Noticed.

Goodbye hugs are much slower than hello hugs. 

These Things Don't Happen To Normal People.

Motivating myself to wake up and hit the gym yesterday morning was surprisingly easy. I jumped up, got changed, packed my bag, threw on my sneakers and tied the laces tight enough so that there was no going back. If there is even a little wiggle room in my running shoes, it's far too easy for me to take them off, crash back into bed and tell myself, "Five more minutes."

Five more minutes is never five minutes.

Pulling my left laces nice and tight while scanning the room for other things I needed for the day, I looped the the bunny ears and spotted my cosmetic bag. Looking down to my foot, satisfied with the knot I had created, I lunged over to the dresser to grab my toiletries and promptly fell to the ground. In my haste, I had inadvertently tied my sneaker as tightly as I could to a strap of my book bag. Fully packed and heavy, it served as an anchor and literally pulled me to the floor.  Lying there like an idiot, I turned over and struggled to untie myself from my bag.

I eventually made it to the gym and things went well on that front. I showed up to work early because I wanted to enjoy the beautiful day and read for a bit in the little park by the restaurant. It's not even a park, really. It's a grassy area. Whatever, I could lay down and read, and it was nice. 

Twenty pages into my chill session, I started to get sleepy. I put my book on my belly and closed my eyes for a quick nap. I must have really been knocked out because when I woke up, a group of people and some sort of Park Ranger were standing above me. I remember flinching dramatically and immediately wondering, Um, what the hell is going on? as the woman dressed like a ranger kept talking about the Devotion House behind me. She was leading a tour, obviously, but why she chose to the lead the group of people to a spot directly above a napping stranger is beyond me. Lifting my sunglasses to rub my eyes, an old man in the tour group leaned down into my face and asked, "Is that a good book?!"

My life is a comedy.

I think.

A Weekend With The Fam: A Wrap Up.

It has been brought to my attention that I never finished the series of posts about my trip home.

While I currently lack all motivation to finish this story, here's a highlight reel:

-Part II ended with me finding numerous boxes of crackers in a closet. I later found cases of wine, beer, and soda in my old bedroom closet. Long story short, my mother hid food items for my father's surprise party in nearly every closet of the house. The ridiculousness of this was doubled by the fact that all said food and beverages were "hidden" under blankets. Behind every door I opened, a large mass of snacks was covered with a blanket. 

A Martha Stewart tip, Mom?

-No surprise here, my mom went overboard with food. The day of the party, Mer and I were sent on multiple Wegman's runs to pick up more of everything. It was OUT of control. While having something of a panic attack about all of the food, I managed to drop the world's largest fruit plate and had to pick that up off the garage floor piece by piece. 

-Part of the reason my mom likes throwing parties like this is so she can buy useless shit like a gigantic cooler. The picture doesn't accurately represent how large this cooler is. Apparently, Sabrina tried to talk my mother out of buying it by saying: a) We have a lot of coolers b) It's so gigantic that it's almost rendered useless. Agreeing to both points, they separated in the store. However, when Sabrina eventually met up with her again, this is what she found: 

It was used for the party and will now sit in our basement for the rest of our lives.

-My dad was surprised. Very surprised.  

-We ate, drank, and danced too much. Or, OK, I did.

-Julia was there and made me laugh out loud NUMEROUS times. 

-The morning Meredith and I were headed back to Boston, my father said something to her and smiled. I thought he said something about seeing her car. (My dad checks people's car mileage. I don't think he trusts anyone with less than 50,000 miles on their odometer.) It turns out he said he read the card she gave him. When I explained to everyone what I thought I had heard, Meredith looked to my dad and said, "Well we can still check those miles if you want." 

With that, my father lit up and my Grandma quickly informed her, "You're in."

It was a nice weekend. 

Sweet Ride.

Because of my new location, and the ridiculous excuse for public transportation that exists in Boston, it's absolutely necessary that I get a bike. Talking about it with Mer tonight, I mentioned that I found a gorgeous vintage road bike that I seriously want.

Mer: Vintage?

Me: Yeah, it's sick.

Mer: How vintage? Is it the kind with the one tiny wheel?

The visual of me rolling around town on this bad boy makes me happy.