amaranthine in 2013-2014

I've been on a Britney Spears kick. I'm not sorry.

The cheat day was delicious, gross, and pricier than anticipated, but totally worth it. Unfortunately, not even two Lactaid tablets could save me, and it wasn't until after 8pm, eight hours later, that I finally finished digesting that stupid milkshake. Which was delicious, yes, but come on. I got home with all sorts of plans to work out, but if I had gotten my body temp up and jumped around, I would have been paying for it from some end or another. Lactose-sensitive GI systems do not take kindly to shake-n-baking. So I rested and lied around and was sedentary instead. And it wasn't until 8pm that the suspicious noises and rock-in-stomach disappeared. I'm slightly disappointed, but I'm not beating myself up for it. It's not like I decided to just sit on my ass all night.

This entry is mostly because I'm feeling sappy. Run away.

I leave for the reunion in nine days. I am SUPER EXCITED. At work, Biff used to be stationed in the area, and gave me all sorts of recommendations and stories about the islands and Cape Hatteras. I was already excited about the historic sites in the area, but then I got online and looked up the seashore on the National Parks site, and saw the lines about glowing sand at night.

"The beaches along Cape Hatteras National Seashore sparkle at night. When you kick the sand, you disturb tiny dinoflagellates like seasparkle, magnified in the picture to the left. A chemical reaction causes them to glow with a blue-green light. "

Aaron has already promised me late-night walks! I'm familiar with the sunrise/sunset glows of the white sands on the Gulf, but I've never gotten near bioluminescence. Cape Hatteras is about an hour and a half from where we'll be. The lighthouse is about 12 stories tall, so it's a HELL of a hike to the balcony. He's game. My thighs hurt already. He said he/they (I assume on a reunion one year) have gone down to the lighthouse before, but he's happy to take me down there. And hiking on the dunes, and ocean kayaking, and roaming the Roanoke site, and pretty much anything I've realized is a Thing to Do. (Like read on the beach. I'm already planning my books.) We really love the beach at night--one of our first 'dates' was the Atlantic at midnight. I was excessively charmed by the lighthouse (having never seen one before; he probably remembers this) and he literally carried me back to the car because I was falling asleep on my feet.

I am so freaking stupidly spoiled. I don't even know how to process it most days. Sometimes I just kind of gawk and go really quiet, and then he preens over a job well done. And says stuff like "You're going to be my wife. [Taking care of you]'ll be my primary full time job." And insists that he's serious about sending me to Arizona's Critical Language Institute next summer, for two months, as an anniversary present, so I can learn Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian on top of Russian and whatever passive Ukrainian that I'm picking up.

I don't know what I did to deserve this, but it's pretty mindblowing.

Also, I formally acquired possession of his dogtags tonight. They've been in the trunk I use as a coffee table, but tonight he said he didn't really want them, so now they're mine in both law and possession. (I also got a waterproof jacket out of the deal. Winning.)

See you in a week and a half, Outer Banks.