Welcome

Oooh… nice scale, nice scale!

It’s not “official” until Thursday, but I’ve been regularly seeing 389. something. Oooohhh, I hope it becomes “official”, but at least if it doesn’t, I know I saw it.

My friend Isabella is coming to town tomorrow. She moved from New York (well, Jersey, really) in December 2003, right after getting engaged - and just a couple of months before I got engaged. Bella is from Mexico, and we met in our Italian class. She’s a lot of fun to be with, and I’ve missed her. She moved back to San Francisco when her fiance (well, now they are married, sort of) found a new job there, and she is now going to school out there.

I am going to meet with her for lunch on Thursday. Bella and I always used to share desserts. Sort of funny, since the girl can eat - and she’s a size four, ack. I went shopping with her once… she was sweet, telling me how the store did have some larger sizes (yeah, 18s! LOL) so maybe I’d find something to. It sounds sort of bad when I write it out, but the way she said it wasn’t meant bad at all. Besides, I just liked that she considered I might wear an 18, haha.

(Never go shopping with a size 4 when you’re a size 34, btw. It’s depressing as hell. Oh, and if possible, avoid full body pictures standing by said size 4, especially if she’s wearing fitted clothes and you’re wearing a sweater that’s really shapeless and about two sizes too big. Despite what you might feel when you wear that sweater, it does not hide your fat. It just makes you look even more gigantic.)

Anyway, I’m very happy that I’ll be seeing her again… I’ve been lonely, and it will be nice. I can’t believe it’s been almost two years since we saw each other last… and I’ll get to show her my wedding pics and engagement ring, heh. I’ve seen hers, since she got it right before she left. It was $10,000 dollars (ouch - if she has a flaw, it’s that she’s a bit materialistic, so size mattered to her) and though large on her tiny fingers, it was under 1.5 carats… and the setting was included (and she hated it) and just a simple band, so that cost was all for the ring. Now, don’t get me wrong… diamonds are very pretty. I was just stunned by the cost! It sort of came back to haunt them, because when it came time to plan the wedding, they had only $5,000 and complicated location issues. His family is in southern Cali, they live in Northern, her family is mostly in Mexico. They ended up getting married at the courthouse, just the two of them… she got her green card, and after a year was allowed to travel back out of the country again. What’s weird is that very few people know about their marriage. No one either of them works with knows. Her family knows and his parents know. A few close friends of hers know. She said she doesn’t really think of herself as married, since in Mexico to be married means a church wedding. She’s not really religious, but the custom is so ingrained that she still equates marriage with a religious ceremony.

It’s a very odd situation… even stranger than the girl I knew whose fiance’s grandparents offered them rent-free use of their house when they moved out - on the condition they get married first. They had a wedding planned for February 2000, but she wanted out of her mother’s house. So in November 1999 they got married in secret, didn’t tell anyone other than his grandparents and mother, and still had the big February wedding… they got divorced three years ago, but I don’t think that was kept secret, and I’ve wondered if starting out that way set them up for a fall. Though, frankly, I suppose most expected them to fail anyway since it wasn’t an exactly healthy relationship to start off, and they were fairly young.

Anyway, regardless of her weird marital status, I’m ecstatic about seeing her again. I haven’t even seen a picture of her since she left, so I don’t even know what color her hair is these days, haha. We’re going to lunch - and she already mentioned sharing dessert :) . I never had that before Bella… that friend I could share a dessert with, like they always suggest you do at Weight Watchers. It was neat… though I have since shared desserts with Kyra, I still miss Bella. It’s a very different sort of friendship, yet the depth of it is similar… isn’t it strange how friendships have “flavors”?

As for Kyra, she doesn’t seem to be mad at me, so I’m not sure what’s going on. I finally sent her a text message last night, that I was worried and hoped she was okay. She said she was sorry for being MIA and would call me today - with a smiley face.

People always talk about how hard it is to manage marital or romantic relationships… I think female friendships are a lot trickier! ;)

Now… chant with me, 389. something. 389. something.