i was going to say yesterday felt like an 18 hour day... but then i realized it was actually a 19 hour day.

i went to work, only to discover half my coworkers gone for some 24 hour flu thing, and proceeded to help 8 billion clients get last minute christmas food and toys we had left over and whatever else they could think to ask for...

ah... how the spirit of christmas so easily runs you into the ground...

then i went to the hospital.

my friend kelsie's mom has parkinson's and wednesday afternoon went into the hospital with low oxygen levels and possibly fluid in her lungs. she's laid out pretty bad and her chest xrays aren't coming back clear enough so they need to give her a cat scan, but she weighs just barely too much to use the machine and so has to stay in the hospital until they can get that taken care of. i think she's doing really well given the circumstances, but the family won't really get a christmas and she will probably be in the hospital until the new year.

i left there in just enough time to grab presents from my house and drive out to kellie's mom's house in clackamas to hang out with dave and kellie and grace. did a little gift exchanging and kellie's mom made a turkey dinner for us and we played rummikub until i had to leave to go to chad's "meet my new astoundingly cool girlfriend" party.

i drove downtown to meet chad and sarah at their hotel and discovered that she really was everything i was hoping she'd be. we get along splendidly and i think we both knew immediately that we would have been friends even if it weren't for chad.

i was pretty disappointed that no one came to the bar except me and brewster, especially after hearing so many friends i'd invited say things about chad that were, frankly, pretty awful. i was thinking about it later, and really, i don't understand at all what people have against him, or why they wouldn't want to spend time with him while he was in town. if you think about it, whatever it is about chad that gets people, isn't nearly as bad as these people, when being invited to see him and meet sarah, just respond with: "chad has a girlfriend?" in complete shock and sometimes followed by "how can chad have a girlfriend if i don't have one?" how can you truly wonder why you don't have a girlfriend or boyfriend if that's your natural reaction to finding out someone else has one? the time i've spent with chad this last week has been better conversation and stronger connection than anything i've had with the rest of these people. and, he's so so happy when he talks about sarah and when he's with sarah and he's happy in a way that i've never seen before. and that makes me overjoyed for him, and it should make all his friends feel the same way. chad and sarah and i hung out in their hotel room talking until 2am, and it was great. simply.

and now i'm headed home for christmas.