Long and Winding

Greetings and Salutations.

It's been a hectic week, but let me rewind and tell you a bit about my last weekend.  Ryan, I, and several more of his Magic buddies all piled into his Rodeo for the migration down to Atlanta.  I had forgotten my iPod, so after half an hour of nothing but hard core Magic talk, my nerves were pretty much shattered.  Ryan was sweet enough to notice and said nothing, but simply handed me his iPod out of his pocket and smiled, then rubbed my neck.  (Yet another reason I love him!)  I slept the rest of the way, awaking only to find ourselves stuck in rush hour traffic on I-75.  Oh, BigCityLiving, how I've missed thee!  We found our $5 parking downtown and entered the Hilton Atlanta.  I was home.  I have a thing for plush sofas tucked into nooks, and let me tell you, Hilton has done their homework on plush sofas tucked into nooks.  I set myself up with my schoolwork and told the boys to have a nice time.  Three hours flew by, surprisingly enough.  I woke up to Ryan gently nudging me, and 11 other Magic players standing behind him.
"Do you wanna get dinner?" he asked.
"Er...yeah..." I groggily replied, trying to hurry myself back into full awareness.  Please, oh please, I prayed, please don't let me have been drooling or anything equally embarrassing...  I glanced down at my shirt and nonchalantly rubbed my hand across my lips to check.  I was safe!!  Yes!!  "I mean, I could eat."
So we found ourselves the only restaurant open at 11:15 pm--a Ninfa's Mexican restaurant.  I ordered a beef chimichanga and Corona.  Ryan got nachos and a sangria margarita.  "You can see who wears the pants in the relationship, " he joked.  The night went well, though I grew tired soon.  We knew the Hilton's special pricing was $149 a night, and so we thought we ought to check out the Motel 6 just to be sure we had another option.  As it turned out, there was one room left at the 6--a King.  We took and were grateful.  Thinking ahead, we'd packed extra blankets and pillows, so the boys slept pretty comfortably on the floor, happy to be a 2 minute walk away from their play site.  I sprawled, reveling in my own King bed!

On Saturday, I met up with my cousins Matt and Erika, whom I had not seen since their wedding several years earlier.  It's remarkable how similar Erika and I are.  You may assume, well, yes, that seems logical as you are cousins.  However, let me enlighten you to the information that my family is a distant one.  I don't know why.  We just never seemed to have caught on to the whole staying-close-to-relatives thing.  I don't think it particularly is a good or bad thing--it is what it is.  It's not that we don't like them.  We just live in the middle of nowhere.  And before that, when we did live nearer, I was so involved in outside school activities, I was hardly ever home enough for holidays or family gatherings.  So I've never really known my cousins well, or my grandparents for that matter.  Which, I've come to realize, is sad.  I don't like it.  So when I knew I was going to be in Atlanta, my first thought was to email Erika.

We wound up hunting for a place to eat.  Our Mediterranean plans fell through (Thanks, UrbanSpoon, for not posting restaurant hours online...), so we wandered a bit before deciding to simply hit IKEA til we got particularly hungry.  Oh.  Dear.  Me.  IKEA: the store that I would move into tomorrow if they actually had working plumbing in the adorable kitchen and bathroom set-ups.  Erika and I ooh-ed and ahh-ed our way through the maze, discussing our styles, our likes and dislikes, and what we'd do if we had no monetary limit to our purchasing.  And more similarities exposed themselves.  Upon reaching the IKEA Cafe, we acknowledged that our two hour jaunt through the first level and a half had left us famished.  We dug in to Swedish meatballs and grilled salmon.  More shopping (read: drooling) followed, and we really did find some great deals.  I nabbed a comforter and a duvet bedding set that I had been eyeing for over a year, and Erika got some cute decor for her adorable home.  (Yes, she is one of those--so crafty!  I can only hope one day to aspire to such feats of crafty-ness!  And yes--I AM serious.)

Post-IKEA, we made our way through Atlantic City, an outdoor shopping/dining community which presented us with more shopping bargains.  Adorable $14.00 plates for $0.37 at West Elm???  A H&M cocktail dress on sale from $49.95 to $7.00???  SOLD.  We appreciate the finer things at Dave Ramsey prices.  Finally, after dinner, the day came to an end.  We posed for photos--proof that we actually had seen each other!--and went our ways, hoping to see each other again in the near future.  And I'm confident we will.  :)

I returned to the 6, took a bath, and continued my studying...while watching The Notebook.  I couldn't help myself.  It was on, and it reeled me in, playing off my female hormones...  I fell asleep long before the boys came in.  Only Jonathan had made Day Two this time, and on Sunday he ended up finishing 19th out of more than 1200.  Not too shabby, and definitely in-the-money.

I spent the ride home the same way I'd spent the ride there.  :)

Now, let me rewind a week.  The weekend before all this, two weekends ago, Jonathan had spent the weekend with me and Ryan here in Cookevegas.  While he was here, I asked him to take a look at my laptop which wouldn't boot up.  It was odd, working fine a day or two before, but suddenly refusing any request made of it.  Jonathan took it with him, along with discs containing images of my hard drive, hoping to restore it in his free time.  At the end of the Atlanta weekend, he broke the bead news: it's toast.  Whatever happened, it was bad.  He couldn't even get his computers to recognize my hard drive--like it didn't even exist.  Fantastic.  Ryan lent me his laptop for this week, but I knew I couldn't take it forever.  The poor child lives in the middle of nowhere--internet was his only link to the outside world! (maybe I exaggerate...)--I couldn't take that away from him indefinitely.  So when Mum called Sunday evening, I finally fessed up to my computer woes.  Mind you, this is my third laptop in five years that has crashed and burned.  She was upset, realizing it's hard to do online homework when you have no computer.  We discussed the options and then she said she'd talk to Dad.  We talked for another half hour about everything else--namely her surgery which I'll get to later.  Not ten minutes after hanging up, she called again.
"I talked to your Dad."
"Oh....okay..." I was hesitant.
"Are you going to make good grades this semester?"
"Well...when have I not made excellent grades?  Even that class I was borderline failing I managed to eek an A out of.  I'm confident I can make A's and B's.  Why??"
"Then go get yourself a Mac."
"...................."  (That was me.  Being breathless.)

So here I sit, typing away on my new MacBookPro.  :)  There's a lot that's different.  Some things I don't like.  (Such as, where's the delete button?  The one that says "delete" is a backspace, but there's no delete...)  I promise I won't turn into a hipster.  No beanies.  No coffee cup glued to my hand.  No flannel shirts.  No obsession with Apple products.  But I DO like my MacBook Pro so far.  Namely, the NO MORE VIRUSES thing!!!!  :):):)

Anyhoo.
I suppose I've yammered off your ear for now.  Thanks for reading, if you've made it this far.
I'll leave you with an Irish blessing:
     May the Lord keep you in His hand

     And never close His fist too tight.

<3

~r.