t-22.5 hours

Still holding fast here on the homefront. My cousin St offered sage advise as an apprentice sommelier to choose the wine for tonight’s festivities. I had asked for a recommendation for white in the $40 range, which turned into a 20 minute conversation on a cell phone in the liquor store about regions and methods and all kinds of other stuff. We ended up with a French Chablis (Premier Cru). It’s nice, but I know nothing of wine. He said, near the end of the conversation, that he didn’t often buy $40 bottles of wine for pure drinking pleasure, but that he’d never had such an occasion. Come to think of it… it seems odd that an apprentice sommelier hasn’t drank a $40 bottle of wine for pleasure.

Today was pretty low key. Yesterday M found out that he had to have his kit packed for transport, he was expecting to have until Monday to do so. So while I was out walking, he was packing frantically. So today saw him cleaning up the back room (!!!), and packing the bag that will accompany him on the service flight.
I headed into town to grab sushi (which didn’t happen), the wine, and some munchies.

While waiting at a light backed up due to construction, I saw some guys my age holding a sign saying “traveling, broke & hungry, will accept anything you offer”. I had a bag of cookies in my car and as I was rooting around the bag to get them out, the light changed and traffic started moving. I didn’t have time to get the bag of cookies or my window open to give the bag to these two guys before I had to pull ahead. I have felt bad ever since, thinking I should have done more to help them out.

I don’t know how much longer this ‘strength’ can hold up. I think things and I can feel the tears welling up. I force it back down, but then the next time I feel it welling up, it takes so much more effort to force it back down. Eventually I’ll let the dam break, but for the time being…

I got a sneak peek from our photographer yesterday. The photos are amazing! She’s only sent 8 or so, but they’re amazing and I can’t wait to see the rest of the set!

Here’s something. I don’t need people “awwww”ing and “poor you”ing at me because my partner’s going overseas. I’ve thought of the worst that can happen. Hell, M and I have discussed contingency plans for the worst that can happen. I don’t need, when waiting to see him off, anyone calling me saying “boo hoo, you must be so sad”. Yes, I’m sad. Yes, I’ll miss him. Yes, I’m worried for his safety. But this is his job,  this is the life that I’ve chosen with him. And this is where I’ll be waiting for him upon his safe return.

Now, just to focus on not holding my breath for the next 3 months.

Comon’ HLTA!

h&v

so good!

Wow. The last 24 hours have been… pretty spectacular. Home-coming is always great because it’s just an eye-opening reminder of how amazing I think M is. I’m sure anything I say will be written off as silly girl-emotions, but I’ve never been so consistently in awe of my partner as I am M.

Of course, something I haven’t written about was M’s proclivity of talking non-stop for hours after he returns from somewhere. This time, hilariously, he told me to tell him to stop, since his mother had just spent 5 days talking at him, non-stop. He went on about how annoying this habit was, and that he understands that he does the same. I told him that it’s part of the home-coming process, and that I love his non-stop chatter and ranting. And even his caveat didn’t stop the rapid-fire commentary on his week in the home province.

We stayed at the Fairmont, in their “gold level” accommodations, as with a military discount it didn’t make sense to take a standard king room. There were all kinds of swanky amenities that went along with it, but after the fucking that occurred, we weren’t inclined to put our clothes back on to partake in the cocktails-til-11pm, for example.
Fortunately, we DID partake in the stellar “Deluxe Continental” breakfast offered to Gold guests. Holy crap was it amazing – scrambled eggs with cheese and scallions, fresh delicious croissants, teensy ketchup bottles, cut up fruit, yogurt, tomatoes and cucumber with bocconcini and basil… the list goes on.
Checkout was noon, but after slowly getting ready, watching some clips on YouTube, and calling valet (!!!!)  to take our stuff to the car, we were out of the room just after 11am.

We wandered around downtown for an hour or so waiting for our appointment with the photographer. After some directional issues, we met up on a street corner in our preferred neighbourhood.  We discussed a little bit of what we were looking for. We’d said “nothing romantic”, but I guess we really meant nothing forced, or cheesy. We found a great doorway to a warehouse and used that for the first few shots, and then things just started to flow a little better from there. Apparently kissing was M’s favourite shot to take, because in almost every pose he kissed me. The photographer apparently noted M’s habit of brushing the hair off my face, and tried to use that in a few shots. We got some great pics at the riverfront, some against a wall of graffiti, in front of a parkade, on a construction site… she really took my comment that we are an “urban-style” couple seriously.
It was a lot of fun, and only took about 2 hours for the full shoot.

Afterwards, we were famished and roasting in the strange heat of late-September. We got the car out of valet, and drove to the italian restaurant across the river. We split some garlic/cheese bread and I had gnocchi with zucchini and goat cheese, and M had a meat lasagna. We had our usual entertainment of trashy people punching each other out on the street corner, and the fire trucks blasting out of the station across the road. Not to mention “the guy in the jacket” who was stoned off his face trying to get in the out door of the patio we were sitting on. Hah. The Capital is so trashy.

Afterwards we went to the Mall, where M spent $150 on books. I got another Post Secret book, and two novels. If anyone wants to send ME a care package, I’ll take your used books. My plan is to hibernate in alternate realities for the next 6 months, whilst sitting on a stationary bike or walking on a treadmill. Fuck the winter!!

Ahem. So after some major frustrations and minor shopping, and when the sun was low enough in the sky as to not blind us, we headed home.
We’ve been geeking out on our respective laptops since. And it’s quickly coming up on bed time.

h&v