"I Thought You Were Dead...?"

Friday August 25th I packed up and headed to Rochester for my first real vacation since Christmas (I don't consider taking a Saturday off here and there a vacation). The plan was to arrive in Rochester around 9:30 on Friday night and head off to the bar to celebrate the 25th birthday of one of my closest friends, Phil. However, because of problems with the weather (I heard a tornado touched down in Manhattan), issues with the plane, and a long wait on the runway, I didn't get home until more like 2am. Sorry Phil! The good news was that they accidentally gave me two packets of animal crackers on the plane.

The next day was the wedding of my two good friends from high school, Joe and Sarah. The wedding was beautiful. I got to see many of my good friends and their families. The ceremony was at a church I used to occasionally attend growing up. I helped April woman the guestbook. The reception was at the Daisy Flour Mill, which I found out was the site of Sarah and Joe's first date where John and I went to dinner with them before Joe and John's senior prom. There were a lot of funny stories from the wedding...one of our friends didn't realize that "Your Name and Guest" on the invitation meant that a guest was optional, so he brought his sister and later requested that she be relocated to a different table (how kind of him). April bought a disposable camera that took black and white photos. We decided that the entire roll needed to be spent on "artistic" shots. This would later come to mean that no one was allowed to look directly at the camera. At the beginning of the reception I introduced myself to some of John's (of aforementioned prom fame) college friends. I got a few shocked looks and then a few of them said in unison, "I thought you were dead." Apparently that is the answer that John gave them when they asked him who the girl in the prom picture with him was. Later on I asked John about his ex-girlfriend of two years in college and his response was, surprise surprise, "She's dead." I never said my friends were mature. Of course there were people there that weren't my favorites back in the day. One such person kept asking me probing questions and I found myself using the phrase "Oh I love it" in reference to grad school, NYC, being single, blah blah blah. I don't know why I feel the need to make people think that my life is so fantastic. Ah well, she was being pretty self-righteous so I don't feel too bad about it. I drank a lot, danced a lot, and fell asleep in full hair and makeup on April's couch for a few hours before waking up bright and early the next morning to drive home and get ready for our week in the Adirondacks.

Sunday morning my parents, my aunt and uncle, April and myself left for the mountains. We stayed in a cottage we rented that turned out to be so much nicer than it looked online. The cottage was on a hill overlooking Star Lake. Down the hill was a bridge out to our own private island with a firepit, a canoe, a paddleboat and a motorized deck boat. Our puppy Charlie came as well (it's strange to think of him as a puppy because he already weighs 80 lbs). The week was spent canoeing, hiking, watching the sunsets, sitting around the fire talking and playing lots of Yahtzee. It was nice to be away from TV, cell phones and computers for a whole week.

We drove back to Rochester on Saturday, a day earlier than expected, because we were trying to beat the rain from Ernesto. Saturday night I went out with John and April. It was an interesting night to say the least, especially when we found out that John had a stalker. Just like after Sarah and Aaron's wedding, going home made me miss my friends. I'm so thankful that April and I get to see as much of each other as we do. Only a few more months until Thanksgiving! Sunday night when I got back to Manhattan, I had a strange feeling for a few hours that I couldn't put my finger on. I finally realized that it was loneliness. For the past week and a half I had been around people for 24 hours a day and now I was sitting in my quiet apartment in silence. It felt nice, but also kind of sad. That feeling was completely gone when I got home from work last night. It was nice to relax in peace.
I'll figure out something with posting pics, because there are some really nice ones.