Merry Grinchmas

Well, time for the thing you have all been waiting for with baited breath. Why, exactly, a person would bait their breath is unclear to me. What do you hope to catch? Flies? Chocolate very seldom comes to baited breath.*

Anyhow, after a troubling, stress-inducing start to the trip, I finally made it to Nashville. The Goose and I then drove to Orlando to spend a few days at Universal Studios as a celebration of the Goose graduating from the accelerated Nursing program as a member of the honor society and also sort of a second honeymoon.

I know the Goose loves me, because she even wore a hat modeled after my personality.

It was pretty cool. They had everything in Seuss Landing decorated for their production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas", including having people wandering the park with prosthetics to make them look like the Whos of Whoville and having various signs relating to it.


We wetre also able to see some superstars. For example, my pseudo-crush on Jessica Alba is well known (I really liked the show Dark Angel until it went stupid and kind of lost the heart that made it cool for a couple of seasons. It just became too moody and melodramatic. Her career since then...well...forgettable, with the possible exception of the first Fantastic Four movie in which she played Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman.)

So here is my sighting of Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, flying the Fantasticar.




Later, we got a picture of The Grinch, and also the lesser, green version who is modeled after me, albeit somewhat kinder and gentler.

The guy was hilarious. I told him how much I admired him before he was corrupted by the Whos. He played along with it.

And here is one of my favorite pics. The pure joy on the Goose's face does the cockles of my heart good. If only I could figure out what a cockle was.

All jokes aside...life is so much better with her by my side. It is really tearing me up to know the day we will actually be in the same house...same state...smurf, the same side of the Rockies! together is indeterminate.

Our original plan had us being together a month or two after graduation, but circumstances have so changed that now the date we will be reunited is pretty up in the air. Might be two months, might be another year.

And that is really hard to deal with.

The whole time she was in school, I knew the plan and the sacrifices were worthwhile. Short term pain for long-term gain, but the end of the separation was always a known quantity. Now it is up in the air. Grr.

Well, anyway, we went back to Nashville for her graduation. She does not fully comprehend how stunningly awesome she did in school. She was in the top percentage of her class, one of just a handful of students who made honor society, won leadership awards in addition to graduating from the accelerated program. Even students doing the longer, more traditional schedule did not do so well.


I am inordinately proud. I like to think our relationship is close enough that being apart added to the degree of difficulty, and she still crushed it like I knew she would.

So here is the "pinning", the recognition she is actually a nurse.

The happy couple. I wonder if people think it is weird that in virtually every picture of the two of us together, I lean my head on hers. But I just like being around her so much that on those rare occasions we are together, I want to be close to her, you know?

After the pinning was the actual graduation ceremony. Here she is actually getting the nicely packaged diploma.

And showing it off.

During the commencement, the valedictorian was a guy from Africa who spoke no English when he started at Belmont. To finance school, his family sold 20 cows and finances meant they were able to attend.

His speech was nice...a story of sacrifice to get an education, of separation from loved ones for a time to acquire improved opportunities in the future.

He was very charismatic and received a standing ovation. I participated in such, more to fit in than because I felt moved. I recognized at the time he got it more for his charisma than content, though the content was decent. His closing, tear-fueled, heavily accented "Do great things! Do great things! Do...great things!" is exactly what makes me a poor target for such things.

It was impassioned, emotional, and empty.

This is not a shot at him. That works for a lot of people. I am not one of them. I do not get overly emotional and am more likely to respond to logical, well-thought out words than emotional but empty phrases.

While I am giving credit, I should pass some on to her Mom and step Dad. They provided a great deal of support and assistance in various ways as well, and take, if anything, even MORE pride in her scholastic accomplishments than I do.

1...2...3....

AAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Anyway, it was a wonderful trip that was a lot of fun.

It also makes the time apart that much more difficult. I am sure I sound like a broken record and people get tired of my whining, but I miss her so. Even if as I was typing this, she was sitting in the other room watching some tv show that I dislike...it would be so much better than her sitting a 12 or 14 hour drive away, you know?

According to Genesis, the reason God created woman was it was not good for man to be alone.

Certainly true in my case. I miss being able to share some happy moment or other with her. She softens me. She enhances my enjoyment of various things.

Like, today I made cookies. These cookies are candidates for worst cookies in history. I do not know if I put in too much salt or the Vanilla Extract went bad or what, but they are...well, not inedible, but not saliva inducing.

If she were here it would be funny. She is not, so it is irritating. As is the lousy taste of the tacos. Guess the crockpot day-long marinating was not as good an idea as I thought.

Grr.

Anyway, the trip was great, the separation is not, but it will all be worth it soon.

I think.

* Yes, I know the correct spelling. But the joke dies if I do, so take the bait, as it were.