Fourth of July Recap

I am in a fabulous mood right now. I got home from work this afternoon and my contract for the coming school year was in my mailbox. I'd heard through the grapevine that other grad students had been told that we were going to be "quite pleased" with our stipends for this year, and I even got an e-mail last month talking about a grant that was going to provide a "substantial increase" to our salaries, but my feeling on that was, "Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it." I figured that with the state budget in its current condition, we'd be expected to be "quite pleased" that we're still getting funded at all. But lo and behold, my contract says I'm getting a huge raise! I'll be making 30% more than I made last year. 30% more! That's nothing short of amazing to me. This past school year, my salary pretty much only covered my rent and the only reason I could afford to live without taking out loans is because I'd managed to save up a pretty substantial amount of money bartending all last summer while not having to pay rent since I was staying with my parents. I'll manage to save up some money this summer as well since this current job pays decently, but I was starting to get worried about how I was going to make it all the way through the next school year without taking out loans. (Due to lots of scholarships and assistantships and some financial support from my parents when I was an undergrad I've been able to make it through seven years of higher education without taking out any student loans, and I am not eager to start racking them up now) But now I'm going to be okay! I'll be able to pay rent each month and actually have money leftover to buy groceries! And fill up my gas tank! Seriously, this news is such a relief and such a huge unexpected surprise. I keep re-reading the contract just to make sure I'm not making this up. I'm turning it in at the office first thing in the morning before somebody changes their mind about this!

This raise is the finale to what ended up being a really fantastic holiday weekend. I went up to Penn's place for the weekend, and it was just one fun thing after another. On the 4th of July I went to his mom's house to meet the family, and it went well. I was a little unsure about how I was doing at first. They're more quiet and reserved than my family, so they're a little hard to read (then again, every family on the planet is more quiet and reserved than my family). But in the end I think everyone ended up more or less liking me. I hope. And in general terms our families seem very similar: same race, same basic religious background, same basic economic background, etc., so none of that major stuff is a hurdle we have to get over.
In general, I'd say it was a good first meeting. And I ate a ton of food because it was all really good. It's entirely possible that I ate a dozen deviled eggs all by myself. And corn on the cob! And potato salad...and cupcakes...Anyway, after eating lunch and hanging out for a few hours and helping Penn's nephews blow a few loud explosive things up in the driveway, he and I escaped for the rest of the afternoon to go kayaking!
That was my surprise, by the way. Kayaking! Who would have guessed?! He told me to wear clothes that could get messed up because he figured if he told me to wear my bathing suit that would have given it away, which was probably true. See, we'd been walking by the river a couple of weeks ago when I was at his place and watching the kayakers and I had told him how I had wanted to try it for a really long time but had never been. Back when I lived in MA Town I was obsessed with the kayak guys that I would see paddling up and down the stream where I walked my dog. It always looked so fun, and I used to think about how cool it would be to have someone teach me how to do it. And now I have a boyfriend that knows how to kayak! Funny how sometimes life gives you what you want, isn't it?
Anyway, I was totally giddy at the prospect of kayaking. I was like a little kid, hopping up and down in the driveway as we loaded up the boats to drive them to the dock. Fortunately, it completely lived up to my expectations. It was a good workout, but not so hard that it exhausted me. I wasn't even really sore the next day, which surprised me because we kayaked for almost three hours. We clocked the ride in the truck the next day and figure we went about six miles down the river. Given, we didn't paddle that whole entire time. Sometimes we'd rest and just bring the boats close together and drift for a while. But I'd say that's pretty good for my first trip! The really nice thing was that we pretty much had the entire river to ourselves. It was really overcast that day, so I guess most people assumed it was going to rain and didn't bother to bring their boats out. Luckily, it barely sprinkled at the beginning of our trip and then it didn't rain anymore, so it worked out perfectly for us. We saw one fisherman when we first started out and once we got into downtown there were a few boats out, but for most of the three hours we had the entire mile-wide river to ourselves. It was awesome, being out there all alone on the water. So peaceful, and kind of romantic, too. It's like we were the only people on the planet. We saw a bunch of river birds, a snapping turtle (!), and even a group of river otters cavorting around an island. I was so excited about seeing otters in the wild I almost couldn't contain myself. It was such a great afternoon.
Then that night we went out for drinks with some of his guy friends. They were fun and they were really friendly to me. He has been friends with the same core group of guys since high school, which is just amazing to me. I mean, I'm still friendly with some people from high school, but at this point most of my very closest friends are people I met in college and grad school. Maybe it has something to do with going so far from home right out of high school? Or being a girl? (I've noticed that guys are much better at maintaining high school friendships than girls are) Anyway, needless to say, the guys have a ton of dirt on each other so it was really entertaining getting to hear about dumbass things Penn did as a teenager. Frankly, I'm surprised he has lived as long as he has. Boys.
The next day Penn and I continued our Weekend of Awesome Dates by hanging out at the free three-day music festival going on right down the street from his apartment. It was fun. We listened to a bunch of bizarre international music, ate chicken-on-a-stick and waffles with scoops of ice cream on top, and wandered around looking at goofy crafts. Then that night we hung out with some of his guy friends again. We went to an outdoor movie. There's this group that uses an old movie projector-the kind where someone has to switch out the reels-to project movies onto the side of a building downtown. They do it every two weeks, apparently, and it's only five bucks. The best part is they don't care if you bring drinks, so we brought a few six packs of beer and our lawn chairs and watched Raising Arizona. Which is really freaky, by the way, because remember when I told you about Penn's Raising Arizona pillow talk? Well, talking about it made us want to watch it, so he bought the DVD and we watched it a couple of weeks ago. It was a pretty strange coincidence that out of all the movies in the world they just happened to be showing Raising Arizona at this outdoor thing.
As for Sunday, I kept joking with Penn that we'd managed to have his ideal day. We woke up at about ten, took a shower, ate chips and dip leftover from the 4th of July and then watched Aqua Teens for a while before falling back to sleep on the couch. Because all that cartoon watching and eating was exhausting, I guess. I woke up a while later and both Penn and my hound dog were using me as a pillow. Penn was stretched out one way with his head on my chest and the dog was stretched out the other way with his head on my lap. I wish there had been someone there to snap a picture of us, because it was hilarious. Once we woke up again we took the dog for a walk and then went back to the music fest and watched a random rock band and then got Hawaiian shaved ice to eat by the river. Then we met a couple of his friends at a bar for chicken wings and beer, which is apparently what they usually do on Sunday nights. I was planning to drive home on Sunday night, but after four beers and laughing until my stomach hurt at Penn's friend's elaborate plan to build a boat out of plywood and five gallon paint buckets full of air (don't ask), I realized I wasn't really in any shape to go anywhere. So Penn and I went back to his apartment and, okay, this is maybe a tiny bit too much information but I have to talk about it because it was just too ridiculously perfect: we were making out on the window seat and things were getting pretty heated and then suddenly we heard explosions and we stopped kissing and looked out the window and, I swear, there were fireworks going on over the river right outside his window! Hi, welcome to my life. I apparently now exist in a perfectly orchestrated romance movie.
Seriously, it was a great weekend. I didn't want to come home. I'm really enjoying this honeymoon period. This is such a fun time, when you can't imagine ever getting mad at each other and it's just one fun date after another (when you can actually convince each other to get out of bed and put clothes on). Both of us just keep looking at each other and saying, "Okay, when are you going to do something to scare me or disappoint me or freak me out?" Because right now it's honestly just too good to be true. But maybe we should just hope the flaws end up being little things that we don't mind dealing with because the rest of it is so good.

Anyway, now I'm back home and I have to get through another week of camp. Luckily this week's group is smaller and substantially easier to deal with so far. Here's hoping it stays that way!