on the upside :-)

for as much as two words from a stranger can blow the afternoon for a bit, quality time with friends also does wonders for mood too :-)

colleen and i did end up at the hungarian restaurant for dinner... this time an older hungarian lady waited on us... i had chicken paprikash this go around... very quality :-)

after that, but before the movie we had 15 minutes to kill at home... my dad had left a message on my house phone and on my cell so i called him back for a chat... when he was younger, he had always thought that 23 would be the perfect age to be... legal for a couple years, so no reason to do downright stupid stuff anymore, but still with most of your life ahead of you, God-willing... since that was the age he looked to as the peak of his life all along, it completely worries and confuses him that he now has a kid who is older than that.

mom called simultaneously to dad and left a voicemail too.... we didn't chat until after i got back from the movie (she's at a conference in chattanooga, dad's at home)

sisterhood of the travelling pants was good. it was 2 hours long and followed some very different storylines, each of while had a really poignant climactic point, but it was woven together respectable well... both colleen and i enjoyed it.

after getting back, my grandma had left me voicemails too... so she remembered me as well :-)..... my brother on the other hand, not so much... doht. (correction: brother didn't forget, he just waited until 11:30pm to remember to call me)

i got some funny e-cards throughout the day too... two from lutheransonline.com, which i'd never seen before... they were pretty funny.

anyhow, calls from family... IMs and emails from friends... dinner and a movie with colleen... all is respectably well with the world again.

now for some leftover jared-made cake :-)

here's to being 24... hopefully an improvement on the stresses of years in recent memory ;-) we shall see...