Houseguest week

I think my alcohol consumption in the last week was roughly equal to my alcohol consumption in the first five months of this year.  Yikes!

We had a friend visiting for the week and we had so much fun with her, but yow, I definitely drank a lot more than usual.  We went out to eat every night except one (Tuesday night she did the track meet with us, and then we had leftovers at home afterward).

She and I went to law school together (she was a year ahead of me, but we knew each other through a mutual good friend).  After graduation, we each went to work in separate cities, but within a year or two of when I graduated, she and her then-husband moved to Dallas and she came to work at the same firm where I worked. 

We lived near each other and we spent tons of time together, much of it at work, doing the typical big firm thing, we both pulled tons of all-nighters, or past-midnighters.  One particular routine (sad in retrospect) was that if it looked like we both had a late night ahead, we'd sometimes order dinner together from the same place and make plans to meet in the restroom on our floor at 10:00.  And without fail, as crazy busy as we were, we'd meet at 10, change into yoga clothes for working late, and brush our teeth and wash our faces before going back to our desks.  Having just a tiny little break and a chance to commiserate made it feel so much better that oddly, neither of us complained and in fact continued to work like that for years.  And go figure, I stayed single and she got divorced.  I could write an entire book on how big firm life can warp you and how unhealthy it is. 

Now, she lives in DC and works for the government and was able to manage a work-related trip here.  She came on Monday and stayed until Saturday night.  I was so happy to get the time together.  After spending so much time together for so long, it was hard for me when she moved so far away.  And it's worse because I suck at calling people or sending personal "catch up" emails, so while we were never fully out of touch, I felt like we were missing out on parts of each other's lives.  A week together was such a gift. 

We spent much of the week hitting up old favorite places and showing her a few of our new favorites. 

Monday night, we walked to a Mexican restaurant that is I think becoming a chain outside of Texas now (Chuy's, anyone have it not in Texas?). 

Tuesday night was the track meet, which was lots of fun.  I always think of her as being faster than me, mostly because she has been running longer than me and qualified for Boston years before I did, back when it still seemed thoroughly outside the realm of possibility.  She's taken some time off lately for a variety of reasons, but yeah, she's still an amazing runner.  She ran cautiously at the track meet and completely smoked me in the 100 and 200, and we ran pretty close together for the 800 and the 1500. 

Wednesday night was a girls night with another friend of ours from the firm where we all worked.  She used to live here in Dallas and we were really close (her son is my godson), but they've moved out to a very, very, very distant suburb so I don't get to see her anywhere near as much as I'd like anymore.  So it was a fun night of catching up. 

Back when all three of us were working at the firm (they were both married), my favorite place to get a drink and feel like I was being social (since unlike them, I was going home to an empty house) was to go to a lovely restaurant right by my house.  Many times I'd get friends to meet me there, and I actually had my 30th birthday at the chef's table there, so of course we were back when she was visiting this past week.

It was funny, I went running as usual Thursday morning and I told my running buddy, CW, that my friend had plans with her old boss to meet for dinner that night and I was kind of glad I was off the hook.  I love spending every minute with her, but I was kind of ready for a meal at home and an alcohol-free night.  I came home from my run and my friend gave me the news -- she'd rescheduled with her old boss for lunch since her old boss was heading out of town that afternoon, so we were on for dinner again.  (Nervous smile.)  We ended up at my favorite restaurant that night, a tapas place we can walk to.  Tapas is particularly nice with a fellow vegetarian.  And on the walk home, we stopped at the restaurant where I used to drink. 

I have always gotten the same cocktail there.  So I started with one of them.  And somehow seemlessly transitioned to something else.  When I crawled into bed after midnight, where hubby was sleeping soundly, I woke him up to tell him I had a new favorite drink.  "It's called 'vodka... on the rocks'!"  Is it possible for him to roll his eyes without opening them?  Haha.  Yikes. 

My usual cocktail:

The vodka:

But I managed to get up and go to boot camp a few hours later nonetheless, but there was a lot of time leaning over a railing and contemplating whether I'd feel better if I just got sick.

Friday night was a walk through the park, another restaurant (a fun purple cocktail), our local art museum, and then back to the same bar, this time with hubby joining us for the whole night.

Walking through Klyde Warren Park: 


My prinkly in pink cocktail at Stephen Pyles (didn't photograph the second one since, second verse, same as the first!): 

At the art museum, something interesting: 

And the description:

The main reason we went to the art museum was a special exhibit they had on Nur, light in Islamic art:

Then we just decided to wander the rest of the art museum: 

Something else interesting:

A description of what you're seeing:

And back at Abacus, this was a mojito, not sure where in the order it fit: 

And a big glass of "vodka... on the rocks": 

Saturday was sweating out a lot of the alcohol at a 90 minute Bikram class, then breakfast with another firm from the firm. I was wondering how that breakfast would go since they both came to our wedding in Italy separately and left as a couple for a year or two. It seemed like very shortly after they stopped dating, he got back together with an ex and within about two minutes got married and had a baby. Anyway, I should have guessed since they both wanted to see each other that it would be great and easy and fun all catching up together. I think it helps that they're both in good places now.

Not sure how any of them would feel about having their faces on a blog...: 

 

Saturday afternoon's highlights were shopping for cowboy boots and coffee with another friend we'd worked with, before we took her to the airport.

The house has felt really empty since she left, kind of a bummer.

But exciting travels in store for us this week, have to write about that later. Off to work now...