jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I’m guessing you already know this, but in case you don’t…. Pale Male and Lola returned to their rebuilt aerie on Tuesday. It’s all good.

The good folks at Airtran managed to get me on an earlier flight today, so I have already eaten my Chinese takeout and am sinking into my couch watching North and South. I should still be in the air with an hour left to go. So grateful that I’m not.

I haven’t unpacked a thing, and it won’t surprise me at all if I don’t at all tonight. Tomorrow FreshDirect brings me many crates of groceries, about which I am hugely hugely excited. All I had to do is point and click (and pay) and they just bring it right along. I’ve got a marinade of cheese and olives I want to make, and I’m going to try stuffing some apples with saurkraut. I realize that second recipe probably doesn’t have wide appeal, but I think I’ll like it. And I’m the only one I’m feeding this week.

I’ll go to DC for New Year’s Eve to spend that with Damon. It will be great to see him again so soon, but good grief I could stand a few days at home. Next weekend Andrew makes a return for one more visit before he heads back to Germany.

Zoe is so happy to have me back. When I walked in the front door she ran half way down the hallway and then flopped over on her side and started rolling around and waving her paws at me. Of course I threw everything on the floor and showered her with much love. Kristen did a great job of looking after her, even leaving a DVD of Mary Tyler Moore playing for her amusement. I’m sure Zoe’s been fancying herself a career girl all day.

Can I just mention again how happy I am to be home and alone. In a perfect world Damon would be in NY, but perhaps at work. While I don’t want our schedules to be opposite, it would be nice if they didn’t align perfectly.

The visit with Mom and Jerry went really well. It’s the first time I’ve seen them in years and years that I haven’t been pulled in a thousand direction at Christmas. I loved not having to answer to any needs/desire/requirements but those of the four of us. We saw Lemony Snicket, we saw another movie that I’m blanking on. My fatigue must be showing a little bit. Getting home was quite the ordeal. We got to the airport around 10:45 and I finally struggled in the door around 7, carrying a duffel bag along with laptop, briefcase, rollie and handbag. The duffel bag weights about eight gagillion pounds and just about detached my arm at the shoulder by the time I finished bussing, training and walking to the apartment. That said, it was necessary because we had so many presents, and so I felt pretty cheerful about it.

I had such a good time yesterday that I’m sore. That’s a good day.

Mom and Jerry took us to play something called pickleball. It’s kind of a tennis/racquetball/whiffle ball combo, if that makes any sense. Oh, but you use paddles instead of racquets. It’s hard to describe. But the important thing is that I was very good at it. It’s not often I find something physical to do where I can run circles around Damon. But he was unable to come even close to my pickleball mastery.

After that we cleaned up, ate and went to town square. There was a wedding-ish band playing “Rocky and the Rollers.” Yup. But that didn’t stop us from dancing like fools. Mom and Jerry were really good, and I was so tickled to watch them go. My Mom was definitely the most soulful white lady out there, but not in that embarrassing overcompensatory way. I should point out that they’re all white ladies. That was one of our early conversations, “Don’t you miss black people?” She said she does but she loved this place too much to pass it up. She’s also hoping the place will integrate a little more as it grows. Anyway, I got my Mom to dance with me and that was lots of fun. I was struck by how popular line dancing is. Those people will force that onto any song playing, no matter how ridiculous. But they did seem to be having fun. My Mom says she wants a BB gun to shoot them with because they take over the whole dance area. There are certainly plenty of ample behinds to aim for.

This morning we exchanged our Christmas presents and much quality loot was exchanged. I gave Damon some new shirts and sweaters, some warm gloves and one of those seen-on-TV tiny hair trimmers. My Mom had one when we were visiting last Christmas and he was fascinated by it. We gave Jerry the first season of 24 and Mom, Damon and I all went in together to get him six months of Netflix. We gave my Mom some fun parrot-green and hot pink shirts and some pink wooden slides to help ease her into her Florida life. We also got her some super-soft socks, just because I couldn’t resist them.

I also got plenty o’ good stuff. Damon gave me a stripe-y linen suit, a candle that smells like Sarah (lavender) and a candle snuffer. I love him for supporting my candle habit, even though it drives him crazy. Mom and Jerry gave me new jeans and a pullover and very snuggly sweater, flannel pajamas, crock pot cookbooks, the latest Mark Helperin book and, truthfully, a ton of other stuff. They gave Damon and me several joint gifts, which was fun. The best of those was a “1C” they made for our apartment door, since I had been complaining that we couldn’t find them at Home Depot. They’ve got magnets on the back, since our door is metal.

And now we’re about 10 minutes away from our Christmas Eve dinner, so I had better sign off.

I just checked in with work. I’ve got just over 260 emails sitting in my inbox. My New Year New You page looks out of whack. …Must…Disengage…

We spent HOURS today riding around The Villages in a golf cart. And I got to drive the whole time. I don’t know if anyone else thought that was fantastic, but I was thrilled. Would that all transportation were golf-cart centric.

I’ve been absent from the living room for under ten minutes and the “Hey, what are you doing?” chorus has begun. Better return. Sigh.