1. When Chandler proposed to Monica on an old episode of Friends.
2. When Mamacat escaped from my bedroom during the night and pooped on my couch for the second time
3. "Deeper than the Holler" by Randy Travis on the radio
4. "Something to be Proud of" by Montgomery Gentry on the radio. At this point, I figured I should probably be buying some tampons.
5. The way Bob gently touched Charlotte's foot and said she was a nice girl when they were laying in bed on Lost in Translation. (Note to self: also buy ice cream and Pamprin.) I've had that movie for, like, a year and never watched it. Luckily, Alli put it in the DVD player on Saturday and made me.
6. Getting seasick. Luckily, I'm becoming an unflappable puker. I may get teary-eyed and pathetic during, but then I rinse my mouth out and smile and carry on.
7. Encouraging Joey the nympho former stripper-masseuse in his fondness for Alli. "Yeah, she may be engaged, but that just means she has some wild oats to sow!"
8. Laughing my ass off at a three-hour dinner with divers Mary, Rafael, Alex, Donna, and Alli.
9. Letting Mamacat out of the bathroom because she had been good about the litterbox all day and 10 minutes later finding a steaming pile of nasty poop on the sofabed apparatus.
10. Investigating the lingering poop smell after cleaning up aforementioned poop pile to discover shitty little pawprints walking up my couch, curtains, and then the windowsill. AGGGH. After my time with Mamacat, I am going to be able to handle anything.
11. Having to take a cold shower after that really long day because my hot water heater broke again.

Look, it's Mamacat!

Even though I had 11 things that just about made me cry, it was a pretty good damn weekend, if you don't count Saturday up until 8 p.m. or so.

THE DIVES

The diving was post fish ID class. I had a really miserable first dive, on which I got hit in the head hard by a guy on the line during our way down. The wreck was infested with divers, and really bad ones at that - ones that walk their dive, ones that use their hands to pull themselves through the wreck - and I was short a wetsuit and didn't feel I could get my buoyancy right. I guess this is the reason I used up my air in about 20 minutes (sorry Ralph, Alli!). When you're on a small dive site, like a wreck, and you have a lot of people.. well, for me, it's not even worth it. I spend most of my time worrying someone's going to hit me (it happens), or that I'll hit someone (" ") and none of my time actually enjoying my surroundings. I really hated the first dive.

Then we jumped in the water on the second dive and I immediately felt comfortable again. Phew. Puffers and hamlets and eels and no one's fins in your damn face: now that's the diving I know & love. :) :) :)

Can I reiterate a sentiment I had after my checkout dives? Sure, Stace. Okay.
It struck me as we were coming up slowly from our second dive (I came up slowly! Go me) and we were approaching the surface: It's just another world down there. And while I slowly drift upwards, and the parrotfish darting from here to there fade into a blue-green blur, I am amazed that this world exists and that I get to spend time there, 2500 PSI at a time.

SOME PICTURES (By the way: Please hit me the next time I go a whole weekend with only taking, like, five pictures. Okay? Thanks.)

Mary, our resident sandbird, taught us the international sign language gesture for "Snook Head Soup"

Alli also shared gestures, but the Canon was too slow to capture them.
Can you see how cool Alli is with her little Wal*Mart shirt? Yes, Alli is one of the coolest chicks ever. :)

My dinner companions. (L-R: Mary, Ralph, Donna, Alex, and Alli)
Do you believe such an innocent-looking group of people managed to scare off three tables of people just TRYING TO ENJOY A PEACEFUL DINNER, THANK YOU VERY MUCH? Of course not.

Love,

¶ 10:00 AM