It's a new decade! (Also: Sam's Graduation, Lunar Eclipse, Christmas, Meteor)
First: Sam graduated!
I was there for that last hell week when he hardly slept. Boy, I did not miss that. I stayed awake with him, even when he spent the night at Russ' place because he had an 8:00 exam - in Spanish, of all subjects (he wasn't a fan of that class...). How could I not? Every waking moment with him is dear to me, and I want to keep it that way.
His commencement ceremony was so much better than mine. Not only did mine start late, but it ran even later than late after factoring in the lateness of the commencement's commencement because Miss Victoria Kennedy didn't know that her speech dulled about 2/3 of the way - or an hour - into it. His ceremony was about an hour and a half, on time, and had a great speaker who quoted Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain to boot. Afterward, Sam, his mom, Russ and I went to Franklin's to celebrate.
The departmental ceremonies for women's studies, American studies, and English were all lumped together, so we only had to go to CSPAC the next day, where Sam got to stroll across that lovely stage twice in all his post-grad glory. I got the warm fuzzies. I really am so proud of you Sam.
BD's Mongolian Grill with his mom's side of the family! Where his uncle promptly got him drunk. No, seriously. He asked Sam what he was drinking - tequila. - What kind - you buyin'? - Yeah - ...alright...then I'm having Patron. So the bartender poured the equivalent of at least two shots. And then another two, on which Andy insisted, because "one for each major." We hadn't eaten yet. Sam was drunk for the next hour. Which was hilarious, as he was a complete space-cadet and kept moaning at me to stop laughing at him (to be fair, I was totally laughing at him).
Then came our eight month mensiversary <3
and decorating their tree with an insane amount of quirky ornaments (and watching A Christmas Story), and a full lunar eclipse! And the clouds held off for almost all of it! We drove out into a field where there was little ambient light. This is why I love rural suburbs - you can see the sky. I don't think I'd ever watched a lunar eclipse before. We took Alice with us, and she sat contentedly in the back seat. For as long as we could stand it, we stood up on our front seats and squeezed up against each other to stick our torsos through the sun roof. What a beautiful, peaceful night.
And it was back to Potomac to housesit.
We were only there for a couple of days before Christmas Eve, when I went home. While we were there, we finished recording our goofy little Christmas EP - X-Mas Greetings (<-- link). It was rough and silly and fun and full of love. Plus I got to sing "Baby, it's Cold Outside," which was kind-of a dream come true and I consider it an early Christmas gift from Sam =).
Thank goodness, my package from Etsy had come for Sam. I wasn't sure if it would get there on time. It was a silver book locket with a watch movement and a bee on the front. I got the idea during the semester when I wasn't there and he felt terribly lonely, and I felt awful that I wasn't helping. I'd planned on putting a picture of me in there, along with making an engraving. But everything sorta backfired. I couldn't engrave it because the main locket (not the accoutrements) was older and it was silver plated, and my old deskjet printer was definitely not going to let me print out anything good. So I took a craft marker - the smallest I could find - and wrote the words I wanted to engrave. It's a little cheesy and I felt pretty bad giving him a not-finished gift but I couldn't do anything more =/.
Coming back home started off rough...I came in to find that the tree had been decorated without me. I was heartbroken. My mom has this uncanny ability to make me feel awful, as she responded to my upset by telling me it was my fault for never being around.
We did get our pajamas though.
I don't think my mom has ever understood how much I care about them. Because I was an asshole in grade school and never showed it. And my mom's not the kind of person to change her mind. Sometimes I just get really sad about how she thinks of me, and how close we aren't versus how much I care about her.
But anyway.
Christmas was great. Woke up to stockings and gifts and happy people, and we opened them to the sounds of our X-Mas EP. I had a happy moment when, upon hearing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (it played out of order), my mom gasped and said, "that's you too!" And when she "awww"d when "Baby it's Cold Outside" began.
I got a bunch of little gifts that I needed, including warm hand and foot stuff, some shirts, little hair things, books!, and goood goood lotions. My parents spend an equal amount of money on each kid, and I prefer getting a lot of the the little necessary things to getting a couple of big things. Plus a Visa gift card (yay, I can pay for gas again).
Then on to my Aunt Lisa's. It was a great Christmas. Plenty of love, my Aunt Tracy made her pasta e fagioli vegetarian, and my mom made egg nog cupcakes (oh my god, they were so good). Selfish Santa had to be divided up differently, because all the kids are growing up, so the age limit was 25 and only my cousin Casie was put in with the "adults." All the better for me! No one knows what to get the tweens so there's always a lot of cash in the gifts. Of course, I didn't end up with any, lol. I got a piggy bank. Oh, the irony. Left with happy feelings, and went to Sam's house (with some stolen goodies) where Sam's mom gave me a bunch of gifts for which I felt a little bashful, it was unexpected and really sweet and thoughtful.
And Sam and I exchanged gifts. He fought tooth-and-nail to find me my favorite B&BW lotion - Vanilla Bean Noel, because it was nowhere to be found when he went to the mall. He also gave me a bunch of books I had been ogling at Barnes & Noble, and a couple of other sweet/fun things.
And, he gave me a locket too. I still can't believe that happened. He finished his though. I felt a little embarrassed but couldn't because his gift was just too perfect to feel bad about anything in the world. He put a picture of the two of us from my graduation on one side, and on the other, he glued a piece of the sidewalk at UMD where we started falling hopelessly in love. Needless to say, I love it. It's my favorite gift that I've ever received. He just turns me to mush...
The three of us ended off the night right. By eating way too many Christmas sweets and watching good movies (the George C. Scott A Christmas Carol and Scrooged).
Back to Potomac.
Sam started recording Kellen's band's album, which was...cacophonous.
Jordan and Mary got legally married in a civil ceremony. It's an involved subject, but we all genuinely hope for his happiness.
One night when we were driving back to Sam's house to hang out with Piper, we saw a freakin' meteor!! It looked huge! At first, we both thought someone had tossed up some fireworks or something, but then it broke down and we realized it was a huge fireball burning up in our atmosphere yay!
New years came before we knew it, which meant our partay! We made hoppin' john with collards, bought a baguette, and bought some store-made cornbread. It was, at various points in time: Bryn, Piper, Russ, Brett, his ladyfriend, Joan, her boyfriend Paul, Julia, her brother Miles, and Rob. I purposefully had a bit too much champagne and Belgian beer, had a few too many pretzel M&Ms, got a little silly, listened to Paul geek out about the house's architecture and Miles and Russ talk about time travel. That's now some of my favorite beer out of all that I've had, and I had a great time with some of Sam's friends whom I find pretty awesome. It was a really fun night.
New years day we actually had to wake up, to go to Sam's grandparents' house to belatedly celebrate Christmas with his mom's side of the family. They live fairly close to my parents' house actually, but 1.5 hours from Potomac. Had a nice dinner where everyone spent an hour talking about childhood stories. They gave me a huge vegetarian cookbook and some really great candles and some more things that I didn't at all expect and for which I, again, felt a little bashful. Then we played a game called Imagine If, in which I came in second place.
I just realized I may have mixed up some of the Christmas movies on some of the nights. Oh well. My memory, my journal.
We've since come home to Sam's house. And we've been surviving mostly off leftover Christmas goodies. Sam is actively rebuilding his Sleepwalkers, and I am setting my teeth to get a "real" job. Also Sam taught me some guitar chords two days ago and my fingers are still sensitive-numb.