I Measure Love In Coffee and Sugar

(my lovely presents of coffee, cookies and chocolate)

Just kidding, (mostly). This holiday season has been a lovely caffeinated one for me. I’ve gotten many, many gifts of coffee and chocolate (K has been absolved from all his sins of this past year for bringing me a BOX of very dark chocolate bars – a BOX as in 12 bars! The funny part is that they have a label on them that says ‘best if used by 09.05.07’ AS IF! I doubt these delightful morsels will last until New Years EVE! Of this year!)

While I’ve been tempted to drink coffee like a chain smoker with a carton of cigs, I have managed to control myself, if only due to my horrible reflux and the fact that caffeine makes it WORSE. If not for that, self control be damned! I wouldn’t sleep until next year sometime! Oh well, I suppose this just helps me to SAVOR my gifts that much more. But I digress (as I sip this fabulous cup of Irish Cream favored java), the holidays are a happening and I’m doing them!

Christmas happened and I worked. Yee-haw. It actually wasn’t that bad. I don’t mind working the holidays, especially a holiday that isn’t important to me. The people are generally pretty nice and I get HOLIDAY PAY, so it’s not to bad. This Christmas was pretty much like that, except I had been invited to a lovely dinner with a new and most fabulous friend, Rose and her family. Their dinner was set for 3 ish. Cool, I figured that since it was a holiday and I’d worked my ass off the day before, I’d be out of there by 1 pm or 2 pm at the latest. And I would have, except my last client was in the breast feeding class when I arrived. The class generally runs until 2:30pm and more often 3 pm. *sigh* I didn’t want to wait, I had PLANS. I explained the options to the grandma who was in the room and smiled politely, I told her nicely that I didn’t get paid if I wasn’t taking photos so I just couldn’t wait around for an hour or more. She smiled, she said she understood, she offered me money and she asked me sweetly to stay. I realized she was quite desperate for her first grand child’s photos to be made. I told her I’d make a call, I had a dinner to be at but if they were okay with me being late, I would wait and she did not have to pay me. She said that if I had a dinner to be at she understood and not to worry, but I could see and hear her disappointment and I’d already made up my mind that I would wait if Rose and her family didn’t mind. Rose and Mommy Rose didn’t mind at all so I went back to wait with grandma. We watched part of A Christmas Story and chatted until baby and mom arrived. The photos were fabulous and the family was so thankful. Then grandma tossed some money on my cart as I was leaving, I protested and she insisted very insistently that I TAKE it. So I did, I stuffed it in my pocket and went to put away my equipment, I figured it was $5 or $10 I’d use for gas money. As I uploaded the photos of the day, I took the money out of my ugly smock pocket and looked at it before putting in my purse. It wasn’t $5 or $10. It was $40. She didn’t have to pay me anything, them being so happy over the photos was enough for me.

So I left there and made it to Rose’s home and was maybe an hour late. I met Mommy Rose (whom I absolutely adore) and a cute friend of Rose’s. The meal was amazing (roast lamb!), the dessert was to die for (chocolate raspberry cake!) and the company was to fabulous.

I left at 7:30 pm, though I could have stayed all night and talked. I had a most interesting time figuring out how to get out of the parking lot of her apartments – I’m so ghetto I don’t know how to get out of a gated place. Doh. Eventually I did managed to get out and find my way home without getting lost (I had already done that getting there). I headed over to K’s brother’s house to meet him and the Little People and develop a lovely migraine (damn the weather!).