happy day? happy hour!

well - Friday wasn't exactly a happy day ~ but it did improve by happy hour.

Family drama:
I spent Thurs. night at my aunt's because we had to get up early for court (which was 30 min from her house, and 1.5 hrs from mine). I went w/ her to support her petition for common law marriage w/ her husband who died last summer.

At the hearing, my aunt was crying when her lawyer was asking her about her relationship with Pat ~ which of course, made me cry. Then, his father was there supporting Dede, but his sister was there objecting to the petition. It doesn't make sense to me -- all I can assume is that his sister wasn't around when he got sick and now feels guilty about it. So, she's blaming everybody else for her own actions (or inaction). The court granted the petition, despite the objection - so my aunt now has official legal documents that they were married. Translation: She'll can retitle the house in her name and claim his pension from his former employer.

Needless to say, by 10am, I was emotionally drained and tired from a lack of sleep. But, it was my last day of work at the Supreme Court ... so I had to go finish a memo, clean up my desk and tell everybody goodbye. The day was slowly improving - it was nice to say goodbye and the Justice was really sweet. I kept thanking her for having me, but then she kept thanking me for my work. Everybody was fun to work with and its hard to believe how fast the year has gone.

Retail Therapy:
While waiting for Happy Hour, I enjoyed some window-shopping in downtown. I had to run some errands, but found myself at Banana Republic. They have so many cute tops right now for summer -- I bought this new shirt (it has potential for my HS reunion outfit - plus, I think it looks better on me than the model because my skin/hair are darker, which pops the bright 'green' color more, and it fits my chest better - the upside of not being wafer-thin.)

Then, I met a friend for happy hour, which was extremely crowded. But, we grabbed a quaint little table, bought some cheap snacks and cheap drinks (one was even free - can't beat that). My friend still has one more year before graduation, but we chatted about my excitement to graduate and her excitement to get married this August (in ICELAND - to her Norwegian fiance) At 5 ~ another fun girl joined us. She was so outgoing, it makes me wish I were less shy. She even dragged me across the bar to flirt with some cute guys. I'll have to plan many more happy hours here (and with these gals) when I go back to work in a few months...

Update: I realized how much 'shopping' makes me feel better a long time ago, but its probably a bad addiction for dealing with a bad-mood/bad-day (on the other hand, at least I wasn't eating chocolate, drinking, doing drugs, or popping Prozac). So maybe my "retail-therapy" isn't such a bad habit.