Wine does a number on me. We eventually crawled out of bed and made ourselves presentable. Today we were meeting some friends that he knows personally, and I knew through the Internet.

We made our way across town to a "yuppie" section of the city, rife with coffee shops and upper-class apartments. At the designated coffee shop we waited for M and J to arrive. (I'd met M before, the last time Dave was down my way.) After they arrived, we talked about a lot of things: problems with the newsgroups we read, the state of the furry fandom, and a little about baseball. Cleveland had lost a game against Boston in the playoffs. I wasn't happy about that.

After finishing our coffee, we walked along the Assinoboine River to a restaurant for lunch. M and I ordered the same thing, beef stir-fry. I ordered it with a hotness level of 1, while M had the 4. Our orders were mixed up, and my first bite was a bit of a shock. We traded plates. Level 4 was much too hot for me, but level 1 was more to my liking.

We took a trip to a mall to do some mall-crawling. My mother had asked for a "My daughter went to Winnipeg and all I got was this crappy tee-shirt" shirt, and I was bound and determined to find her one. We browsed through the Disney store for kicks, and the Hudson Bay Company, but I didn't find anything I could get her. Perhaps the shirt I was looking for didn't exist.

However, there was a place which was going out of business called "Eatons." We all bought these little wooden knobby things called "Happy Massagers." They have a smiley face painted on them. Very cute.

We parted ways with M and J, and decided to rent some movies. We got an anime flick and a French film about sex. It was so comfortable, cuddled up on the floor next to Dave, with one of his cats curled up with us. I never wanted to leave... But the constant nagging voice in my head kept reminding me that I would be leaving the next day. I tried to ignore it. I was rather unsuccessful. We gave each other backrubs with the Happy Massager. Bliss. Feeling his hand on my back, just that tenuous contact, kept bringing me near to tears.

How do you cram all the love and devotion you feel for someone into those few last hours alone?