Wonderful Weekend

Wow, I’m almost caught up to the present. I don’t know what I’ll do then. Write about current events, I guess. 🙂

I’ve known aiela for….ever? At least eight years, maybe closer to ten. We have both been on JediMUD since time out of mind, and I know we started actually having real conversations as far back as Jay’s wedding in 1995, when, having seen a picture of her for the first time, i /msged her to the effect of “Hey, you never told me you were cute!”

Through the years, we shared a lot of ups and downs in conversation, and counseled each other through an awful lot of relationship hell. What we didn’t ever manage to do was meet in person. The annual JediMUD get togethers were always too far away and at bad times for me to go, even if I could have afforded them, so our friendship had remained online. Recently, however, aiela moved to Nashville, TN, and I told her that she must come visit when she had a chance, since she was only four hours away. Well, seeing as she is now planning to move back to Michigan, the time became imperative, and we made plans for her and her daughter to come down this weekend.

The two of them arrived at about 11:15am, just as we were preparing lunch. We sat brittanyaliera down in front of the TV with the DVD of Spiderman playing and had a good lunch of sausage and homemade macaroni and cheese. Once we were all fed to our satisfaction, we piled into my car and headed down to Zoo Atlanta. We’ve definitely gotten our money’s worth out of the family memberships to the zoo, and being able to just take off and go there for several hours of free entertainment has been a great blessing. It was a gorgeous sunny day, about 65 degrees F, and for once, I actually remembered to take my camera! We got to the Panda exhibit at feeding time, so they were very active, and several of the snakes in the reptile house were moving about. We generally had a good time looking at the tigers and the lemurs and the gorillas and the zebras and, well, it’s always fun.

After we’d walked all over the zoo, we headed back to the car and home. kitanzi went off to get some groceries for dinner, so we sat Brit down to watch the end of Spiderman, while I introduced Angie to the work of DaVinci’s Notebook. Angie is a fan of acapella music, so I was surprised she’d never heard of DVN, but I played her the recordings I had on hand. Kit came home and made a wonderful batch of hamburgers, and we all had ice cream for dessert.

Once fed, we settled down for an evening of movies. First up was “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, which was fun and a movie I hadn’t seen in a while, even though I’ve had the DVD since it came out. Right about the time the movie was over, telynor came over to hang out with us. Right about when the movie ended, she got a phone call from filceolaire, so she went in the other room to take it, and Brit asked me if I would play my guitar for her. I ran through a few songs that I can play off the top of my head, ending with Dougie Maclean’s “Caledonia”, a song I originally learned from Gwen. She came back in the room halfway through and joined in with Kit to make some nice harmonies.

Once everyone was all together again, Gwen settled on the floor to knit and I snuggled up with Angie on the daybed and we popped “Galaxy Quest” into the DVD player. GQ is a movie that never fails to lift my spirits, and it was nice to just cuddle and watch the movie and feel just as comfortable as I always had online with a person I’d known through several changes of life. (Apparently, we were starting to make at least kitanzi wonder if something more than snuggling was developing. 🙂 My response was “Good heavens, I just started or intensified two LDRs in the last week. I’m not starting any new ones until at least March. *G*).

Once the movie was over, telynor went home and we all went to bed.

The next morning, Kit made French toast for breakfast and I played a variety of music for aiela from my CD collection. I forget all what was there, but it covered a wide range of filk and non-filk stuff, whatever I thought she might like. Eventually, it was time to go, and hugs were exchanged and promises not to take another 10 years to schedule another visit were made and they went on their way.

No surprises this weekend. Just a warm, gentle reminder that the friends you make online are as real and as solid as the ones you make in realspace, and just as lasting.