...Or, What Happens in Vegas Stays in... Wikieup. I know, 3rd blog in less than a week. That usually happens only when... never. Only once before, when I was feeling hurt, pissy and sorry for myself. Since my birthday morning blog: I had a great day and evening on my birthday. Most of the day I just relaxed and read. My daughter sent me the sweetest hand-made card ever that made me cry happy-tears. She's just so sweet and thoughtful and generous and I love her more than anything in the world. About 6 I met Cathy so we could carpool to the restaurant for dinner since it's on the other side of town. We got there about 6:30 and had a great time just chatting and catching up. I hadn't seen Andy in more than 6 years, and I was a little nervous to see him again because it had been so long and I've changed a lot since then, but it was just like old times. Everything was fun, we all talked for more than an hour before we even ordered dinner. If I weren't gay Andy would have a fight on his hands over his girlfriend, she's great and fun to talk to and she's just as obsessed with Firefly as I am. :D We left the restaurant about 10, of course after I had my delicious birthday cheesecake. Cathy dropped me back at my car about 10:30, before I got in my car Justin called me to say there had been a change of plans and he was not going to Vegas after all. When I got home, about 11, Justin was trying to figure out what he wanted to do for the weekend since his plans had been canceled. He suggested we go to Phoenix for a few days, I was wavering on the idea when his cousin, who he was going to Vegas to see originally, called and told him to come anyway, so he got his stuff ready, I helped him clean out his car and he left about 2:30 AM on the 3rd. He was back 10 minutes later after having been pulled over, right as he left the apartment parking lot, for having a burnt out headlight. We searched for a 24 hour auto parts store, but the only one we could find was more 20 miles away, so he decided to wait a few hours until it started getting light and leave then. It was about 4 when he went to lie down. I set my alarm for 6:30, just in case, 'cause I was intending to stay up 'til then anyway. Well, time does it's thing and makes me sleepy, so sleepy that I don't hear my alarm. I woke up about 7:30, woke Justin and he was on his way. I went back to sleep for a few hours, then spent the rest of the day just relaxing, posting/tweeting, enjoying the solitude etc. I woke late on the 4th since I had no plans other than to continue my few days of lonely (not the bad kind) relaxation. In the afternoon I went to the mall to have a late lunch/early dinner and buy some pomade for my hair (never done that before). When I got home I decided to satisfy my seriously hard-core jonesing for Firefly since I hadn't watched it recently. I plugged my lapyop into the TV and watched all the eps available on HULU (Jaynestown through Trash), and just reveled in the Whedony goodness. This took me beyond the point when all the fireworks displays were over, but I didn't mind. After 40 years, they all start to look the same anyway. I finally finished the BSG mini-series and started watching the rest of the first season (really good, so far), but, again, time etc... Sometime around midnight I fell asleep... ... To be awakened by a text message from Justin at about 3 AM saying his car was broken down and a cop was dropping him off in Wikieup, AZ and he needed a ride home. It's a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, about 250 miles from Tucson, with nothing but a gas station and a restaurant. Which was closed at the time. I had gas enough to get about 50 miles and no cash to buy any more. I tried calling a few friends to beg to borrow some until I get paid but no one was answering. Cathy called back about 3:30 AM and, once again like the saint of a true friend she is, said I could have whatever I needed. Her purse was in the front seat of her car, which was unlocked, at home, just take what I needed from it and pay her back when I could. It's so great to have a friend who trusts me implicitly and will always do what she can to help. I love her dearly. So, I called Justin back to tell him I'd be on my way shortly. While I was on the phone with him I drove to Cathy's, found her purse, rooted through it until I found her cash and took $72, drove to a convenience store and filled up. I finally hit the highway at about 4:30 AM. It was a longish, unfamiliar, drive during which I spent probably about 2 1/2 or 3 hours on the phone with Justin. He was giving me directions in places I didn't know while he was trying to cope with the cold, tiredness and nowhere to rest, then later the heat of the Arizona sun. We got disconnected many times because, once out of the major metro areas, there's not much cell service between here and there. My phone's battery was on its last bar by the time I got there and I don't know how many roaming minutes I racked up. I pulled into the gas station where he was waiting at about 9 AM. He already had a little extra color in his face from the sun. He hopped in the car and was already snoozing within 5 minutes. About 20 minutes into the drive back we passed the spot where I thought he had broken down and I didn't see his car, so I woke him, kinda worried that maybe it had been stolen. Turns out it was a few miles further on, so we stopped and retrieved some of his things and talked about what he should do. We briefly considered going back to Wikieup to get some oil and see if he could drive it any further and started driving back there, but decided not to after a few miles and turned around to head home again. We stopped by his car one last time to get more things the drove straight back, stopping once for gas. I almost killed both of us when driving on the freeway in Phoenix on the way back. I was just driving, following the car in front of me, and I drifted off for a second. I startled awake and realized I had made an unintentional lane change, thankfully there were no cars in the way. So I pinched myself hard on the leg to wake myself up fully and finished the trip without incident. We got home about 2 PM, I checked in online and then passed out until about 6 PM tonight. You may have noticed, nowhere in this nearly hour-by-hour, or event-by-event, account of the past 3 days did I mention Peggy. She was off having a weekend camping date at a lake with her guy and his boat. She got back about 8 tonight, mildly sunburnt and with a hornet sting on her leg. And I've spent the past hour or so, off and on, writing this blog and I've come to the point where the recount is catching up to reality. Weird. I am now typing this sentence. And then this one. I s'pose I should end it here because it's just getting silly, in a stupid, not funny, way. Goodnight. This has been an eventful, and mostly fun, birthday weekend+. Not a bad way to start year 41. :)