Still we had enough space for some sheep, chickens, a decent garden and Trinas pony.I had been working at an outfit in the rural town and I'd been the...e 11 years with never a positive word from the boss so I decided I'd had enough. New systems had come through from head office that needed modifying to suit our local situation and I'd worked my butt off getting things useable in time but some of the paperwork and administration hadn't been completed. Needless to say the boss jumped on me. The. .." Itrailed off, my gaze going unfocused. I was going to say, 'Before startinga family' but I suddenly realized that nearly two years had passed sinceKaren and I had talked about that.Had it really been that long? The last time we'd spoken about it, Karenhad just been finishing up her master's degree, and Liv had been about tostart high school."Holy crap, it really has been that long," I muttered, rubbing a handacross my face. I'd been so preoccupied with my increased workload at theoffice. And then she took another cigarette from her pack. Four of them hadformed a small circle of conversation and Steven kept watching fromseveral feet away. She was holding the cigarette now in her hand,talking. He watched her continuing to hold it, knowing that she wouldlight it, imagining that she was feeling some need to light it. It seemed she was waiting for a break in the conversation to light it.Then, as some guy across from her talked, he saw the cigarette hang fromher lips and the. So we continued drinking for another hour and a half and I killed 4 more beers. By this time I was getting pretty drunk and I asked him again about the party. He said "I guess it's not goin or somethin". I was pretty bummed about this so he said to me "I know you were lookin forward to meetin some ladies tonight, but you can just hang out here for a while, I got the next best thing". I went to the kitchen to get another beer and when I came back there was some hardcore porn on the big screen..