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Back home again, and I’m doing my typical early-rise on Saturday morning. I’ve left Jon tucked into bed, and it’s just me and the dogs. Trinity is with her father this weekend. Our friends Shawn and Cathy were coming up from out of state but their babysitter has fallen quite ill, as in hospitalized, so they can’t get away. Their sitter is also their nephew, so a double blow. Our best wishes and prayers his way for a speedy recovery. They have the worst luck with sitters, though not usually this serious. (Heard that he’s out of hospital and is going to be okay.)

Some people that see us every day and know how much work we have to do, urged us not to plan all the social stuff this month. They said, the trip to England, and now Laurell’s sick, and there’s the family vacation at the end of the month; conserve yourself. I have to say as we got on the plane to visit Wendi and Daven, and I was voiceless on doctor’s orders, I was beginning to wonder if I had bitten off more than I could chew. Jon and I were on antibiotics, so no longer contagious, but the sinus infection had settled in my throat and my doctor put me on voice rest. This just before we go down to visit out of state friends. How much visiting could a silent me do? I had a pad of paper and a pen, but writing all my comments was getting laborious here at home. How frustrating was it going to be on the visit? As it turned out pretty frustrating. Daven picked us up at the airport, and all I could do was hug him, and leave the men to talk. Now Jonathon and Daven are much more talkative than your usual guys, but even they are not as chatty as girls, and the only girl couldn’t talk. As we gathered the luggage and they talked, and I thought of about a half a dozen things to add to the conversation and could not; I began to realize just how frustrating it was going to be. I had warned both our friends that I was stealth Laurell, so it wasn’t like they hadn’t been warned, but wow, I hadn’t been prepared for just how weird it was going to feel, to simply have to listen and scribble things down on paper. I also didn’t want to distract Daven, who was driving ,with my notes. I finally held them up for Jonathon to read out loud.

But even unable to utter a word, it was a wonderful visit. (I was able to talk a little on the very last day, of course.) Things we got to do on the visit: throw knives and an axe in the back yard at the target Daven had put up; work, since both he and Wendi had work they had to do during the day and Jon and I had deadlines that never seem to go away, we actually all hunkered down on our individual machines and worked; I actually came up with the opening for the next Merry book, I think it’s my third try, but this one may stick; talked, lot’s (okay I wrote lot’s) Wendi said it was like IM-ing, but she could knit; Wendi showed us some of the weirdest knitting patterns on the computer like Daleks, Cuthulu baklavas, demons, (Yes there is more than one reason that Wendi is our friend.) scarves that look like bacon, gloves that make your hands look like Deep Ones fishy claws, slippers from killer bunnies to musk ox, and beautiful spider web shawls, delicate things that I would have said were lace and not knitted at all. It’s inspired Jon to want to know how to knit, he is the crafty one of the two of us. Wendi got to lace me into corsets. That’s there other job, selling corsets. I came home with an under the breast waist-cincher that makes me look verry tiny. I mean I’m not large, but, wow. Jon was very pleased. We went out to a wonderful dinner with two more of their friends that we had met before but not really gotten a chance to talk to at length; Dan and Heather. We all went to a Brazilian meat bar, or something like that. Now I’m pretty sure I blogged about the awful Brazilian restaurant that we went to in Atlanta, and it was so bad that we weren’t sure we’d ever go back to a simular restaurant. But Daven and Wendi assured us this place was great, and we trust them, so off we all went. We actually rode the underground to meet up with Heather and Dan. It was very shades of London, being back on the underground.

The Fogo De Chão really was wonderful. The meat was as good there as it had been bad in Atlanta. The beef was especially good, though others liked the bacon wrapped chicken, or the bone-in chicken, or the parmesan encrusted pork (that really was very good but I tasted it too late in the meal and could not do it justice). I also wanted to save room for the deserts and after dinner drinks. I’d already had salad and veggies in an attempt to be good. This is not the restaurant to come to unless you are on serious Atkins, and even then flee the deserts. But we didn’t want to flee, we were all in the mood to celebrate. Good food, good company, and it was the kind of night to say, yes I’ll look at the desert and drink menu. We started with drinks. Wendi and I got a very sweet Icewine. It’s one of the few things she and I are girlie about, we like sweet drinks, but hey I like Guinness, too. But it wasn’t a night for Guinness. It was a night for the spice and honey infused scotch that Daven and Heather got. Daven let me have a sip, and the entire table thought the face I made was very cute. Ugh, eighty proof, no amount of sweet can hide that much alcohol from my taste buds. Yeech. Jon ordered a glass of Lemoncello (another sweet liqueur)  and Dan had Grappa. (which is Greek for engine cleaner)  We sipped our drinks and waited for the deserts we’d ordered to arrive. What I’d forgotten about drinking and me is that it ups my emotions, or can. Now a sweet desert wine makes me happier if I’m happy, but it simply amplifies any emotion, not just the positive ones. Jon’s phone binged and he looked automatically, just the sound he made let me know it was not good news. One of those deadlines had given us a reply and it wasn’t the reply we wanted. I went from mellow to furious in the blink of an eye. That warm, happy buzz went straight to hot, unhappy rage. I knew what was happening, wine amplifies emotion for me, other things don’t. I can drink hard cider and some beers and ales and just get buzzed, wine is iffier for me. Knowing why I was feeling so awful helped me get it under control, but I learned a lesson in that moment. Jon has got to turn his phone off. We weren’t on a business trip, and at that moment we weren’t working, we were having fun, and fun shouldn’t involve being hunted down by technology. Daven refuses to have a phone that can do internet and stuff for that very reason. He’s the only techie I know that doesn’t have an uber phone, but this last visit I understood his reasoning. We have to have the tech, but I’ve told Jon that when we’re out having fun either turn it off or don’t check it, because it ruins my mood. Jon is better able to keep it all even-keeled, but as he said last night, my moods are more mercurial than his; ain’t that the truth.

I got my mood under control somewhat, but I was done with the Icewine. It was amazingly good, but I couldn’t afford the mood alternating. Wendi was happy to add mine to hers, so it didn’t go to waste. The deserts came and Jon and I were very glad that we’d decided to share. The sweets were huge. Three of us had gotten the chocolate molten cake with ice cream, and there was key lime pie, cheesecake, and Crème Brûlé. I have to say that the molten chocolate-y goodness went far in lightening my mood. Happy childhood is never far behind when cake is involved.

At one point the three of us girls had to visit the lady’s room. We were all a little warm and happy by this point, maybe Wendi and Heather a little more than me, but then I was on my way to an angry drunk so I had to stop sooner. The bathroom was up a long flight of stairs, and we came back down a little giggly, a gentleman from one of the other tables was coming up as we were coming down. he looked up, and did one of those double takes, eyes flicking through all three so us, but I think in the end staying on Wendi and Heather. Did I mention that they’re both over six feet tall with large blue eyes, and as curvy to their size as I am to mine, maybe curvyer? Did I not mention that before? My bad. The businessman did that wonderful double take and set us all to laughing as we made our way down the stairs. The men asked what was so funny, but somethings are hard to explain and make them funny, so we didn’t try.

The walk back to the tube station was long enough it helped clear our heads, it helped that it had turned cold. The day before we’d been able to throw sharp objects in our t-shirts in the yard, but the next day turned cold enough for light sweaters, not that we brought any, but you get the point. Cold air and walking always help move the liquor through the system.

We got up the next day feeling bright and shiny, none the worse for wear actually, and better for some good food. My voice was back and I was the most relaxed I’d been in weeks. Yes, it was another trip in a month of many trips, but this was a trip we chose to make. This was a destination and people that we wanted to visit just because they are our friends, and that makes all the difference. I said when we got on the plane that I was wondering if I should have listened to the doom sayer’s, about how one more trip was too much this month, but when we got ready to come home I knew that they were wrong, because I felt better: emotionally, physically, and every which way. Jon, too. The work is sort of constant, well the fun needs to be more of a constant, too.

I’m pretty sure I wrote in this blog earlier that my well of creativity was running dry. I was just using myself up, and that I needed to find things that helped refill those waters. This extra trip that some weren’t sure I should take, seems to have been exactly what the doctor ordered.