A Couple of Awesome Things

I leave tomorrow for the first week of my new "journey," and have spent the past two weeks of unemployment reading, riding my bike and most importantly, hanging out with good friends.

• Thanks ML and baby L for cooking me dinner and providing me with cutie baby entertainment. I can't wait to find out if #2 is a boy or a girl and meet him or her too.
• YG planned all the details of last weekend's jaunt into NYC which was excellent.
• The people from my Monday night meeting threw me a going away and good luck party before our usual meeting. I've known most of these people for over five years now and even though I was dragged kicking and screaming into the program and I didn't want to know them, I'm so thankful for everything they've given me. Including taco dip, guacamole, and a t-shirt that reads "Future Ex-Wife" and lists all the gifts of the program. Cheesey? Yes. Still great? Yes. My favorite "gift" is "We will recover the feeling of joy" -- I didn't believe it, but now I do. I used to be fun. Then for a while, not so much. I feel like I'm back again. :-) So thanks to the Monday night group, particularly B, D, and T, for being cool and letting me bratty and not making me hug people.
• An out-of-town friend came back to NYC on Thursday so a bunch of us had dinner at a yummy French place and then had tea and scones the next day at Alice's Teacup. Good food and good conversations. I ran into my first college roommate on the street on the way to dinner -- also a nice suprise.
• I got to kick it old school with NN and K visiting our post-college establishments like Vietnam for shrimp papaya salad and summer rolls and Little Italy for gelatto. I was thinking about this a little bit more over the weekend: NN and I became friends freshman year of college, and I honestly can't imagine ever NOT being friends with her. Even if we don't talk or email every day like we used to, it's just not something I can imagine. But how often does your friend pair up with someone that you like equally as well? Hardly ever. Most of the time, your friends pair up with people that you find tolerable or better, people that you like okay. But K is pretty freakin' great too, and I'm just very excited for these guys to be parents because they're going to be great parents to either a girl or a boy (even if they do chop off his willis. Heh).
• Today was Father's Day and I got to spend it with the family which to me is my parents, my siblings, my aunt, uncle and cousin. For all the bullshit, we're still pretty great. Even though my mother decided to read the entire NJ Zagat Guide OUT LOUD on the drive down and even though I got to sit through the old classics of "Look at this traffic" and "why did you go this way" and "We should get gas" "No, we can make it one more exit," it was still a fun day. I'm going to miss them. Remind me of this when I'm complaining about them in....probably a few hours.