Dilbert is the only online comic I subscribe to. When I got back from my romantic weekend getaway, I knew there’d be a couple of strips waiting in my Inbox, but I was extremely entertained by today’s strip - since it so perfectly sums up my attitude about lies of omission…not to mention what sort of notions that my evil side entertains as a reaction to that sort of thing.

I will blog about the utterly sublime weekend trip later. *perky grin*

Neopets and McDonald’s are running a joint promotion - the Neopet Happy Meal! They started selling them yesterday, and thus far (by noon Saturday) I have purchased 6 Happy Meals. It only runs for 4 weeks, and there are 109 Neopets, so I’m going to be eating a lot of cheeseburgers. *grin*

So far I’ve only gotten Scorchio toys…and not even a purple one yet, darn it!

My cousin Lyse is spending the weekend at my house to watch the younger demonspawn while I am away on my romantic weekend with Geoffrey (the elder demonspawn is off at an SCA event with my ex, Robert). Occasionally there are eerie moments between us that convince me we are at least a little telepathic.

Last night we were talking about something totally unrelated, and Lyse piped up with (and these were her exact words), “What’s that guy who writes those poems?”

I replied, “Shel Silverstein.”

“Yeah! That’s him!” she replied. Then we realized how creepy it was that I knew exactly what she was talking about from such a vague question. Neither of us even owns any Shel Silverstein books.

Freaky shit like that happens all the time between us. I keep telling her that we need to stop sharing the same brainwave…

Tonight after work I went out to dinner with my Number One Internet Fanboy and his lovely lady Kylanath. We went to Gustav’s, which is a German restaurant. The fondue was yummy, the meal was pretty tasty, but it was the company that made the evening terrific!

Kyla is wonderfully nifty, and I absolutely love to see her around Karel, because: 1) they take such delight in one another’s presence, 2) I really treasure seeing two people I care about being so adoring & loverly with one another, and 3) they are just too darned cute together! Besides, Kyla is brilliantly evil at times and it’s great fun to watch. *grin*

Since it’s our birthdays in 2 weeks (Kyla’s is quite close to mine), I had meant to get her a pressie…but this week has been so frantically busy that I wound up arriving empty-handed. Damnit - but I will definitely get my butt in gear with some serious shopping in the very near future.

I felt even worse because Kyla got me a great early birthday pressie - a Happy Bunny care package! So now I have the Happy Bunny flipbook that I’ve been wanting for ages, and 2 tins of Happy Bunny lip gloss! One of them is still making me giggle…it says, “hey, making out is fun AND gross.” Of course it was all wrapped in gorgeous purple paper with an elegant luminescent green ribbon, and I am ferociously envious of Kyla’s talent at wrapping gifts so perfectly. (I bet she’s pretty good at unwrapping ducks, too. *laugh*)

Okay, even though it’s a LiveJournal meme, I couldn’t resist…

What Do You Wear to Bed?

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43.75 %

My weblog owns 43.75 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

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Which Computer Component Are you?

Hmmm…I don’t really know what a processor is for, I think my blog doesn’t quite own me that much, and I don’t wear panties to bed. Oh well, they’re just silly Internet quizzes.

Today Geoffrey & I had a consultation with my tattoo artist, Jennifer Billig of Atlas Tattoo. I have an appointment - a week after my birthday - to get my first tattoo re-inked, as it was done nearly 7 years ago (on my 28th birthday) so it’s faded quite a lot. And there are a couple of patchy spots - when I had it done, I knew almost nothing about tattoos, and while I’m very happy about how it turned out, I suspect the artist who did it was rather inexperienced.

We also had a consultation on the design I’m having done for the couples’ tattoos that Geoffrey & I are getting together. We aren’t getting matching designs, but rather complementary ones. We also made a consultation appointment for Geoffrey to have his done by another artist at the shop, Jerry Ware, whose style is more in line with Geoffrey’s preferences. We made appointments for those tattoos at the same time, on the fifth anniversary of our first night together - July 23rd.

At first, where (anatomically speaking, that is) to put our couples’ tattoos had been that Geoffrey wanted his on the left side of his chest (over his heart - awww!) and mine was going over my shoulder blade (as I didn’t want ink on my cleavage!). But then we talked about our handfasting vows, and how important they were to us, and realized one of the sections we both treasured most was “I will be a shield for your back, and you for mine.” The left arm is traditionally the shield arm, so we are placing the couples’ tattoos on our upper left arms.

I’m rather looking forward to having ink I won’t have to shimmy my pants down to show off! *grin*

Over Memorial Day weekend, Geoffrey and I had been planning a romantic getaway to Eastern Oregon, because quite some time ago I’d spotted a bed-and-breakfast that I knew he would utterly adore staying at. However, the establishment seems to have gone out of business, so we had to revise plans.

Several times Geoffrey and I have discussed places we’d like to go in Oregon: Crater Lake, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, the Newberry National Volcanic Monument and the Lava Lands Visitor Center, the Oregon Sand Dunes, and probably a jaunt up to Wolf Haven in Washington.

I’d thought of the Lava River Cave because I went there on a school field trip in the 4th grade and really enjoyed it. But Geoffrey asked me if I’d ever been to the Oregon Caves, and I haven’t. After a little research, we discovered that Wildlife Safari is only a bit more than an hour away from the caves! On a whim, I double-checked the location of something I’ve been wanting to visit for years, the Oregon Vortex - and found it also nearby, only about a 75-minute drive from the caves!

We’d thought to stay in Grants Pass, but it seems all the budget motels are booked for the weekend. Not surprising - it’s a holiday weekend and the first “real” weekend of the summer. But about 3 minutes on Google (my favorite search engine) turned up a very reasonably priced room at a nice motel chain in Roseburg! So, the itinerary is:

Saturday morning, drive down to Roseburg to check into the motel around 2, stopping somewhere along the way for lunch - at just whichever dining establishment happens to catch our fancy. After check-in, zip out to Wildlife Safari and enjoy the rest of the afternoon there. Have a cozy dinner, and enjoy one another’s company for the evening.

Sunday, drive southeast to the Oregon Vortex and marvel at the weirdness of it. Hopefully take lots of pictures! Then out to the Oregon Caves and take their 90-minute cave tour. I’m sure the hike in and out of the cave will have us eager for a good dinner and a relaxing soak. Maybe we’ll have enough energy to check out the town…or maybe we won’t care about anything but being in our motel room!

Monday, sleep in and have a nice drive home. If we see something eye-catching along the way, perhaps we’ll add to the itinerary. But I have a hovering suspicion that what we’ve got planned so far will keep us busy and be an absolute blast!

My cousin Lyse and I have the strangest conversations. This morning we were discussing how obnoxious Barbie is - due to one of Anxiety’s Barbie dolls lying about on the floor. Lyse made a snarky comment about placing the doll in an obscene position. I replied that such a thing was probably first done to Barbie the day the first little girl to get a Barbie - who also had an older brother - left her dolls lying about unattended.

Lyse leeringly joked, “Oh yeah, I can see it now - Barbie, Skipper, and GI Joe! Every man’s fantasy!”

“Every man’s fantasy is 3 pieces of 11-inch plastic?” I snarked back, laughing.

“No, that would be my fantasy,” Lyse instantly rejoined. Then sheepishly, “Oops, that was my out-loud voice again, huh?”

Today, despite a few twingy aches from helping friends in Seattle move yesterday, Geoffrey & Anxiety & I went to PetSmart to pick up a few pet supplies. Angst’s new pet boa constrictor needed a heat rock & a new full-spectrum light, and we also needed to pick up cat litter. We went through check-out, took our purchases to the car, and then Geoffrey asked me if I wanted to look at the kitties that were available for adoption through the Cat Adoption Team (the no-kill shelter where I got my cat Zadya). I said no, that I didn’t want to torture myself in looking at the cats when there was no possibility of bringing one home. (I’ve wanted another cat for quite some time, but Geoffrey has been less than enthusiastic about that idea.)

Then Geoffrey said, “Let’s go look.” I was plumb stunned. He was willing to consider getting another kitty?! Wow! That man loves me so incredibly much - not that he was considering it just for me, but I’m sure that was a good chunk of his reasoning.

After checking out the several beautiful, friendly cats at the adoption center inside PetSmart, I realized I was utterly besotted with a half-grown black kitten. He was rescued from someone who was keeping 12 cats in a small mobile home - can you imagine?! (Lyse asked me, “HOW can someone DO that?!” I had to answer, “Someone who is sheerly selfish, irresponsible, and thoughtless, I would imagine.”)

We filled out the paperwork and brought him home. He is 8 months old, a short-haired, all-black (with just a few white hairs on his tummy) neutered male with the most relaxed, affectionate, sweet little personality. Zadya likes him, which is good because one of the main reasons we got him was to keep her company - since she is so needy for attention & entertainment & affection, and she really likes other cats. Lyse joked, “You got your pet a petpet!” (That’s a NeoPets reference, btw.)

We wanted to pick out a suitable name, but nothing immediately sprung to mind. The shelter gives temporary names to all their cats (Zadya came to us named “Shasta”), and they’d dubbed him “Beau”…yeah, whatever. As Lyse remarked, “You Northerners got it all wrong - Beau is a name for a hunting dog, not a cat!” I thought so, too.

Geoffrey has been doing a fair amount of research on ancient Egyptian history & religion of late, since his patron deities are Egyptian, and so looked up a list of words in his textbooks that might be suitable for the kitty. We decided upon “Hasani” which means “handsome.” And he is.