Friends and family.  Food and drink. Wine and roses.  Beginnings and completions.  Bitter and sweet.

Some things naturally go together, and on the lucky days, they all come together.

Case in point, my day.

Friday began with a walk across a stage with pomp and circumstance accenting each step, it involved the Significant One and my mother, who was teary eyed at my accomplishment despite the lack of honor cords around my neck.  While it was fun to see all my friends and professors, it made me teary to think that all those experiences I had were relegated to fond memory status. 

Even though I’d completed classes and my bachelor’s degree in December, formalizing the completion with the commencement exercises made it all very tangible and real and sad, in an “I did it, I really did it…Now what?” kind of way.

Lunch at Paddy Coyne’s was a great way to connect with my mom and my mate, with an awesome lamb skewer and salad making my tum happy.

After that, picking up the wee one at her new school and introducing my mom around was a fun way to see the cycle begin to perpetuate: my kid is now the daughter of two University graduates, with her daddy crossing a stage to get his master’s next week.  To know that that’s her background, to know she’s surrounded by books and a love of things smart: very cool.

The evening was capped off in a perfect way, with a trip to Pairings Fine Wine & Bar for an exquisite Malbec tasting with my old-time good friend Maria, who’s seen me go through my entire school experience and was the ideal person to help me celebrate it.  And how fun, to wander into Rebecca V and see Roland and Cheri, and to compare notes on the show (turns out, Roland and I had similar taste as to our favorites.)

Call me a fruity girl: I can take it.  I like my wine with fruity flavors, and the Malbecs at Pairings made me happy.  Making me happier, the fabulous friendly girls, Jess and Bekka.  Bekka was rocking my tasting world when she brought out my next tastes as she noticed I needed them: I’ve never had that experience before, since I’m usually bellyin’ up to the bar for the next taste.  Helping, I’m sure, was the rather sparse crowd a the event: I was about to blame this morning’s Sound to Narrows race until we went to Tempest and saw the crowd there.

Bitter+Sweet at Tempest: Lovely Larry’s moving on to Pacific Grill, though Lovely Leslie will take his place and Larry will still be on-call.

Still and all, fun times there, and then a remembered invitation to hang with the gang that got me into the journalism gig to begin with, Prof. Chris and Herr Editor Nick, who along with friend Damien had also commenced. Something called a “touchdown” was purchased for me at Ida’s, and that Red Bull with dunked shot of something did something to my inhibitions â€" pretty soon I found myself singing Meatloaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” with the Prof, with her singing Meatloaf and me singing, rather pathetically, the woman’s part.

Great, great fun, great, great day. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler