"Home James"

While I rarely gamble, I did break down and purchase two Powerball tickets yesterday, hoping to be the lucky winner of the historically high $340 million jackpot. Paul and I went out to dinner last night and mentally spent our lottery millions. Oh admit it, you've done it too! We hired a limo driver named James. (I've always wanted to be able to say, "Home James" to an actual limo driver.) I insisted on a British butler named Jeeves, but firmly vetoed the hiring of a little French maid. Paul, who sides with Alex about the necessity of owning a "respectable" television, debated which plasma screen TV would be adequate, finally deciding that we should just have a movie theater built onto the back of our dream house. Naturally, Paul would buy that blue Corvette and perhaps a Lexus SUV to drive in the bad weather. (Because he wouldn't want to travel by limo ALL the time.) We planned a romantic, tropical, month-long get-away to an imaginary exclusive resort, where we'd have the beach all to ourselves (except for the attentive staff who would anxiously cater to our every whim).

I didn't match even ONE number on either of the two tickets.

No James. No Jeeves. No Corvette, Lexus, limo or personal movie theater. No month-long romantic vacation. I'm still working for a paycheck and wishing for the weekend. Boy, did my standard of living take a nose dive in the space of 12 hours!!

I'm assuming that Hoss, my ONLY friend in the state of Oregon, did not make his pile off the lottery, so I can't even claim to KNOW a millionaire.

I left Paul a message early this morning, letting him know we were NOT rich and he'd better go ahead to work today. He called me back while I was driving to my office and said, "You can't buy love. We didn't need the money." Awww… I'd take him over $340 million in a heartbeat!! What a guy! I'm a whole lot luckier than that ticket-holder in Oregon.