As for the issue of the horrid Jane Austen, I must confess that the movie was not that bad. At least, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. (My expectations were severely low, after all.) But I must say that I am just so tired of the whole “oooh, you’re horrible, I will hate you forever / no wait, I love you but there’s some conflict so we can’t be together / no wait, I love you & you love me and the conflict resolved happily so we’ll get married and have thousands of babies” formula. Yes, I know that Jane Austen probably invented the formula, but let’s face it, it’s been done. to. death. However, getting to spend time with the girls before and after the movie was awesome, so I really can’t complain. And I think we might now have plans with all of them for New Year’s, so that’s very cool.

In totally unrelated news, I’ve been waiting to write about this because I didn’t want to jinx it, but I think I can officially say it now: Kris is moving here next month! I’m so excited, she’s been my best friend since college and I absolutely adore her, and she’s wanted to live in Seattle since long before I ever moved here, so I’m really happy that she’s coming. She’s had a few almost-moves in the past, but something always came up (usually money-related) that kept her from doing it. But she found out that her boss wants to retire, which means she won’t have a job after mid-January, and there’s nothing else to really keep her in Memphis. Her boss is also giving her at least two months’ severance, which is enough to cover moving expenses and the last few repairs she needs to do to her house to put it on the market. She’s going to move in with us for a month or so while she looks for a job and an apartment. (Poor Dave. He has no idea how loud our house is going to be after Kris shows up.) So it really is going to happen this time. And here’s how I know that it’s definitely going to happen: last night, I booked myself a one-way plane ticket to Memphis. Well, actually, I’m flying to Little Rock because it’s several hundred dollars cheaper, and then I’ll rent a car & drive 2 hours to Memphis. Because, you know, it’s just such a long way to drive by herself, so I’m going to drive with her. And her dog, Lucky. It has nothing to do with just wanting an excuse to take a 4-day road trip with my best friend, singing Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco songs at the tops of our lungs and making each other laugh until we have to pull over and find a place to pee. Oh no, nothing like that. But hey, it’s a non-refundable plane ticket, so she’s locked into her end of the deal now. Hah!

Anyway, I’m flying down on January 19th – which, for those of you keeping track, is three days after my 30th birthday – and we’ll set off the next day. I’m hoping that we’ll make the 2400 mile journey in four days, but I’m a little skeptical of how a very tiny Mazda is going to fare on the very big mountains of Wyoming. (In January. In case you missed that the first time.) Dave is being given the responsibility of acting as our road trip meteorologist. We’re going to check in with him once or twice a day for weather updates, to make sure we aren’t going to be driving head-on into any major snowstorms. It should be fun. The dog is going to make it interesting; I’ve driven thousands of miles with Teenie in the car on multiple occasions (and flown with her several times too), but I’ve never traveled with a dog. The only aspect of it that makes me nervous is finding cheap motels on the road that have pet-friendly policies. I’ve snuck my cat into motels before and it was pretty easy. But it’s a bit more challenging to be stealthy with a 50-pound dog who really likes the sound of her own bark. Unless we can put her in a hat and a trenchcoat and teach her to walk on her hind legs. That might work.

But who cares? Best friend is moving to town!!! Yay! Happy dance! Lots of exclamation points! Whee!!!