2006-08-10 - 11:16 a.m.

If I may quote myself from a year ago:

Yup. It's my birfday again. I made it to 32. I'm a little shocked that I haven't found a way to stumble along the way.

I mean, my right knee tried to burst into flames, I've been to Philadelphia several times, and JewelrySlut keeps giving me the stink eye. I think she's up to something. It's not like I tried to get waylaid between 31 and 32.

But, here I am. Still in my basement. Still working from home. If 30-31 was about personal achievements (like finally getting out of NJ and to NC), 31=32 ahs been more of a career year. I've really taken myself to 11 on a lot of things. I learned a whole heap about a whole lot over the past year and would like to think I'm somewhat of a better person as a result. But, that's just me.

Anyway, the steaks are bought for tonight and I plan to knock off of work at 3:00. No sense in putting in a full day. I deserve a break today. Mostly because I'm so awesome.

What else is happening?

Well, my bowels are finally OK. Strange how I got better as soon as my mother was out of the state. I'll have to look into that a little more.

We're wheels up for STJ in 9 days. Not that we're counting. I'm such a loser that I keep a tab on Firefox open at all times to a webcam of the Cruz Bay harbor. I watch the ferries and tourists come and go all day. It's quite nice to think that I'll be there in a few days. I 'm also hella stoked that Google Earth seems to have upgraded their Caribbean coverage. I can now zoom to about 1000 feet over our house. Awesome.

Yesterday was fun. While making my coffee, I noticed that the fridge smelled like it was harboring refugees. It kinda stunk of something fetid. This is odd because we don't make a practice of keeping fetid things in it. JewelrySlut ended up spending the morning cleaning the fridge. This is no small feat when you consider our kitchen. We have a galley kitchen and should really have a side by side fridge. We don't, so you can't open it all the way. She had to do gymnastics to get the shelves out. Luckily we had no incidents. Once, in NJ, while cleaning the fridge, one of the glass shelves exploded on me. And, no, we did not take it form the fridge to a hot sink. Fucker just burst, showering me in broken glass. That was awesome.

However, while she's cleaning, she came downstairs looking somewhat panicked.
NoGoodDaddy, you need to come upstairs right now
What's wrong? Did the fridge explode?
No, Peebo has caught a mouse. (Peebo being the younger of our 2 cats)
Oh swell.

So, I go upstairs and the huntress had a little gray mouse in her mouth. She would spit it out, let it limp away and then bite it again. JewelrySlut was skeeved out and Shmuppie was babbling about God knows what. I was less than thrilled. Fortunately, the cat had pretty much killed the mouse by the time I got there. I scooped it up in 2 plastic cups and took it to the dumpster for ritual suffocation. Great...mice. Like the other assorted creatures in this house aren't enough. Hopefully this is an isolated incident. At least we know the cats will do their jobs if it happens again. Only thing is that Peebo now seems to have the blood lust. Like I need that.

And, finally, I may have hatched the hair brained scheme of all hair brained schemes. When we go to FLA in October for Gramps' wedding, I've decided that we should make a detour...to Disney. I know. I know. I know. I'm an idiot. But lately, Shmuppie has been going to our bookcases and getting our Disney books and photo albums and seems really into the whole scene. So, I figure we can leave for the wedding a day earlier than panned and go straight there (we're driving). We'll spend the night before at a hotel on the grounds and then hit the Magic Kingdom the following day. After the park, we drive to Gramps' house. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Know what 1 night and 3 admission passes will run us? Take a guess. Did you guess $300? If you did, you were right. So, is it worth it to do a 1-day trip? I think it could be. This way, we know if further trips will be a disaster. We're only out $300 if all hell breaks out. We'll see how things progress.

And, to make my life all the more wonderful, our pals at the TSA just put us on Orange. Fucking awesome! They're also banning all liquids in carry-ons that are not medicines. Fucking awesomer! Um...where the fuck am I supposed to put all my rum? You carry on the little handled bottle box when you fly. I'm not checking 14 bottles of rum. Fuck all! I am not happy about this. And, yes, I'm being an insensitive, selfish asshole about this. But, come on! I need my rum!