A week apart and away.

Beef did the greatest thing! He set up Ray's pool house as a little bungalow for us to live in all last week. I was so impressed with him. He got tea candles, a little coffee machine, a nice shag rug and beanbags for us to sit on while we watched Survivor and Apprentice, and he even raided Ray's DVD collection for a whole library of movies he knew I'd been wanting to watch. We had a mellow week of relaxing at the pool, going out to eat, and curling up with Seabiscuit, Perfect Storm, Pump Up The Volume, etc. On Friday he even gave me a beautiful Tiffany 1837 bangle, totally out of the blue! He gave it to me kind of goofily, hidden in a carved-out donut that he insisted I take a "very delicate bite" out of, but after some soap and water it was sterling as new again.

It's going to be hard to go back to work at Applebee's tomorrow, but the week off really helped get me centered again. I might not even need to hide in the walk-in freezer and cry when the cooks send me in for bags of wings and riblets.