Puttin a little Cali in my Chuck

My friend J. is coming to visit me from San Francisco this week, and I am very excited. So excited that I am even willing to drive to St. Louis to pick her up (I offered, she didn't ask). I haven't seen J. since the summer of 2005, and I don't get to talk to her too often because I am on parent time in the Central time zone and she's on non-parent time in the Pacific time zone. That makes things nearly impossible.
In addition to loving J. because she's fun and easy to talk to, I love having people at my house. I love being hostess, serving food and making sure everyone has fun. I think that's what I miss most about living in Chicago. Picking up and moving down here was a really great move for us career-wise, but it was pretty much social suicide. We left all of our friends behind, and don't really connect with the people in our town. I know it's my fault.
Yesterday Mr. H. and I went to Home Depot, and I refused to go down an aisle that had what I needed because the mom of one of Boy's good friends was there and I didn't feel like talking to her. I suck. There isn't anything wrong with her, she's just VERY friendly and I am not, and I didn't want to have to talk about our kids and what good friends they are for the next 15 minutes. I just wanted my Crazy Glue and a new screen for my front door. There is a reason people's first impression of me is "What a bitch!" I have a lot of walls that take awhile to breakdown.
But I get crazy excited to see people who have already knocked down my walls, and that's how I feel about J. coming. I've already told Mr. H. that I'm getting drunk at least twice. At any rate I'll be less crabby for the next few days.

P.S. That's a picture of J. from my wedding. Mother Nature loves me because she gave me such a pretty sky on my wedding day!