January is over for another year!

1.24

I'm currently sitting at White River Toyota, getting my car serviced, a new airbag, and hopefully a new hubcap so I figured I'd utilize this wait time by bringing my computer and forcing myself to start this  month's entry. It's my day off and I should be good today about being productive and getting things done, considering I've partied the last 2 weekends and productivity has suffered as a result. So far, I've gotten my teeth cleaned and shipped my barely year old bluetooth speaker back to the company because it's been shutting off after less than an hour of use with a fully charged battery. Not happy. I was supposed to go to a barre class this morning but it was cancelled due to the weather. Hopefully I can go to the dinnertime one tonight.

The first Saturday in January, I took Dayna to Ludlow to hang out with the ladies. I touched upon this in my last entry, so I won't go into detail. The next day, we were tentatively planning on going to trivia but we took too long to decide and were unable to make a reservation by the time we called. We decided to grab dinner anyways so we went to Jesse's.

On the 10th, Dayna and I went to the Worthy Kitchen for dinner to see Kendall perform with her acapella group Take 5 from Kenyon College. Amy, Mike, and Elena were there as well, separately in their own groups. It was the first time seeing her since I ran into her and Mike at Hannaford's the summer just after she completed freshman year. She is graduating in May and is trying to figure out what to do as she does not want to come home. She's looking into the Peace Corps and applied for a Fulbright scholarship. She is just a beautiful, fearless, bubbly young lady with an amazing, sultry voice. Watching her and listening to her sing brought tears to my eyes. Regardless of what she does or where she goes, she is destined for great things.

The weekend of the 14th, Emilee and I went to CT for the night for a little birthday getaway. We got started a little late because her kids had games she needed to attend and participate in so we didn't end up leaving Claremont until 230ish. We stopped on the way to gas up and have a bite to eat at Friendly's. She continues to astound me with the stories of dysfunction that she is surrounded by on a regular basis. Not only is she dealing with the death of her mother; now she is dealing with her Dad's new life with a serious girlfriend with significant baggage (multiple marriages, four children, the youngest of which is 10ish). She showed up two weeks after Joi passed and he is already referring to her as his soulmate and actually has described to Emilee the difference between Joi and her in terms of intimacy. WHAT?!?! I just can't wrap my head around how she is feeling and coping. You would think that would be enough to deal with, but no, she also continues to deal with her unimaginable bastardly soon to be ex-husband. He is an emotionally and physically abusive drunk who has not been there for her at all. Within a week of her mother's death, he told her to stop boohooing over it. And since she has started hanging out with me more, he has accused us of having a lesbian fling. He is controlling and borderline psychotic and says terrible things to her (calling her a fat cow and saying crude homosexual insults are some examples) when he drinks. I feel sorry for him and his deluded way of being.

Anywho, so we drove straight to Naskart in Montville and got settled after buying two races. We locked up our stuff and waited in line for a safety briefing. Shortly aftweward, Elaine arrived and we caught up with her while we waited for our races (she elected not to partake due to a recent injury). I also tried to arrange something with Corey while we were down there but it didn't work out. Racing ended up being a lot of fun and Elaine got some good pictures and videos of the whole process. We checked into our shady hotel (our key didn't work so the nice foreign-sounding man had to let us in to our room both times) and headed to a pub in Niantic for drinks and a bite to eat. We had a good time catching up over a good band covering 90's alternative. Emilee and I headed back to the hotel and continued drinking until we were pretty toasted (playing truth or dare in the process). It was fun to relive our younger years and get her out of reality for 24 hours of so. We went out for breakfast and drove by the farm before we headed back to Ctown. I played with Simone for a few hours before heading back to my home and a purring, happy kitty.

Last Tuesday, I had a snowshoeing date with my coworker's son. We met in Bradford and drove about 15 minutes to where he, his brother, and dad own a chunk of land. We walked up to where they have a garage structure to find a tool to cut the zip ties on my snowshoes (it was my first time using them). We snowshoed around for a while, talking, and made a pit stop at his recently-built mini-house for water and popcorn before hiking back down to the cars. It was an enjoyable activity and company. We are planning a Worthy Burger date and shall see where it goes, no pressure.

This past weekend, I met Brandi and Laura in Manchester for a ladies weekend. It started at 10 am Saturday at the mall food court. We chatted over Starbucks, shopped around for a while and had a late lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. That's when the drinking began. After lunch, we checked into the hotel feeling pretty good and decided to continue drinking. We shared a bottle of sparkling wine, had yummy spiked seltzer malt beverages, and busted open a bag of doritos. We had talked about going to TJ Maxx but that didn't happen. Dinner time rolled around so we got ready and walked to the British Beer Company and had more drinks and delicious food. We took chocolate peanut butter pie to go and spent the rest of the night talking, laughing, and being drunk. There also may have been some flirting going on between Mike and his boys back in Maine. Good times. We went to breakfast the next morning at Mary Ann's Diner in Derry (although there was a little hiccup as my google maps brought me to a diner with the same name in Windham). I drove home after breakfast, stopping in New London to grab a little TV/VCR for Ashley, and they headed to a Jenny Boston boutique in Burlington, MA before parting ways to go home. I'm good with alcohol for a long while. I guess that can be part of the silver lining to being on call the entire upcoming weekend. The bank is the biggest part.

2.6

The last weekend in January was my call weekend. It wasn't bad, especially since Fred took over for me Sunday at 7 PM and they got called in early Monday morning. I was sleeping like a baby. We came in Saturday morning for a floor pt. with UA followed by a STEMI. We came in Saturday night around 9 for a STEMI but nothing during the day Sunday. Last Tuesday, I had another date with Matt. We met in SoRo with the intention of going to the Worthy Burger but apparently they're closed Tuesdays. We went instead to 5 Olde around the corner for a beer and nachos. We chatted for 2 hours or so. He told me that his Dad's (my coworker although retired) prostate cancer had spread to bone. He lost his mom to cancer just 2 years ago so I feel terrible. I'm not sure what to do...we didn't make plans when we parted so I'm inclined to give him space and let him contact me. I don't think it's right to initiate anything based on what he's dealing with in his personal life. What will be will be.

 I had signed up for call tonight but then I switched days off with Eric so he offered to take it tonight in order to give me a genuine long weekend. And enjoy this weekend, I did. I didn't end up going anywhere Saturday (except for the grocery store and the Paper Store to exchange my new phone cover for a pink one). I was supposed to go hang out at the Goss house but Shley wasn't feeling well so I stayed home. Yesterday, I went to Ctown to hang out with Simone. We went grocery shopping, played with her dollhouse, and spent time outside. Today, I'm spending QT with X and doing stuff around the house. A Barre Community class later, also.

Work has been fine. It hasn't been as busy as I'm used to which has been a nice change of pace. Italy with Heidi is official...I got the week off and I sent the organizer a check this weekend. Because of that, my March vacation (6 week countdown starts now) will be a staycation. I want pasta, pizza, and gelato all week. The only consolation for missing my little boo bear so much. He will be at Grammy's for the week.