Anaheim blues, point-by-point

• We recently "celebrated" our 5-year wedding anniversary - it was December 30th.
  
• I use quotation marks, because we didn't really do anything for it. We'd exceeded our budget in November and December by... well, more than we should have... and we had a lot coming up.
  
• For example, this week, Sarah is in Disney, for this big work convention. In fact, in just a few minutes, she'll be taking this uber certification exam that will lead directly to a raise and the opening of numerous doors in her already rocketing career.
  
• The company shall reimburse her for all reasonable expenses. We still needed to have the money in the account for her to eat at Disney though, since reimbursement takes at least a week.
• As a result, the anniversary celebration was postponed until later this month. Neither of us were happy with this, but the certification is too important to skip.
  
• Why a medical diagnostic coding seminar would be hosted in the Magic Kingdom, I do not understand, but that's beside the point.
  
• Even more boggling, is why UW Physicians Group considers the price of meals at Disney to be a "reasonable expense". She called last night to say that she was eating in a giant pirate ship rigged with christmas-tree lights.
  
• Despite a dozen people from her company attending, they put her alone in a two-bed suite with a waterfall right outside her window. How can any of this be cost effective?
• Don't get me wrong, she's well worth such expenses, but most of her coworkers aren't.
  
• This is not the first time we've ever been apart overnight.
  
• I've had multiple work trips of my own over the years, attending GTS (the Game Manufacturer's Association Trade Show), and once judging Grand Prix: Phoenix.
• Wow. Do not confuse GTS with GTS. Trippy.
  
• I've never been the one who had to stay home alone. This is new to me.
  
• When you're at a big event, there's so much going on (and so much to think about) you don't have time to get homesick.
  
• When you're home alone, the emptiness is quite noticeable. You find yourself doing strange things you'd never normally consider.
• I wrote up a dozen new Knacks for my Scion RPG campaign. This was not a strange thing - it was a bit prolific and excessive, but it was also a low-priority task that I'd been putting off for weeks.
  
• Then I popped over to the white-wolf forums to post said knacks, and got distracted by contributing to a couple threads. Again, fairly typical.
  
• Before I knew it, I found myself in a flame-war.
  
• This was a strange thing. Some dork was trying to pull a fast one on his GM, and it offended me. I rarely let my posts devolve into such pettiness, yet last night I embraced it as a way of ignoring the disruption to my regular schedule.
• I'm usually the voice of reason in such situations, making a single post that summarizes the salient and non-inflamatory points of each view, coupled with "Can't we all just get along?"
  
• Instead of going to bed at my usual 10 pm, I sat at the smoking computer till 11:30.
• Then I decided it was a good time to start watching the extended edition of The Two Towers.
  
• I'd watched the whole LotR trilogy over a dozen times before - always with Sarah. I guess it's the visual equivalent of comfort food.
  
• It's also really damn long, and I was already up way past my bedtime.
• Instead of kicking the cats out of the room as we usually do, I let them lay on the bed till 4 am.
  
• They did that annoying "knead you with my claws" thing (Sarah calls it pitty-patty) and I didn't even complain.
  
• Then I got up at 7:30 am, because, damn it, that's an hour and a half past when my alarm normally goes off.
• I think tonight, I'll just start reading a book at 5 pm. It seems a lot healthier.
• Perhaps I'll reread Carl Hiassen's Team Rodent. Which, by the way, is a very enjoyable book - though I imagine one can either enjoy it, or enjoy a trip to the Magic Kingdom, but not both in the same lifetime.