my Thanksgiving weekend as it happened

Thursday: Woken by brother, then dragged bleary and half-awake to watch footage of him jumping out of perfectly good airplane last Sunday. Mutter interested syllables, then try to mean them when he starts dialing phone numbers to put me on the list for Saturday's group jump, on which my mother is already signed up. Then ate Thanksgiving dinner. Twice. Oy.

Friday: Slept in after going to bed around 11 (that's a.m.) and so avoided any Black Friday shenanigans besides Circuit City, where my mom saw fit to, in the spirit of the season, spring for the new Franz Ferdinand CD and the box set of Harry Potter DVDs. [heart] Then, something unprecedented - I had bad coffee at Starbucks. Suppose that's what I get for straying from the righteous path of The Gingerbread Latte, but still. Quite a shock to my world view. But an encore viewing of The Incredibles went far to assuage that wrong.

Saturday: Let me sum up:



Me (eyes are not closed, for the record) and jumpmaster!Mike plus photographer!Dan, about 13,500 feet in the air, tumbling toward the mottled greens of Central Florida at near-120 mph speed. Then there was the interminable wait at The Clock for our lunch about eight hours after we got out of bed - none of us having eaten breakfast of course - then passing out for about three hours on the living room sofa. Woke up to catch the end of Love Actually - did you know Alan Rickman's character is named Harry? *snerk* Also, the movie has my trifecta of Englishmen. *drools a little* Had yet more leftovers, this time with previously undiscovered pecan pie remnants, wrote something (*choirs of angels sing*), then read Harry/Snape fic until my eyes burned (and can I tell you how fast one's standards lower once one comes to favor a pairing), which took about nine hours, bringing us to...

Sunday: Got out of Dodge around 4:30 p.m. Got into Gainesville at 2 a.m. You do the horrifying math, then snicker at the Turnpike plaza restrooms being declared unisex, marvel at how walkingshadow and I lived to tell the harrowing tale of playing five games of Uno in traffic, praise the goodness of Godiva truffles and oh, hello, that's 43 degrees of winter just for us upon arrival.

yes, it's easy now

Ryan One-of-Three came back to me! He was at work tonight, something I didn't expect until next week. Also, he brought the funny: "I stood five feet from the Pope. I got a picture of him blessing me. I had, like, a Catholic moment." *g* Dork.

In other news, I asked to resubmit my project proposal for the Online Comm final project, which my professor (and can I tell you about the new tingle along happy little nerve endings that word conjures?) not only allowed (four days before the due date) but approved. And I quote: "Go for it, [Jules]. I like the concept." It being a glorified Harry Potter conspiracy theory thing, which I dressed up in somewhat valid-sounding terms in my e-mail but really, there's only so many big words and complicated syntax one can spin that sort of a concept with. But apparently, it was enough for him, and now I really need to get going on that wall-o-Post-Its, because just laying it out on paper has proven thoroughly impossible. Not that I know where to even begin.

I'm on a bad coffee streak. A thoroughly enjoyable gyro was followed by a sickeningly sweet pumpkin chai latte at Java City. But today was one of those days when coffee wasn't just coffee, it was LIFE, and walkingshadow is always good meal company. Also, Staci has agreed to share my raw cookie dough shame, and we're all set to watch The Core for Roommate Night, which, though arguably the worst film I've ever seen, was also possibly the most fun I've ever had thanks to one.