Cycle #1 officially over

Garfield and I have started referring to our weeks in between visits as "cycles" - hence the title. He's on a plane right now, en route to San Jose. I'm still feeling quite emotionally raw on account of his departure, so maybe writing a post about how ridiculously awesome our visit was will make me feel better.

First, a couple of non-Garfield notes: I gave a group presentation in my Latin American class on Wednesday, and it went super well. I had a presentation on Friday as well for Precept on Montesquieu's Persian Letters, and I rocked it. Juliano is a *huge* hit on Fridays during precept and social hour. My group's Iron Chef potluck contributions were also incredible.


Having no work to do while Garfield was here was amazing. I have a shit ton to do this week, but that's okay. Our restful days were *wonderful*.

Okay, so I'll try to be efficient by using bullet points:

• Garfield came to social hour and it was sosososososo fun having him meet everyone I'll been telling him about for weeks. 
• Friday morning, we got Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast - I walk by it everyday, and I've been having cravings to try it. So we go it together.
• Speaking of cravings: I also walk by a Boston Market everyday, so we went there for dinner Friday night. It was fun :) Garfield also bought dinner for a homeless man.
• Saturday was 6 monthaversary day! It was officially declared Garfield Day. So first, I let Garfield sleep in as long as he wanted to. Then:
• Surprise #1: Making pancakes from scratch. I got my great grandma's famous German pancake recipe from my grandma, and Garfield and I made those together in the morning.
• Surprise #2: We walk down my street ten blocks to a Farmer's Market - we went to the Milpitas one every Sunday, so it was fun getting to do that together again.
• Surprise #3: I took him to Promontory Point, which is a delightful little park that is now fully autumn looking, with colorful falling leaves, that overlooks Lake Michigan. We had Juliano with us (we all walked to Farmer's Market together), and we all just laid in the grass enjoying the quiet, beautiful, and warm day for hours. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life.
• Surprise #4: Turned out to be a surprise for both of us, because Garfield's parents called us and made coming over to dinner *that* night for family dinner an emergency practically - Sunday suddenly was unacceptable. So we rushed down to the 'burbs and had dinner with his family. It ended up being fun, and we wanted to hang out with his family anyway.
• So since Saturday night got interrupted, Sunday was dubbed Garfield Day - Take 2. And Garfield wanted Garfield Day to be Garfield & Sandy day, so:
• Garfield took me to lunch at this place down the street I've been wanting to try, called Pockets.
• We went back to Promontory Point and lounged together - with Juliano - on a Power Puff Girls blanket that his parents gave me.
• Then Surprise #5: we got cleaned up, dressed up, and we went out to Sushi at an all-you-can-eat place down the street. The surprise was, Garfield had a choice: we could go out, or just make dinner at my apartment - but still get to enjoy each other looking all fancy - and have an "in" night. He chose sushi. We haven't gone on a date-date in a long time, so it was *really* fun :) We had a great dinner together.

Other super cute highlights!

• Right before we walked into Pockets, some guy stopped us on the street: "I don't mean to be rude, but I just had to say, you two make a *beautiful" couple." It was this rugged, tattooed guy - not the type you'd think would be struck by a moment of romance. We were very tickled :) So we've been reminding ourselves for the rest of the weekend what a beautiful couple we are.
• Then, when we were on the metro en route to the airport, we were just hugging - totally G / PG rated - and this woman started teasing us *hard* *core*: "Stop all that cute hugging and kissing! Making me jealous . . . kiss him again and I'll slap you! Get a room! Man, she adores you, hold onto her." She teased us almost the whole ride. Then she started a conversation with the ladies around her about how she wanted what we had.
• At the airport, I was watching Garfield walk down the security line, waving and blowing him kisses, and the woman checking tickets at the front of the line was looking at me laughing: "You that girl from Hyde Park? He leaving again?" She remembered us from the first time I said goodbye to Garfield, a month ago! She told me I was doing much better this time - last time I was a sobbing mess, this time I was much less messy.

Okay, I'm still really sad he's not here, but it's definitely fun to have spent a while reminiscing and writing this post.

Sorry there are no pictures - we were too busy just enjoying the moment to interrupt things with a camera.

We seriously had *so* much fun together, and it was *such* a *beautiful* visit. After almost four straight weeks of talktalktalking - via email, phone, texts, video chats - we spent most of our time just sitting, walking, laying together in silence, simply enjoying being present with each other. It was incredibly refreshing . . .

I'm too lazy to proof read, so sorry if there are any really bad errors. Oh well :)