I went out into the world and came back better

I returned yesterday from my trip down to see my old classmate, Shannon.  She had me sleeping on her bed while she took the couch out in the lounge room for the duration of my stay.  I was taken aback by her generosity, but she’s full-on into Christian living (the good-light-hearted-hippy-Jesus-sane kind and not that spooky-vengeful-we-take-The-Bible-literally-word-for-word-no-exceptions-hate-crime-waiting-to-happen kind) so it was honestly no trouble to her.  I still showed my gratitude by sleeping in until my 9 AM medicine alarm most mornings (which I used to rarely do), only once getting up at like 6:30 AM needing to pee and accidentally making her dog bark at me out of surprise.

She has a dog named Gus that loved me from the get-go and I of course loved him in return.  He’s this hilariously sweet basset/pitbull/maybe-other-stuff breed and he would always try and sit on top of me no matter where I was or how I was oriented.  He wanted to show me his dominance, but I just saw it as him wanting me to pat the ridiculously soft fur he had and to go in for the occasional (he’s known to snap if crowded) smooch.  I got a good amount of time where he’d just want to lay on top of me and I’m always down for that.

On Valentine’s Day we took a road trip across the state to see another classmate of ours (whose name is Rachel, but she’s a super-cool kind of Rachel and nothing like the monk-fish-with-human-arms-and-legs that I used to write about) and her beautiful family.  I had thought I made reservations for this restaurant in that town, but I fucked it up somehow so we got groceries to cook back at Rachel’s house instead.  We decided on making pasta pomodoro at her house so we got some whole canned tomatoes and fresh basil.  And for a protein boost I bought them a giant heart-shaped ribeye steak and got lentils for myself.  We went back to Rachel’s lovely home and did that whole chatting-while-cooking-and-then-chatting-while-eating-out-on-the-mosquito-netted-porch-thing.  It was all so…grown up, and pleasant.  We drove back to Shannon’s house and got home by about 10:15 PM.  An activity that was common throughout the visit was going out for a night-time walk so her dog could do his thing, and that was always a bit trippy because I don’t get out in the night much at all ever, so I loved sort of being another pooch along for the walk.  That part was specifically reminiscent of walking Zoe with Sarah and Ashley back before everything went weird.

Ash came to the airport with my bonus dad to pick me up yesterday, so that was a special kind of awesome.  I missed my kid so much, and I’m so giddy to have gotten to see them and hear about all that they’ve got going on and how differently they’re handling their early teenage years than I did.  I am a proud father, for sure.

I woke up at 9 AM to take my meds but I went back to sleep until 11 AM because apparently you get jet-lagged in your 40’s even when you’re flying within the same time zone.  My theory is that being cooped up in a big ol’ metal hot dog with wings with a bunch of other strangers just takes it out of ya.

The fudge?