So all went as planned, and I returned to Oakland's lovely Bay-side airport Tuesday, around noonish. Malaya was there to meet me by the baggage claim, and began hopping up and down in eagerness as soon as she caught sight of me walking down the hallway past the security checkpoint area. Yes, it was very cute. We hugged for about a minute, both very glad to see each other after nearly a week apart. Once my luggage rolled around we took off, drove straight home, unpacked, talked some more, and just generally spent some very nice quality alone time.
We'd talked on the phone several times while I was in Death Valley, but I was going to bed early there and we couldn't get too deep into conversation with me in a hotel room with my mom and stepdad. At least not too deep with the lovey-dovey talk; not that my mom or stepdad would have objected or minded. They're therapists, and painfully open about that sort of relationship stuff.
The other inconvenience on our conversations were the phones, since there was cell service in DV, but only just. I got no signal, but was in some sort of extended roaming coverage that was analogue only. So no text messages, and with the average call lasting about 30 seconds before a disconnect, I began to miss the days of the Pony Express. We tried talking the first night I was there, soon realized it wasn't going to happen, and then required 4 more calls until we could stay on long enough for me to give her the damn phone number to the hotel, and our room number.
I'll talk a great deal more about DV tomorrow, hopefully, when I start going through the photos, but it was a great vacation in a great place, and I got along fine with the parental units, and there was good hiking and rock climbing and such, and aside from feeling rather dessicated by the dry desert air, I'm none the worse for wear. Plus I broke in my hiking boots in excellent fashion.
Well... actually my left knee is sore, with ligaments that feel slightly stretched by some heavy exertion and slight hyper-extension on missteps over rocky paths. I can't sit with it straight out in front of me and the heel on the floor, for the patella feeling like it's subluxing, or something equally pop-out-of-place-y. But it's okay for walking and such. My left wrist is pretty sore too, and it hurts to bend it all the way down or up. Oddly, I have no idea why the wrist is sore; I never fell or banged it into anything, or carried anything heavy in that hand, or etc.
Largely for those reasons, I wasn't real aggrieved to miss Kali class on Tuesday night, in preference for spending time with Malaya. It was her birthday on Monday, and while I missed it, the flower arrangement and Happy Birthday teddy bear I ordered for her did arrive. At her work, no less, to give her a nice boost while she toiled, and she loved them, and the thought behind it. It's strange to say, but it's actually very helpful that the vast majority of men (usually including myself) are such horrible people, in terms of being thoughtful about the needs of others. Women actually care about other people, or at least they care about preserving the illusion that they care about other poeple, so they send thank you cards and remember anniversaries and birthdays and such. Men don't care and men forget, and when my gender does manage to remember, the receipent is lucky to get a card with a hastily-scrawled signature and maybe a gift cert to Blockbuster. So compared to that, me ordering 1-800-FLOWERS for Malaya on her birthday was like a fricking lottery win.
I gave her a few other presents on Tuesday; a package of various small souvenirs from DV, including a few nice rocks, a hunk of salt from the "replenished every time it rains" salt flats (collected in direct violation of National Park Rules!), a t-shirt with a lizard on it that's got bones that can only be seen when they're glowing in the dark, a fridge magnet with a cow skull and park logo, a hematite key chain fob, and more. All trinkets basically, but since I had also gotten a ring made while in San Diego some months ago, and I managed to give her that over dinner at Todai (free on your birthday, full price and not even a waiter-mangled song the day after), she was pretty happy with her birthday haul. The ring will be easier to picture than describe, but it's white gold with two stones that look almost exactly like a small sapphire and a small emerald, and it's very shiny and sleek. It's even got our names engraved on it, in tasteful and small letters, and as is usually the case with presents to women, she was much more interested in the meaning behind it and the fact that I thought enough to make it up in advance than the utility or dollar value or the other factors that men usually use to gauge the quality of our (usually undeserved) presents.
And no, we're not married now, or engaged, but we're promised, or something like that, and while nothing has changed in our relationship, she liked the present and the sorta-public declaration of my affections and intentions, and I liked making her happy with those things.
Other events on the birthday fun included a lunch-time dessert at Ghiradelli's (hot fudge brownie sundae!) over in Walnut Creek, window shopping and store-entering to escape the quite wet and chilly weather in laughably bougie and overpriced Walnut Creek, several stops at other stores, and much wandering around the mall while we waited for Todai to open for dinner at 5:30. There was even more quality alone time and TV-viewing, and snack-eating, and cat-tormenting, and back-rub-trading later during the evening, and once I finish typing this in I'm going to dive into bed and snuggle up behind my love.
Malaya proclaimed it the best birthday ever, and while I don't think I really did that much, or as much as she deserved, I had a good time and I'm happy she enjoyed it. And I'm glad to be back home, and after some mindless clicking tonight, while vegging out after Malaya hopped into bed, I'm already 90% caught up on my surfing. Fresh from a vacation and very aware of how much less fiction progress I've made (less than I should/could have) over the last two years, I'm going to try and make some changes in my life. I didn't miss most of my time-wasting activities during the last few days when they weren't available, so I'm going to try and not slide back into them now. That mainly means none or much less pointless online gaming, far less time-wasting surfing, and less mindless TV-watching. After all, it's not like I really care if I get a score in the top 25 driving
Funky Truck 3, or give a damn that Jessica Simpson and her himbo finally admitted
they were divorcing. Right?
Anyway, Wednesday is upon me, but with Malaya off at work all day I am planning to go through the photos from DV and getting at least a good start on some sort of vacation page from that event. I'd also still like to do some photos and a report about BlizCon, a month and a major US holiday late or not, and there's plenty of other blog work and some real life errands to do before Malaya gets home in the evening and we head over to the gym. And in a perfect, or at least above-average world, all of that will get done in the afternoon, freeing up my evening to spend some time with Malaya, and then get back into the fiction. I can't see finishing the fantasy novel(s) this year, as I'd hoped, but I can get at least the rough draft done during January. It would be nice to one day be able to afford more than a promise ring, after all.
