Victory Is Kinda Mine.

After a long saga of friends-locked posts about my job, the upshot is that I have a new schedule. Starting March 4, I'll be working the same hours, 11:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., but I'll be working Sunday through Thursday. That's right, I've finally got Fridays and Saturdays off. That should help free up the personal days I had to carefully allot myself to go to weekend parties.

I'd say we should celebrate, but there's a good chance I'll be in New Jersey, visiting ojouchan on vacation. So, it'll have to wait a week or so.

Close Shaves.

So, after having a flight generously donated by the totally awesome and totally miles-having satch, there were some problems.

First, the bus company raised its prices, and ojouchan decided she probably wasn't going to Boston. So, I asked hahathor to prod her to keep going, and then I bought her the tickets as a "Valentine's Day" gift.

Then, this morning, she said that she probably wasn't going to go to Boston because she'd been offered the lead in her Bhangra performance and couldn't miss performances.

This time, I really panicked. I mean, honestly, how much control do I have over that? So I scanned her college's website for information on Bhangra, found the two people most likely to be the contact people for the group, and asked them to tell her that she didn't really need to go to rehearsal.

I probably didn't need to do that, Hathor managed to sway Ojouchan by preemptively announcing a party on her behalf on Sunday.

There are some difficulties.

One, is that, every time the trip was looking to be off, Ojou pushed hard with a line of "I'm not going to go . . . unless there's a particular reason you want me to be there." It's been getting progressively harder to find ways of actually convincing her to go without raising suspicion. I have already accepted the fact that she'll be mad at me for keeping things secret, but that's because she doesn't much care for surprises regarding very importnat things, while I feel very strongly that some things need to be surprises. At the end of it, both of us will be engaged to somebody cool, so I'm hoping it all works out.

There's a more serious issue that has me feeling uneasy, though. The party announced on Sunday has been marketed as a party for Ojouchan, which is something that has made her very, very, very happy. She often worries that I'm overshadowing her among our puzzling acquaintances (though not with our close puzzle friends). So I'm asking you, if you're in the Boston area and able to go to this party, DO NOT TELL PEOPLE THAT I'M GOING TO BE THERE. Do not say, "Don't worry, it's actually a party about announcing an engagement." I know that she'll have a great time, but it tears me up that it won't be the same ego boost it is right now.

I mean, I'm obviously an egomaniac here. I'm manipulating every event without her knowledge and displaying all of my brilliant intricacies to the select few, but this weekend is not about me; it's about the woman I love.