Starting tomorrow, I will only have four days of work in the next 16 days. That'll be nice. Three days off for Thanksgiving, and tomorrow I leave for Austin, TX for six days. I have quite a few vacation days left as the year winds down, and while I was hoping to take a holiday somewhere with Miss Charming Melodee, she couldn't get off from work. So then I found a ticket to Texas for $200, and I said what the hey. I haven't seen my childhood friend Doug in over seven years, and Jenny G (formerly of DC) is down there for the next few weeks as well. I'm just looking forward to some warmer weather, and riding around in cars and spending time outdoors and seeing the horizon.
Last night, the majority of my dreams, or at least the most memorable parts, dealt with me missing my flight. Not surprisingly, I was dilly-dallying, thinking I had all sorts of time. Next thing I knew, it was ten minutes after I was supposed to take off, and I was freaking out, thinking this can't be happening. It seemed like a bad dream, and I just kept hoping to wake up. But I didn't. Then, all of a sudden, it was two hours earlier than it had been, and I was still hoping to make my flight. Several bus rides later, I still wasn't there, and an hour and a half later I just gave up. It was all very distressing. Luckily, Miss CM's alarm went off and I woke up. And went back to sleep and ended up being quite late for work. The weird parts of the dream were that I was at home in PA, but I was on my way to Newark, and I wasn't flying to Texas, but to France. I think France was the destination, because the time I had to fly there, I ended up missing my connecting flight, and it was a total nightmare. Also, I'm worried about my luggage getting lost on this trip, since there are connecting flights both ways, and lately I've been marveling how my luggage didn't get lost going to France, and managed to get on the same plane that I did even though I took a somewhat random flight out of Dulles. Anyway, I leave tomorrow.
The old family has been rather active in world travel lately. Besides brother Galvin being in Japan, my dad just got back from Taiwan 14 hours ago, and Geoff was in Spain all of last week. Actually, the reason I'm going to Texas is because I couldn't go to Spain with Geoff. He asked me to go, and I got all excited about the prospect, and planned on going, then realized I couldn't afford it, got all dejected, and bought ticket to go to Texas, because now I really wanted to go somewhere.
I had a modest little birthday dinner for Miss CM on Tuesday, which was also Veterans' Day, formerly Armistice Day, which was also Kurt Vonnegut's birthday. MCM turned 26. Kurt Jr. turned 81. It was during the dinner prep that I decided that money really can buy freedom, and to an extent, happiness. Although in an indirect manner. Part of the reason I was cooking was because I really couldn't afford dinner out. I do enjoy cooking immensely, but I've been working so much lately, and I still have so much to do, that I didn't have much time. If I had a lot more money, I could've taken her out and saved myself all the running around to different stores for nice ingredients. Or even better, I could've saved myself from working three or four jobs and really spent a lot of time preparing a better and better planned meal. As it was, I ended up making tortellini, and just took the prosciutto and peas recipe from the side of the package. It looked so good in the Barilla commercial, where this girl's in Italy and she bumps into this dude and he says "'scusi..." and they smile and later we find out he's a cook and he sees her in his restaurant and he fixes her his special tortellini, only he gets his "special" pasta from a shelf full of Barilla pasta in a bag. Anyway, I made that and a salad with blue cheese and made an experimental honey-dijon dressing, which ended up being a lot better than the pasta I think. Miss CM was appreciative, of course, but I was quite disappointed. Not one of my better efforts. I think it's because I scaled back on my normal cooking habits, mainly that I didn't use copious amounts of butter and salt. Last time I ever do that.
Mail to G-Rock