No good ideas for a title

There is something oddly comforting about seeing a middle-aged man with his elderly mother. I don't know why that is. This was a thought that occurred to me on the way to pick up a pizza.

The Husband had called in the pizza order. When the girl at the counter looked at my ID, she asked if Stan was a nickname. "No," I replied. "He's my boyfriend; he's at home." Boyfriend? We're a week past celebrating our third anniversary. Why did I say "boyfriend"? It's not like I was worried about being identified as gay; I said boyfriend, after all. But why not "husband"? That'd be a good question for my therapist, if I had one.

Meanwhile, I'm typing on my new LAPTOP! Let me say this: I HATE HEWLETT-PACKARD CUSTOMER SERVICE!! The laptop is beautiful, and I love it, except... they did not install all the software I ordered on it. After a completely unfulfilling conversation with someone in Bangalore, I've been playing phone tag with a customer service "case manager" for a solid week now. I've gotten beyond pissed off to that place of mixed annoyance and amusement.

I'm excited about the laptop. This means I can now be even more in contact when we go on trips, as we are doing again this coming weekend.

I booked another flight this week--for my parents. K-State is playing at Fresno the weekend after Thanksgiving this year, so I got four tickets to the game and two airline tickets for them. It's good to have focused plans for one of the major winter holidays this year.

To sleep, per chance to dream

Afternoon naps and lattes are a powerfully evil combination. I mixed them last Sunday, and then couldn't sleep Sunday night. That, of course, set me up for a great week.

On Wednesday, I had to drive eight and a half hours to a conference in Tahoe. The combination of built-up sleep deprivation and altitude change meant I crashed hard Wednesday night. I also slept well Thursday and then back in my own bed on Friday.

After driving home on Friday (arriving at 8:30 at night), the Husband and I headed out for another four-hour drive yesterday morning. I have seen far more of northern California over the past five days than most people see in a lifetime. Beautiful, especially if you like coniferous trees, but butt-numbing when compressed into 24 hours of car time.

This weekend's trip was to Ashland, Oregon, to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for an early celebration of our impending anniversary (Tuesday). By the time we got to Ashland, we were tired, so we had a nap and then went to Starbucks to wake up. As I said, naps and lattes are a powerfully evil combination. I got NO sleep last night, then got to sit through three hours of Elizabethan oratory in a not-particularly-well-air-conditioned theater prior to a four-hour drive. Thankfully today's play was a comedy.

I actually didn't even doze in the theater, which is a powerful testament to the artistry of the OSF. As You Like It, today's offering, was really well done even if not one of my favorite of the Bard's works. Last night's play, however, was superb. We saw Romeo and Juliet, in the outdoor theater, directed by the guy who's taking over next year as the Artistic Director of the whole Festival. I cannot wait to go back again!

But now it's 10:30 and work beckons bright and early. Hopefully switching from coffee to Pepsi and depriving myself of any afternoon shut-eye will allow me to get some much-needed rest tonight.

Recap

Okay, let me start off by saying that Miami Beach was one of the best vacations we have ever had. I want to go back so badly! There's not a lot of beautiful scenery in South Beach, but there are a lot of beautiful people. And there's a lot of great shopping. And great eating. It is, for me, pretty much the perfect beach destination. You don't even need to get into a car; all the major sights are within walking distance. And the condo was SO centrally located.

Anyway, we basically had four nights and three days. We spent the first full day sightseeing, the next shopping and the third on the actual beach. In between, there was a lot of drinking (six pina coladas on Saturday afternoon--but in my defense, they were pretty weak). I didn't look at a newspaper the whole time. It wasn't until our third day that we even turned on the TV in the room to see if it worked.

Since we've been back, I've been helping to plan a going-away party for a co-worker. That was last night. So today I can catch up and do little things like laundry. The house is an absolute disaster, the car is still full of stuff from the party last night, and next weekend we're going away again. (Meanwhile, I have a work trip in the middle of the week.) Isn't summer supposed to be the slow time of year?

So busy..

Well, the Husband (finally) starts his new temp job tomorrow morning. He works two days, then has a holiday, then we take two days off. I am SO excited about Miami. I got everything packed yesterday and spent the whole day on the web looking up exciting things to do.

Today I spent the whole day in party-planning mode. One of my co-workers is moving on to greener pastures, so we're throwing a shindig.

That's about it. The weather has just been spectacular most of this month. This is not going to last...