Fattie fattie fattie

What a festive, restive break. On Friday the 23rd, I left work a few hours early so that Mike Yin could drive Katie and I to the airport. We got on a plane bound for Las Vegas, where we sat for four hours (and ate delicious Taco Bell food for 10 minutes), before getting on a midnight plane bound for Portland. We stayed in Portland until the 29th.

During that time, I watched a lot of Arrested Development, watched an old home movie of the Dahls, played Settlers of Catan with Katie and her mom, played Trivial Pursuit with Katie’s brother, visited the Pacific ocean, opened Christmas presents, met a bunch of Katie’s family friends, and at the Helvetia Tavern again. We got many nice presents from everyone, and it really did make me feel like I was a part of their family. When we boarded the plane back to Pittsburgh, I was sad to be leaving.

We slept in Pittsburgh for one night. Then we drove to New Jersey on the 30th. My parents are in China right now, so we stayed in their apartment. The main reason to go out east (aside from the obvious excitement of being in New York on New Years) was to visit Katie’s friend Meng (who, incidentally, we had seen a few days before in Portland) who had just moved out to New York a few months ago and so didn’t have a huge friend base out there yet. While we were there, we also managed to catch a Broadway show (Sweeney Todd), celebrate New Years at Meng’s apartment in Brooklyn, and see my friend (and groomsman) Danny as we visited the MoMA (which had a pretty sweet exhibit on Pixar) and ate at some tasty burrito place called Blockheads.

Then, we drove back to Pittsburgh this past Monday, although I had a pretty bad headache half of the drive home. Really, thinking back on it now, all my health woes began on January 1st, which may be a work of some higher being telling me I took my health for granted too much last year. Anyway, in the past 5 days, I’ve had headaches, sniffles, sneezes, a sore throat, coughing, sinus pressure, and mild bouts of melancholy. Katie took care of me, I took some medicine, I bought a Nerf gun, and I am feeling much better today.

So, it was a good break until the very, very end, and even then, it wasn’t all that bad. One bad thing was that the Dahls had a scale in their house and when I stepped on it, I was shocked to learn that I’m now a fattie. So, I’ve taken to eating less fast food for lunch, trying to consume smaller portions overall, and hopefully find some time to exercise, before the wedding. At the wedding, in celebration of my (hopeful) weight loss, I will consume the entire wedding cake in three bites.

Happy new year! And shoutoutz to my Aspiaizzle.