So after work today, I’m in the grocery store, minding my own business, headed for the checkout with a basket full of stuff. A guy walks by me — I didn’t even get a look at him, except a vague impression that he was about my height — and says, “Pretty hair.” I automatically replied, “Thanks!” but resisted the urge to slow down, turn and gape. Which is why I didn’t get a better look at him.

I should have turned and looked anyway. And if he was cute, flirted. Damn, I am out of practice.

In other news, the upcoming Sunday is my department’s mandatory quarterly meeting. The one they schedule 12 months in advance so you can’t avoid it by requesting a vacation day, and for which missing will ding you to the equivalent of 2 separate absences. Oh yeah, not to mention it’s the one they have at SEVEN FUCKING A.M. on my day off. Claire asked me what sort of things are discussed at the meeting, to merit it being a mandatory weekend work meeting at SEVEN FUCKING A.M. The sad truth, as I told her vehemently is, “Not a fucking THING.” But them’s the breaks.

(Claire is kick-ass wonderful, btw. She’s the best next-door neighbor I could ask for, a really terrific friend, and one of the best moms I’ve ever met. Not to mention her entirely underrated talent for making people feel welcomed and included, which is something I largely suck at. She wrote a totally sweet blog post about me on the 12th, and I have been so absent from the Infobahn that I didn’t even see it until today.)

Last weekend, Anxiety went to the coast with the Red-Headed Stepchild’s family, and so Geoffrey & I had a childfree house for 3 whole days! (Yes, of course we had sex in the living room. *GRIN*) We topped off the weekend with a bit of a splurge at Powell’s, which is almost always the best thing you can do with your clothes on. I got a new Spider Robinson book AND a new Laurell K Hamilton book! YAY!!!

Now I’m going to go hang out with my 6-days-shy-of-1-year-old godson.

My kick-ass, totally awesome new alarm clock (that Geoffrey got me for my birthday!!!) now plays the first minute-ish of Scotty Doesn’t Know.

YAY!!!

It’s been 30 years since I’ve been able to be in Hawaii on my birthday, but one of these days I’ll have to get back there and really celebrate the hell out of it. I have vague memories of being about 6 or 7, and thinking the parade and all the other Kamehameha Day excitement was because of my birthday. I was a special kid.

Yesterday — the lovely Kylanath’s birthday! (hope it was a wonderful one!) — was one of those days when nothing seemed to go right for me. The drive into work was nerve-wracking due to strong wind gusts…and trust me, there’s nothing fun about crossing a bridge with steel grating on a two-wheel vehicle in wind gusts of varying strength and direction. It sure does wake you up, though; I barely needed my coffee after that bit of adrenalin. After an insanely busy day at work where our call volumes were 5 times normal (partly because a bunch of the senior operators called out sick), I got home only to immediately turn around and have to leave. Lyse had a monster migraine and had to go to the ER. We were there for five & a half hours, and didn’t get home until nearly 11pm…which is past my bedtime, anymore.

The one possibly amusing moment of my day yesterday was a phone call from my youngest demonspawn, on her last day of school. She was lucky enough to catch me on my lunch break. There was a ton of background noise, so I had trouble distinguishing exactly what she was saying. It went something like this:

Anxiety: “Can I bring home a biology [garbled word that might be "textbook"] for the summer?”
Me: “Sure.”
Anxiety: “Yay! You have to tell my teacher that it’s okay! I’ll put him on the phone.”
Teacher: “I just need to get your permission on this directly.”
Me: “Sure.”
Anxiety: “Thank you, Mommy! I love you!”

About two whole seconds after the line disconnected, my brain’s review mode kicked in and processed what that garbled word was. It wasn’t “textbook.” It was “tarantula.”

Shit.

(But Happy Birthday to me anyway!)

First, here’s the clock I want for my birthday!!! If it (or a love note announcing its eventual arrival) doesn’t magically appear on my nightstand by June 12th, I’m buying it for myself.

Next, the cutest little boy in the whole universe, my godson, took his first steps today! And his mom blogged about it! Everyone should go read it!

It may get rather quiet around home for the next few days, as I’m dropping Geoffrey at the airport on my way to work in the morning, and he won’t be back until very late Sunday night. Even if he weren’t going to his grandpa’s funeral, I wouldn’t envy him the trip, since he’ll be dealing with summer in St. Louis. Blech.

Now my demonspawn is demanding that I let her get back to uploading piccies on her MySpace. Mm-kay, whatever.

Geoffrey’s last surviving grandparent died this afternoon. It was just a couple of hours after the family got the news that his Grandpa Hugh was being moved to hospice after a serious heart attack, since he was in his 90’s and his health had been failing for a while now. On Thursday, Geoffrey will be flying back to the Midwest for the funeral, and coming back Sunday. I’d go too, but the plane tickets are sucktastically expensive. I wish Geoffrey didn’t have to hang out with his relatives under these circumstances, but I’m glad we can afford to send him.