Hot in ... Boise?

OK, so my lovely wonderful Mr. J left on February 4.

Today is April 8. (Wow ... more than 2 months?!?)

As I told him the other day, I've become quite adept at being a single married woman. Doing my work. Going out for dinner or drinks with friends. Dogsitting where the need arised (arose?). Although I can admittedly say, once again: Thank you to the heavens for Skype, texting, and email. This excursion of his to the far-northern reaches of Africa would have been a whole different story without the more-than-occasional catch-ups via modern-day technology. But still ... I'm getting sort of into my routine. Work, work, work. Visit with friends. Meet for a coffee here, a lunch there, a hike over there, and a drink over yonder ... not to mention the walks that The Dog will occasionally deign to accompany me on ... plus the never-ending supply of instant streaming Netflix (hello, BBC period dramas!).

But tonight, another recently engaged friend was a "bachelorette" for the night because her fiance (who texted about 10 times during the evening) was out of town for the weekend, and she realized she wanted to be single again--like it was some novel thing. I guess that after being engaged for 3 months, 2 nights alone was living it up. But seriously, I do jest. I love her and her fiance and they are too damn cute together, and I think it's the most fantastic thing that they feel this way about each other. But, also, it was fun to have someone else join in my almost-"married singledom" for a night.

And what did we do (ahem ... it may be apparent, at least in part, from my rambling)?

Well, we invited two legitimately single friends to her house and cooked up some amazing pizza (which she apologized for just "throwing together with whatever she had in her fridge" ... oh, you know ... leeks and feta and artichoke hearts and sausage ........ thank God it wasn't at my house, as it would have been wilted carrots and celery, some peanut butter, and tuna), and commenced to watch the first 6 or 7 episodes of Hot in Cleveland (thanks to instant Netflix).

Now, we will all probably admit tomorrow, when our red-wine, whipped-cream-vodka-flavored drinks wear off (not mixed all together, thank you very much), that this is a funny, mildly raunchy sit-com that is kind of like the 40+-plus woman's answer to Three and a Half Men's horrid tits and ass jokes of late ... well, at least of late until Charlie got kicked off the show. But really, Betty White kicks ass! And besides, you get three over-40-year-olds and one mid-break-up-30+-year-old a bit tipsy, a bit full on pizza and popcorn, and My God, was it the perfect girls' night out? Of course, I was thinking the whole time, "This is hilarious now, because we can relate to the 30-year-old jokes and the 40-year-old jokes," but I can so see myself laughing hysterically at the 80-year-old jokes in 40 years' time (really, Betty White rocks!)

I contemplated deleting this post or at least saving it until the caramel-flavored-vodka and soda drinks wore off. But, whatever. This is me, and this is my life ... come what may (and, besides, May is looking like a trip with Mr. J to Italy, Greece, and Turkey, so who am I to complain? I just need to get about 90 hours of editing work done between now and the time I head out the door in 15 days). So, huh.

Yeah ... didn't you miss me??