jeff visit!

Jeff's here! His flight was only delayed for half an hour, which is a good thing (at least 75% of my flights between Toronto and Philadelphia are either delayed or cancelled). He arrived at my office at about 5:30 pm, at which point I dragged him around to meet various people, including Leone. During the beer and pizza party after work, he ended up (surprise surprise) engrossed in conversation with Derek, another techie. :-)

When we got back to my apartment, I was surprised to find that Jeff didn't hate my decor after all. We talked about integrating my stuff here (yes, even my fish pillow) with our condo decor back in Toronto; Jeff is remarkably enthusiastic about this. Hm, should I be suspicious or happy? Has someone replaced my Jeff with another Jeff? Funny when I think back to the early days of our relationship, when he was the neat freak and I was the slob, and how we've both (perhaps without realizing it) subtly altered our own habits to become more like the other person's. Sometimes I catch myself shifting things on my desk at work to be all right angles with each other, and a pang goes through me as I realize how much I miss my husband.

But enough maudlin meanderings, he's here now. :-)

Within an hour of arriving, Jeff fixed a crooked stove burner that had been driving me crazy, and also discovered that my kitchen sink also has a disposal unit, something I hadn't noticed in the two months I've been here. (!)

I heated up some frozen bruschettas (they have frozen EVERYTHING here, more on this in a future blathering) but ended up burning them because I accidentally set the stove to "preheat" instead of "bake". AUGH. I could tell Jeff was trying very hard not to laugh because he could tell I was upset about starting off our weekend together in such an awkward way. We ended up having a salad and some leftover Chinese food from Leone's visit, and watching the first part of "The Green Mile", which I had on video. So it turned out to be a nice evening after all, in spite of the burned bruschettas. :-)

My harp teacher is away for five weeks (she's the harpist on some cruise ship), but I have a ton of homework. Right now, I'm learning "The Dark Isle", a very pretty piece by Iain McLaughlin (from "Music for the Heather Folk", a collection of Celtic harp solos arranged by Sue Richards). It's the first time I'm using 3- and 4-finger chords, and my fingers feel all stumbly and uncoordinated. When will I feel like a real harper?! My harper friends all tell me that my harp will tell me its name, but this hasn't happened yet...I can't blame my harp, really. I suspect she's waiting until I can play her strings without causing her pain. :-)

Today's blatherpic: my mom-in-law Ginny and my friend Brian, at Word on the Street.