Stuck in the Middle...

I have the best husband in the whole wide world, and I hope he knows that.
I also have the best parents in the whole wide world.

So that is precisely why it is incredibly difficult to be in my shoes. Well, not my literal shoes - those are comfy. This is reason number eight hundred and fifty-two why I don't recommend long distance relationships, but that's another story.

I'm extremely excited right now, you have no idea. In just over a week, I will sink my teeth into a genuine Jersey cheesesteak, and a gelati, possibly a Bertucci's carmine pizza. If I'm fortunate, I'll be able to run to Wegmans and stock up on those delicccccious seaweed wraps that we adore, and buy up tastycakes in absurd number. I'll get to meet little Cooper.

...and I'll be able to hug my parents for the first time in almost a year. Oh, how I ache already for those hugs, for those tears and those kisses, to see Papa's mustache and hear Momma laugh. It's something you try not to think about, when you're so far away from people you love. You try to gloss over the details, because it's things like this that put a permanent lump in your throat. But for tonight, I get to relish in those details.

I'm also sad. Because this will be the last time I see my parents in Jersey. Unless I go back for Class Reunions (which I would like to do...), I may never set foot in Jersey again. It's overwhelming. It's the last time I'll be "home". What happens then? Does Michigan become my default "home"? Or is it this gypsy-like concept, where my "home" is wherever I'm at, or wherever they are?

I'm guilt-ridden. My husband is too wonderful to me. He's going to sacrifice a weekend - a long weekend, at that - and drive 1200 miles with his sobbing wife and antsy dog. He's going to leave his babycat for the first time, and he's going to drive to one of the places he hates most. (New Jersey in general, btw...not my parents'. Just for clarity.) And he gets to do it with a week's notice. And there's so much to do in that week, potentially "major" car work, on top of everything else. I feel terrible. I tend to think that he's at least partially motivated by moving as a child, that he understands the depth to which being able to say 'goodbye' is important to me, how much stress this whole situation has already been to me. That, and he's doing it because he loves me.

...Those are just really crappy reasons! Can't he just do it because he remembers how delectable Wing King cheesesteaks were?! Because I would feel a whole lot less guilty and craptastic if he weren't being so completely selfless in all this. If he weren't being way too good to me. Don't do it for me. Do it for the cheesesteak.

*ahem*

Shifting gears...

Yes. I am completely obsessed with the cheesesteak right now.
But really, I don't get why they are SO HARD to do right. You can even get decent "authentic" italian and mexican food in places beyond their origin, why is it impossible for anyone to understand the cheesesteak? Fifty miles outside of Philadelphia, and "cheesesteak" is reduced to these thick slabs of meat with crappy rolls and sad little cheese triangles. They do not understand the cheesesteak. The thinly sliced goodlyness of the finely chopped meat, sizzled to perfection, slathered with cheese, on a fresh hoagie roll.

...and...and...onions! fry the onions. add those. not in these long, strips that you like to pair with your bratwurst. chop the onions. tiny. like the meat.

Mmmmmmm .... Cheesesteak.