Thanksgiving Recap -- and update on the PP sighting

At the Delano Hotel in South Beach with my mom

I've been MIA this past week because I was in Florida, visiting my mom for Thanksgiving! We had a great time, and the warm weather was such a nice break from the cold here in NYC. It was fun to break out a few summer clothing favorites, and I even made it to the pool twice to catch some sun.

View from our table at the Delano

On Thanksgiving, we went to South Beach for drinks at the Delano Hotel (an old favorite), followed by dinner at a restaurant called Barton G's that a couple I met on the plane recommended. Barton G's had very gimmicky food and drinks, but it was all really delicious! Our favorite was the Lobster Pop Tart (shown below), which we split -- it was an appetizer of lobster and gruyere, inside a flaky filo dough crust -- yum!

The Lobster Pop Tart at Barton G's

I ordered the turkey -- a traditional plate of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, yams and cranberry sauce. In typical bandster style, I could only eat a little bit, which made for great leftovers later on! My mother had the swordfish, which was actually served on a sword! Too funny -- but delicious!

"Sword" fish. . .

We shopped 'til we dropped on Black Friday, and I did quite a lot of my Christmas shopping. I also bought myself a new pair of jeans because my size 32 Lucky jeans are getting too big. After trying on countless pairs of True Religion, J Brand and others at Saks, I wound up getting a size 30 pair of Hudson jeans that I really like. Fortunately, they were on sale, since they are about a mile too long and I'll have to get them hemmed!

In other news, I have a bit of an update on the PP spotting. I found out later that he had gotten married at a small family-only event in Texas a few weeks before I saw him. And that we ran into each other just a few hours before his NYC reception. How weird is that? The funny thing is that his friend Wendy seemed noticeably uncomfortable when we met. . I guess now I have a better appreciation for why!

I also had the annoying situation of having my friend Erica tell me (when I asked) about the Texas ceremony, but she totally failed to mention that she had been at his reception the very night before we talked. That's especially weird, since she went out of her way to tell me that none of his friends went to the wedding -- as though I would be glad about that, somehow? Of course they didn't go . . it was a family-only event and they were all at the party here in town!

Erica told me that she didn't mention the wedding earlier because she didn't want me to have it on my mind around my birthday. I can understand that, but I still don't see why she wouldn't have just told me about the reception too -- it's been two years since we broke up, I knew PP was engaged, and I certainly would never begrudge him celebrating with his friends. I mean. . I'm not going to send a gift or anything, but it's not as though I hate him and don't want him to have any friends!

Black Friday lunch break with mom. . had to break up all this text with a photo!

It was also a little weird to (ahem. . cyberstalk and find photos of the wedding and reception and) see Erica, Adam, Jessica, Chris, Lauren and Randy there. After all, I'd been out on Shelter Island staying with the first four, and the latter two joined us for brunch one day. No one mentioned a word about Brian's wedding (which had just happened) or the upcoming reception, even though they were all about to attend it. It felt so strange to find the photos and see them all there.

I feel like they must have had a discussion among themselves and decided not to mention it to me, which feels really weird to me -- particularly where Erica is involved, since she's supposed to be my friend (I"m less close with the others, so I don't really feel that they had the same duty of candor). Does she think I'm such a loser that I'd go into a tailspin if I knew? (P.S., I wouldn't and didn't.) Did she really think it would be better for me to find out another way, rather than through her, my supposed friend?

I'll tell you . . . seeing her in the photos ONE DAY after she tried to act like Brian's friends ditched his wedding really chaps my hide. I can't imagine her thinking I'd be upset about her and Adam attending the reception -- I would never be like that! And the kicker?? When I found the photos, I also came across another album that showed me that during Part 2 of the Peter Pan Avoidance Tour. . . when he went to Chile, Easter Island and New Zealand for three months. . . during which time I was crying my eyes out every single day, hoping we'd get back together. . . well, it turns out that this girl -- his now-wife -- was on the Chile and Easter Island part of the trip with him. I am virtually certain that Erica knew about this and withheld that information from me (she went on a trip to Mt. Washington with them directly afterwards -- I can't imagine they didn't talk about the trip) .

All of this is now basically ancient history. I'm not upset about the PP part of the story -- though it would have been nice to have full information back when it mattered most to me. But I am upset that, once again, Erica just doesn't seem to understand the basic concept of being a good girl friend (looking back, I see that I didn't blog about a similar problem we had in the past). I'm also upset to find out now that I was basically a fool to waste those months crying over PP, since he was off having a fabulous time traveling with another girl while I was at home being miserable. I'm not planning to discuss this with Erica, at least not for the moment. Instead, I'm going to take a step back and reevaluate this friendship.