Before dinner this evening, I went to drinks with my BFF. Sitting behind her was a young-ish couple — they were both on the same side of the table, and they were facing me. She was blonde and of slight build, while he looked scruffy and mountainous — but was also semi-lean in appearance.

Their food came, and they briefly admired it. Hers was a blue cheese wedge salad of sorts with a mound of foofy shaved red onion on top, and his was a flatbread pizza.

As their plates sat in front of them, I noticed that she was suddenly deep in prayer, complete with furrowed, pensive brow; so was he. They were expressing their thanks, their gratitude and appreciation for the food in front of them, and I went back to chatting.

A few seconds later, I realized they’d completed their prayer — because they were in the process of making out at their table. That must’ve been one heckuva prayer because…

…holy [awkward] tongue. If there was ever a “love your neighbor as yourself” moment, this was it.

(…although I can’t recall ever “loving” myself in that way.)

What started as a series of awkward, rhythmic pecks where only their lips moved (there weren’t fewer than 20, I swear) quickly turned into a tongue — er — “lashing”…as in, an affectionate, amorous make-out session. Thankfully we were there only for drinks and an appetizer of Japanese-spiced edamame, otherwise my dinner would’ve been ruined.

I tried to position myself so that BFF’s head would block the scene in front of me, but sometimes they’d reappear in my line of vision. It was slightly gnarly. Without dissecting their love too much, I wondered if she’d partaken of any blue cheese prior to making out, and I suspected that his pizza wasn’t overly spicy which, natch, would’ve perhaps contributed to a shorter make-out session. Since you may be wondering, this took place on an outside patio; it was, more or less, broad daylight.

After they came up for air — er, finished their affectionate display — they dove into their plates of food (I imagine they worked up quite an appetite). Our check came and we had to restaurant-hop over to dinner, so we were robbed of anymore of their presence.

That said, seeing people of faith, um, “enjoy” their time together was pretty awesome. The last dude I attempted to date in the spring was a supposed God-fearing man who, unfortunately, liked to dress up as a pirate and tell me that “flogging” others with his whip was great fun…and that I may want to consider it.

(Nope – no joke.)

Since then, I’ve avoided church and I’ve not bothered to date a soul. Do you blame me? Tonight I am thankful for people who have the courage to date, for people who apparently still have faith and for the inspiration they gave me to once again return to my belief that there are good people out there. What I first considered a gnarly, public tongue-fest turned into a great lesson and food for thought. Here’s to finding good people, sans-costume. Arr!

One of the best things about the open road is the mind-clearing that comes from it. At least for me.

On my journey, there are many indicators that I’m getting farther away from my norm. Signs that say aircraft overhead are on patrol. Increased speed limits. Passing lanes. Lanes dedicated to truckers. A myriad of out of state license plates. Wide open spaces. Short, barbed wire fences intended only to keep cattle inside a set area. Static on the radio. An AM station whose only content is an electronic female voice reciting traffic issues, closures and the like. I love it. And tonight, although I was just a few hours from home, I was reminded how different the nightlife is.

It was dusk, and I thought I kept seeing a flash off in the distance out my driver’s side window. I could never get a good look at it, but I figured it was someone setting off a rogue firework, bottle rocket or maybe it was even just a reflection that was playing tricks on my eyes. Even better: turns out it was a giant thunderhead over mountains about 15 miles away, and the thing lit up repeatedly. It was massive. The lightning inside it showcased its size; it was beautiful. I didn’t remember any clouds in the sky all day long, but suddenly I heard tiny raindrops on my windshield. The last time I’d driven the same route, I experienced a massive storm with rain so strong, cars weren’t going faster than 10 mph for a good 5 miles. Gorgeous, but made for a more tense drive than I’d have liked.

Tonight’s sprinkles reminded me of that. They were delicate, but plentiful. Some were bigger than others, but more were small, rhythmic and steady. The only difference is that I was cruising along and I didn’t notice any wetness on the ground. And then I realized what I was hearing: thousands of insects that had come out to play for the evening were getting schooled by my windshield.

About 20 miles earlier when I was prepping to begin the long haul down I-5 from the 46, I’d stopped for gas and cleaned this morning’s bugs off, marveling afterward at the fine condition of the gas station’s squeegee. I’d never seen one do a better job at getting rid of insect carcasses and giving me back a clear, unobstructed view for the rest of my drive. Well, once dusk hit, that cleanliness was all over. So were thousands of bug-ish lives.

Insects aside, they’re yet another sign of my distance from the norm — my norm — and they entirely redefined “nightlife,” if only for one evening. And I can’t wait to see what other future trips turn other words inside-out and let them take on new meaning.

Tonight I am thankful for the open road, for being able to clear my head, for a safe trip up, a great day reconnecting with an old friend and a safe trip back.

I felt about twice my age tonight.

Not wanting to go anywhere, as tends to be my usual M.O. on weekends, I decided to do something I haven’t done in a long time.

I knew I had a couple of them in the house — completely new — that I bought a Christmas or two ago, probably when I was wandering through Walmart.

After creating a mocktail of diet 7Up, diet cranberry juice and water — lovingly poured into a martini glass — I sat down to tackle one of them. Correction: after I saw that Dirty Dancing was on TV this week for, like, the 6th time, I tuned into it, settled into my usual corner of the couch and then I tackled it.

What was it? A Thomas Kinkade puzzle.

The two that I purchased (and which have since been collecting dust at the bottom of a bookshelf) were beautiful winter scenes. Tonight’s featured a warmly-lit cottage by a gentle brook, with a bridge in the foreground, a snowy blanket all around and a pale sky painted in pastels that spoke of a setting sun on a chilly evening.

It’s a beautiful picture — on the box, that is. Trying to make sense of all the snowy white and sky blue puzzle pieces, however, was a bit maddening. The full border took me over an hour alone, so I can’t imagine how much time the rest of it will take.

No matter, though. Between wishing my knee wasn’t what it is and that it would allow me to masquerade as Jennifer Grey after a year or two of dance lessons (assuming I could find a dude on the planet who could dance as well as Patrick Swayze) and having a big night in with my puzzle — sans adult beverage — I felt like I was…70? Something like that. And it was the best ever.

Tonight I am thankful for the simple things in life, for the peaceful night in and for embracing a night that may be boring and puzzling to some, but which was simply divine to me.

Credit card companies are good at making us believe that we can get something for practically nothing.

You have to use the card to get something back when, in reality, we often end up with less than we had to start with.

It’s sort of like the idea of a sale: save by spending.

What? Huh? End of the day, you’re still out the cash.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good sale, and I’ll shop around for a deal when I need something. But more often than not, that need isn’t real. It’s more of a want.

Tonight, “It pays to Discover” struck me in a new way. While we may get something by using the card, they get much more. If you think about interest fees, late charges and our simple dependency on card, they benefit from us. Wouldn’t the payout be better if we realized we don’t need to go the credit route? Wouldn’t the payout of realizing that we can easily do without something we think we need be better than not thinking and simply buying?

Tonight I am thankful for the idea of scaling back, needing less, wanting less and finding ways to discover things truly meaningful for me — without spending a dime.

So last night’s 11:07 post from my Blackberry never made it to Posterous. Thumbs down.

I knew it was delayed, so since I was desperate for bed, I instead composed a Facebook note to meet my daily midnight deadline and posted in that manner. It had been a long, emotionally draining week and I was in serious need of some shut-eye. I assumed my emailed writings would ultimately rendezvous with Posterous and auto-post the way it normally does. This morning upon waking, however, I realized that didn’t happen.

The error? Our agency is moving offices today through the weekend, and the servers were down earlier in the day. After getting a flood of emails yesterday afternoon at 3:54, then more throughout the evening, I figured they were back up and running, and that all was well in the world of servers. Nope. Sigh.

Anywhoooooooooo…here is last night’s post that made it onto my Facebook page.

***

Credit card companies are good at making us believe that we can get something for practically nothing.

You have to use the card to get something back when, in reality, we often end up with less than we had to start with.

It’s sort of like the idea of a sale: save by spending.

What? Huh? End of the day, you’re still out the cash.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good sale, and I’ll shop around for a deal when I need something. But more often than not, that need isn’t real. It’s more of a want.

Tonight, “It pays to Discover” struck me in a new way. While we may get something by using the card, they get much more. If you think about interest fees, late charges and our simple dependency on the card, they benefit from us.

Wouldn’t the payout be better if we realized we don’t need to go the credit route? Wouldn’t the payout of realizing that we can easily do without something we think we need be better than not thinking and simply buying?

Tonight I am thankful for the idea of scaling back, needing less, wanting less and finding ways to discover things truly meaningful for me — without spending a dime.

There are some things that you can find no words for.

You hear about something or someone or someplace, and you wish there was some way to express the trillion and one thoughts that immediately flood your head. There are so many that it feels like your brain will explode. Then the migraine aura — a.k.a. “the twinklies,” as I fondly (not really) refer to them — begins.

You wonder whether your head will stop spinning and if, someday (hopefully soon), you’ll be able to articulate everything that you feel wants to bubble up from inside.

Sometimes the feeling can be so numbing that even as you try to go about your business — listening to this song or that song, watching this TV show or that TV show, tackling this project or that — your brain feels incapable of forming ANY thoughts…about the song, about the TV show, about the project, about that thing that’s left you feeling a bit frozen.

You know they’re there, but the thoughts aren’t even half-baked. They’re still raw. They’re blobs of doughy emotion that will take shape in time…but not now, not just yet.

You wonder about the people most directly impacted, the people that play supporting roles in an unbelievable, unfathomable script. You wonder things like whether this was all His plan, what good will come from it, when that good will come, and if healing will ever begin. You wonder. And then you wonder some more.

And while those thoughts are taking shape, sometimes all you can do is turn your eyes back toward the people in those supporting roles and be there for them. To listen to them, to find your way with them, to empathize with them as best you can. Because if the healing can start anywhere, maybe it can start with a person.

And maybe that person can be me.

Tonight I am thankful to be able to do what I can, even though right now it doesn’t feel like much. I’ve been given ears that listen, a shoulders on which one can lean, and plenty of past experiences to draw from. And if those situations in the past only ever exist to help those in the present, then for them I am grateful.

I took a field trip to Staples today during lunch. Needing a few items for the home office, I looked things up online, made sure they were in-stock and, even though I assumed I’d get there and they’d somehow manage to be out of everything I wanted, I ended up leaving with the things I set out for. It really was easy.

The home office has become quite an interesting project. It’s not simply one that involves rearranging furniture and finding a new look. No, it goes beyond that for me. It’s something that, when complete, will give me a new outlook, a new perspective and new inspiration. It will provide new energy, peace, productivity and focus. Instead of passing by it because I’m not a fan of the workspace, I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be drawn in each time I walk down the hall.

Since putting them up not too long ago, I haven’t been happy with the valances that I put up in there. The new ones went up yesterday and I clapped to myself in the middle of an empty room. I might’ve even done a little hop — I can’t be sure since I was drunk with joy and my recollection is therefore fuzzy, at best. Knowing, however, that I’ll need to go through the papers and clutter that I hauled out of the office and into the guest room makes me want to stick my head in the sand and avoid it as long as possible, but once I get through that mountain of tediousness, I’m sure I’ll clap once more.

I took the table apart that I’d been using as my desk, and I have to say that there’s nothing as satisfying as busting out a few tools to remove the legs so that I can eventually get it out of the room. I broke a sweat, I contorted my body into weird positions to be able to unscrew them and, when I was done, I wanted to find something else to take apart.

The pale wood makeshift desk will give way to a warm, richly-colored set-up I’ve decided to make. I spent a bit of the weekend at home painting it, and the color couldn’t be more me: “Spiced Wine.” It’s lovely. Ultimately I will top it with glass for an uber-sleek look, but even without, its simple, clean lines are already a huge improvement.

Tonight when I get home, I will put together my ergonomic chair (exciting for sure, especially if you’re my back), hook up my new printer (confession: I haven’t had one hooked up to my computer at home for about 7 years) and connect my new monitor. All three I’ve needed for an eternity, so tonight I shall be in heaven.

This afternoon, I am thankful for a great day back from work after a relaxing weekend, a productive lunch hour filled with helpful Staples employees, and for busting out my daily blog post to make for an even more productive evening. If this isn’t the start of tremendous efficiency, I don’t know what is. Viva office! 

If you’ve never grilled fruit, I highly recommend it. I’ve grilled many a peach, apricot, plum, apple and grape. The grapes and apples I prefer over a salad, ideally accompanied by a bit of blue cheese, while the others I like as a dessert. I’ve never grilled a pluot, however. Until tonight.

I’d finished my chicken and zucchini, and the grill outside was still hot. I grabbed a pluot from the fridge and figured it wouldn’t be much different from my previous fruit-grilling, being that it’s simply a plum crossed with an apricot — though it skews more plum. But tonight I used a small bit of good olive oil as a marinade for about 30 minutes, then dusted the pluot slices with granulated sugar right before tossing them on the grill.

Dude.

It goes without saying that the second the sugar hit the hot grate, it was as though the sugar on top of creme brulee was being torched right in front of me.

I decided to throw the lid on to really soften up the pluots, then returned to them five minutes later. They got a turn, and I retired inside to the couch for five more minutes.

When I took them off the grill, their color was that of a ruby red grapefruit, and the char on the softened skin was a striking contrast. The scent of caramelized sugar started a memory brawl in my head. No longer was I thinking about creme brulee, I was thinking of the tiny bits of marshmallow that would stick to the end of skewers and, as I’d sit around the campfire and make s’more after s’more, the sticky ends would become darker with each pass over the flames. Divine. My pluots looked soft and delightful, and I knew I wanted to add a different texture to liven things up. Standing in front of the fridge, my eyes fell on my container of Greek yogurt. Nope, not different enough. But the almonds I usually add to the top could do the trick.

And they did. I tossed a handful into a small bag, gave it a couple cathartic whacks with a wooden spoon and, as I dove into my dessert after sprinkling the top of the fruit with my crunchy finish, it was the perfect combination: sweet, tart, soft and almost jammy, with the earthy, crunch of almonds. Note to self: must remember to replicate this dessert during cooler weather.

Tonight I am thankful for my simple dessert that was the perfect ending to a long weekend, for the memories it brought back and for the delicious promise of recreating it in the coming months. Who knew a pluot could take its place right next to creme brulee and s’mores? Here’s to finding out what else can join them.

I feast fairly regularly on a hearty diet of Food Network and Cooking Channel. With the exception of that weird Baron Ambrosia program I’ve not yet been able to embrace, there really isn’t a show that I won’t watch.

Earlier today, I was watching Robert Irvine bark a few (understatement?) orders as he endeavored to give a failing restaurant a new lease on life. He said something on the episode that’s so true. He called life a sequence of moments, saying that when the moments and the sequence is just right, life is magical.

Life is, indeed, a sequence of moments. Some are good, some are bad, some leave us feeling indifferent, enraged, inspired — even insane at times.

We go through life trying to create the perfect string of events that leads to a perfect existence that makes us feel like we have the perfect everything. And yet we inevitably fall short — sometime, somewhere, even if we only feel that way for one moment. I think it’s because we try so hard that we forget to let the moments come to us.

We forget that there can be something good in the bad — and even something bad too much good. Not always, but sometimes. There’s nothing wrong in trying to create our ideal world and surrounding ourselves with everything we want to be surrounded by. But, for me, missing the moments — the seemingly insignificant, the mundane, the random, the quirky and the chaotic — means missing some of the best stuff in life…stuff that I can pick and choose and bring back into my world to make it a little better than before. Not perfect, but better.

Tonight I am thankful for the reminder to be in every moment and to try to see every instance as something that can add substance to my life. And maybe even a little magic.

Robert Frost said he could sum up life in three words: “It goes on.”

Sometimes we think it won’t, but if we hang in there, we let a day play out and wake up the next morning to find a new one ready for us.

Sometimes we think it couldn’t possibly get any better, and it does.

Other times we think things can’t possibly get any worse, and yet it does. But it doesn’t break us.

They say that if you’re going through hell, there’s only one thing left to do: keep on going.

Tonight I am thankful for the promise of a new morning, for a clean slate each day and for the opportunity to repeat the best parts — or to re-write things entirely.