, not yet.

So here's my obligatory entry for today.

You're only 80 once.

My great uncle is having his 80th birthday party today. My mother called the other day to tell me about his surprise party. Surprise party? For an 80 year old? Is that *really* a good idea?? So I'm going if only to see....

Oh wait, no, kidding. I love Uncle Paul. When Mom said how old he was, I was genuinely surprised. Both he and my great aunt (Janet) seem much younger than they are. It might not help that my grandmother, Aunt Janet's sister, is 85 and has started to show her age. She can still match wits with you, can still tell you what to do as well as she ever did, but she moves a little more slowly when doing so. That, and she's going blind. If she could see as well as she used to, she probably wouldn't have slowed down any. Now those pesky end tables and her slow-moving husband can be very frustrating.

But Uncle Paul seems more than 5 years younger than her. I guess he's a great argument for remaining active throughout one's entire life. And golf counts, because he's been playing a lot of it since he retired 30 years ago. Wow...he retired before I was born. That's a weird thought.

BENJ!!!!!!!

So waaaaay back when (at the start of my college career...'99 actually), I had a friend named Benj. (Yes, normal people would call themselves Ben. He was...is...far from normal. But loveable.) A friend and I drove from Missouri to Maryland to visit him one summer, then a couple semesters later I drove him to Ohio (where he was met by family to take him the rest of the way) after he dropped out of college. He was my good friend. Not *goood* friend.

Well, we made out. Once. Or twice. But we were much better friends than anything more...even after we made out...crazy! So we were friends for a few years after we moved to different parts of the country. I even drove out on my own one summer to visit him.

Then we lost touch. The other day, I started my MSN Messenger for the first time in yeeeears and saw his name. I sent an email to that address, asking if he still used it. He happened to check it today for the first time in...ooh, guess how long...yeeeears. Fate! So he emailed me back and included his current email address and phone number. So, me being me, I skipped over the whole email thing and called him.

He answered the phone, "Amy?" Yes! It's meeee! (He recognized a Kansas area code and I'm the only person he knows in Kansas.) So we just talked for...um...an hour and a half. Turns out we both got married, both are hoping to someday finish a college degree (though I am significantly closer since I am currently enrolled in college), and could talk like we'd seen each other just yesterday...how trite, but personally satisfying.

Benj was one of my best friends for quite some time. And a pretty darn good kisser. tee hee I'm not sure how close we'll be in the future....he lives in Arizona now...not exactly able to do lunch. But it was great to talk to him again. Someone from Way Back When...how fun!

I'm a happy....well, not drunk....but definitely tipsy.

Up until yesterday, I'd never had more than 3 drinks at one time. Ever. Usually it's 2. And they were usually more sour than Amaretto.

We went out to a bar our friend Gemini works at last night, Louise's. We were going to go see the Esoteric show at the Jackpot, but just didn't get there. 2 doors down seemed a long way to go when we were having so much fun at Louise's with Gemini. I started out with one of those little squatty glasses (haven't picked up on the drinkin' lingo quite yet), an Amaretto sour. With one cherry. Gemini didn't make it, the other bartender did. Well, that was a little glass, and it tasted sooo good, that I had to have another one. Mmmmm Cherries...those are fruit...so that makes it healthy. :)

So the other bartender made me a couple Amaretto sours, both with just one, sad, lonely cherry. Gemini saw that my 2nd glass was empty, decided that just wasn't right, and made me a 3rd one. But, being Gemini, he gave me 3 cherries...and a double. So, wow, even better for me!

While out in DC with Russell's mother for his cousin's wedding shower, I talked to another of the shower guests, and yummy drinks came up. I mentioned my deep and abiding love for Amaretto sours, and she mentioned Medori sours.

Medori sours? What are these exotic sounding nummies?

Well, I found out last night. And Gemini in all his wonderfulness, made that one a double too, with 3 cherries. Isn't he sweet?

I decided to return to my roots to round out the night and had one more Amaretto sour.

So that made 5 nummy drinks, 3 of them doubles. And me being so used to just drinking diet sodas, I haven't learned the fine art of sipping. Or, as Gemini put it, "She doesn't nurse those does she." Hm, nope, I'll have to work on that for next time.

But this time, oh yeah, good times. So after intermitently hugging and leaning on Russell's shoulder (giggling) a few times, (who thought this was all pretty funny, having never seen me with anything more than my usual 3 drinks--not doubles), and hugging Gemini, who was more than willing to aid in my exploration into the inebriated side of life...and who happens to love hugging anyone with breasts (except when he's drunk, and then anything that moves is fair game).... Okay, so after my tipsy little hug fest, I felt a little tired.

So we went home. It was a good night.

We met up with Gemini for lunch today...at 1, no earlier.

MoodyAmy

I've been really moody lately. One second I'm having a good time, the next I've dropped into a thoughtful silence. "Things" haven't been going as smoothly with Russell lately, not since about mid-February. So I guess that doesn't exactly fall under "lately" anymore. If there was some clear, defined problem we could deal with it and get back to living. But there isn't. It's a general feeling of disatisfaction. He keeps asking what's wrong, keeps asking how to make me happy. I keep saying that it's not that I'm unhappy, I just don't feel like I used to. I used to be one of those bubbly people...I had problems, but I didn't let them ruin every waking moment. And it's not that I just ignored the problem. My usual style was to procrastinate about it for a while, wait for it to start invading other activities, and then deal with it. I never let things get out of hand...just waited until they were too big to ignore anymore.

Now I find myself wondering what else is out there. I'm disatisfied with the status quo and I'm not one to just sit around and be unhappy or bored. So I've started looking for things to do...shopping, lunch with my mom, lunch with friends, lunch with Russell, possible vacations, I've tried reading, playing flute, piano, going for walks... All of these things used to give me some sort of satisfaction or feeling of purpose. Lately that feeling is either not as strong or missing altogether.

Russell's noticed that I'm not cuddly. I used to want to cuddle all. the. time. Now I'm content to sit on my end of the couch and curl up with a blanket. I used to roll towards him every night and want to share his half of the bed. Lately I've been happy to sleep on my side. I used to seek him out for any number of reasons...lately that's not the case.

I'm feeling more like a loner, more independent lately. I don't know how to change back into the happy, friendly, perky, bubbly, cuddly Amy. She had bad days, but they didn't get her down. I've always been independent, but was able to feel like my own person while sharing life with others. Lately I just feel alone.