You are seriously going to hate me for telling you this, but this has been a lucky week for us. First, I won that snowboard (which I have yet to pick up or decide what to do). Wednesday, J got an e-mail saying he won tickets to Riverdance. Then Thursday, J found $20 while walking on the street in the middle of town.
I know I just gave you a virtual kick in the stomach. And I understand if you are putting a hit on us right now. I've always said J is lucky, but now I'm starting to think—without jinxing myself too much—that I am too. In the past few months, I won money at the casino and those Jimmy Buffet tickets, a gift certificate at a local coffee shop and the snowboard. J won a free AMC hut stay, a few lotto winnings and now the Riverdance tickets.
The thing is, J has taught me how to be lucky. I used to always laugh at him when he entered millions of contests and raffles. His motto was always, "In order to win big, you have to play big." Now I enter just as many contests as he does. Especially those local contests. I'm telling you, your chances are higher than you think. The bagel gift certificate I won? There were probably only 5 entries.
As for Riverdance, the performance is Tuesday and J already has his ticket to see John Hiatt (barf), so he passed them onto me. My big dilemma was who to bring.
If you ask J, he would say we have no friends here. That's partially true. We know a ton of people. It's almost inevitable to run into someone we know when we are out and about in Concord. And everyone is very nice. But, we don't hang out with anyone (okay, except for our landlords ShortShorts and theQuilter, but I don't count them). I love the New England area, but someone once told me that it's very hard to make friends (the hanging out kind) and I'm starting to realize how true this is (unless there is just something about us that we don't know, like we smell really bad). We've made several efforts to meet people. We joined the young professional group, I joined a woman's group, J is active in his rec director group, we play soccer, we go to a dance studio, I go to aerobics classes ... We have have made attempts to get together with people we know. Nothing has ever panned out. Many times, it has to do with them having kids and it being a little difficult to coordinate schedules. We feel a little lame and deflated after it doesn't work out. In Danville, it took us a good year and a half to meet some young folks. But once we found the group, it stuck and we hung out pretty regularly. We found friends for life.
We've been here 2 1/2 years. Still no "friends." For the most part, I don't mind. This is not a woe is me post. I have plenty of friends around the country (hi!!!!!), I thoroughly enjoy hanging out with my husband and like I said, we know a lot of people. But it's a time like this—when I have free tickets to a performance—that I need a girlfriend.
There's this wife of one of J's rec director official friends that I met a few weeks ago at one of our only nights out with other couples. She was really cool and we hit it off. I asked her to join me for dinner and Riverdance (she was actually the 3rd woman I asked) and she can and wants to go! In fact, she was very excited about it!!!!!! Which makes me feel less of a pathetic person thankyouverymuch.
So I am going on a first date Tuesday. Sweaty palms and all. I'm trying to be cool about it, but I secretly hope I can make a friend for life.
The funny thing is, J's concert is in Lebanon, where this woman and her husband live. So, he is going to meet up with the husband for dinner as well!
I'm having visions of dinner parties and game nights with this couple; am I asking for too much? Reminds me of that How I Met Your Mother episode when Lily and Marshall go through a number of failed "dates" with other couples. But that's just TV, right??? We aren't that bad, right???