So my sister comes back from Japan for a visit tomorrow...

...she, my brother-in-law, and my niece live over there on an Air Force base. They fly in tomorrow night, so my mom is driving down to Nashville to go to the airport to get them. They're the last part of the family (other than my mom's parents) to meet Ed... We'll see if he still wants me after this part of the family...(just kidding, he's lasted this far, and I've got a wide variety of people to potentially think are nuts-in-a-not-so-good-way)...

We've been watching the other released Star Wars movies the last couple days - Natha's been seeing all the commercials, so he's been wanting to watch them... then he's asking lots of questions about who is related to who and what they're doing at any particular point. Ed, who knows all this stuff, has been there to answer a little bit, but he's still been working as much as he can. He's amazed that he knows the trivia that he does when he remembers stuff like the name of the guy who Anakin raced against in the pod race in Episode I. I'd be concerned if he wasn't a functioning member of society *but* could remember all this stuff, like tracing Family Guy quotes back to their season & episode number... but since he remembers important 'work' stuff too, it's just another endearing quality we somewhat share. I remember random bits of mainly non-fiction trivia, though. When it comes to straight memorization, I'd probably beat him, but as far as 'smart-ness' is concerned, he's got me beat. He's the only person that I was convinced was smarter (i.e. - quicker to catch on & knows more overall) than me not an hour after I met him. Most people I'd met before may have been very specialized and knew something specific that I didn't, like how to fix a particular thing, or they knew of a lot of things but no details. Then another subset of people I've met seemed to be my level, but after knowing them for a while they were revealed to be smarter/quicker/more agile than me, which is completely fine. He, though, is the smartest, sexiest, most pragmatic but caring person I've met so far, and I really don't think I'd meet anyone who is the knockout-combination he is, much less containing even more of one of the qualities than he does. That's why I'm going to marry him. Yep, I am. Gave me the ring today, he did. We're not legally married, but I think we've had all the ceremony we're going to (and want to, BTW.) Like I've said for a while, the being married is more important than the ceremony ushering one into marriage. No big to-do needed on my part, I'm happy being taken to the courthouse to make me an honest woman. (Make that a more-honest woman.) I want a dress to assign the title of 'wedding dress' but I don't need to wear it anywhere, nor does it need to be white. I just want this to be a reason to have a somewhat expensive, pretty, formal dress bought. There aren't many of those occasions in a girl's life.

I'm sure my mom is going to silently pooh-pooh the idea that we're having no to-do and she doesn't get to invite tons of people to a church wedding and have a big reception with a band and we all have to do the chicken dance after drinking more than we should. I'd like to have the family together to see each other, but I'm sure as h-e-double-hockey sticks not going to use a wedding the means for that one. I'm crazy, but not insane. I'm sure my mom knows in the back of her mind that this was how it was going to be. I'm not up for expensive fanfare most of the time. Cheap fanfare I'm all about, and I'm sometimes about expensive. At the same time, though, I'm not. Any thoughts by her that it was going to be a social event were purely devised as figments of her imagination, fo' sho'.

Now, I have to mention something, 'cause it's bothering me slightly, but I can't, at this point, look my gift horse in the mouth verbally per se. Ed was very very sweet and bought me a ring at the mall last saturday, then it had to be sized since girls don't come in that size and came back today so he could pick it up. I've been very anxious to have the ring and wear it - since that's what I've wanted here for a while now - no surprise about that. However, it's not quite what I would have expected or picked out for myself... if you would have asked me which qualities of a ring I'll be wearing all the time for the next indefinite period of time would have, I would have picked different ones than those qualities the ring Ed bought for me had. It's not that the ring isn't beautiful and that I'm not *very* happy to have it (it's been growing on me even since I've put it on earlier this afternoon) - I just wanted to get this off my chest - since I'm not comfortable going and acting somewhat spoiled by mentioning this. There are a lot of things I can tell Ed, but this is one I'd rather not say in person - he picked this ring for me and had this ring sized as the ring he wants me to wear. If it was up to him, I wouldn't even need a ring - we'd just know we're married and leave it at that. So it's spoiled rotten of me to look at a ring he bought specifically for me, at my request, and say it's not exactly what I wanted. It's very un-Southern Lady of me to say anything but nice things about it. I still can't help but think, though, that I've somewhat already given him clues to what I was thinking earlier, since I'm the world's worst bluffer, especially in front of him. He reads me like a book, and it's a Dr. Seuss book at that. So, sweetie, I'll wear this ring and wear it with pride indefinitely since you, the object of my affection *and* husband, gave it to me. However if you want to discuss it, I'll do that too - whenever you bring it up... :)

It's about time to fix something to dinner, 'fix' being a technical term. I'll have to try and pry Ed from the computer and ask him what he'd like to consume for the evening alimentation. Mebs! It's already 7:30 and that means Natha will be in bed late by the time we finish dinner. Oh well, it's friday night and tomorrow Natha gets to eat strawberry poptarts and sit in front of the TV and watch cartoons from the time he wakes up until 12 noon. Every kid should get to do that. We even kind of build it up all week so he's really excited. It's just a ploy, by all parents, to get the kids to take care of themselves so we can do whatever that one thing is we've been waiting to do all week and finally get a bit of time to do on saturday morning since we don't (theoretically) have to go to work. It's the one time I don't feel guilty for parking him in front of the TV with some sugary-sprinkled chocolate-frosted sugar bombs so I can lay about in bed for an extra hour (or three). Oh, and I like the extra snuggle time. Even though Ed has decided to be a retrograde, rogue scoundrel and decide that some nights, we're sleeping on opposite sides of the bed than we usually do, which completely and udderly (yes, that was on purpose) throws me off. It's like the world's out of whack in a slightly sweet kind of way, but not too severely. Well, I may enlighten you again tonight - if Ed's still up to that 'coding' thing he does and Natha's finally in bed and no longer using paintbrushes as light sabres. He said he wanted to be a Jedi when he grows up. He looks like Boba in the Episode I, though, and Kazu does somewhat resemble Jenga. I wonder where they're hiding the clones.

I would really like a Darth Tater. Now that's something in this madness I can get into. :)