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It is always nice when a city decides to throw a carnival in honor of your birthday. (Just kidding.) On Friday night, my boyfriend came in and we went out for Thai food and watched Thumbsucker, which he liked more than I did but that's probably because he's just smarter than I am. We got up on Saturday and it was a foul, cold, and rainy day. We ate lunch and went to the bookstore and the library and played some Scrabble. He went home to tend to his cat, and I passed out on the couch watching Nine Lives. I finished the movie the next day, and it was excellent. I spent a large part of the day at the coffee shop listening to music and rambling through this entry and reading Life of Pi. That night I had with dinner with my parents, shrimp and pasta and a nice card and gifts of Serenity, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The Year of Past Things, How to Eat, and Broadway: The American Musical. And a check. The card was actually so nice that it made me cry a little bit. I have to say, the parents scored on the birthday this time around. I worked on Monday and headed to the big city that night, where we drove around for a while looking for a place to eat before finally settling on Mona's. It was very yummy except for a strange yogurt salad with cucumbers that I thought would actually be more cucumbers than yogurt but ended up being basically a big bowl of yogurt with a few cucumber pieces dropped in. Well, live and learn. The grape leaves and spinach pie were great. We got baklava to go and stopped for ice cream under the pretense that we're giving up sweets for Lent. (I say pretense because this remains to be proven as I just chowed down on chocolate, caramel, pecan, raspberry cake with my coworkers.) We woke up early on Tuesday morning for Zulu and Rex, which were fun. We did not catch a coconut but picked ourselves up and endured. We headed out around town for something to eat for lunch but ended up going back to his house for yummy soup and bread and some more Scrabblin'. I was banished from the kitchen for a large part of the day while he prepared dinner, so I settled into the massage chair thingie and read Life of Pi some more. I bought this book in either the spring or summer of 2003, and I wrote in December of that year: "I'm still slowly making my way through Life of Pi while waiting for the story to actually start. I know I like it, and that I might even end up loving it, but I'm kind of afraid of it. It's weird." So. I never made it to the part when the story actually starts until this time around. And I did end up loving it! I loved it. I haven't quite figured out what to make of it, and I'm not sure exactly what to think about what happened, but I loved Pi and his journey and I can't stop turning it all around in my head. If you've started and stopped reading this book like I have so many times, don't give up. Try it one more time. Force yourself to keep reading if you have to, because it's really worth it in the end. The weather was amazing; it was a perfectly warm and sunny day, breezy, not humid. We took a little walk around the neighborhood, which was nice. I was treated to a lovely dinner of chicken pesto pasta and homemade bread and homemade salad and homemade salad dressing and a bounty of thoughtful, sensational gifts, like Rent and Autobiography of My Dead Brother and fancy hot chocolate and jasmine soap and almond massage oil and a coffee mug I've been coveting and Rabbit Fur Coat and this book and a gift certificate for a one-hour massage at the spa and I'm not even sure I'm remembering everything. My man knows how to pick out a gift's all I'm saying. When I got home, I had a lovely card waiting for me from Athena, e-greetings from Elizabeth and Melissa and others, and a mini-cupcake baking pan and 125 Best Cupcake Recipes from S. in a big old box in the mail. M. and I will get together next week and she will give me what she said her husband called "the most inspired gift of all time," and I can't wait. I know I'm just sounding like a gift rattler-offer, but it's not that. It's just fun to get presents and feel loved. Who can deny it? As for Mardi Gras, I only experienced a little bit of it, but it was wonderful to see all of the people and families in the streets, grilling on the sidewalks and pushing each other out of the way to catch beads just like always. In other news, Daisy got her teeth cleaned today, is walking around with splayed legs bumping into walls as she comes out of her anasthesia-induced fog and smells like that spray they use at the vet to deodorize a dog after a day in the kennels, Zuko is monitoring her and the cats by watching them through the crack under my bedroom door and pacing back and forth between my room and Daisy who's lying on the pillow at my feet, and I'm about to eat some leftover pesto pasta. I'd relate the details of the horrifying dysfunction of my lab results, but it's too unbelievable and frustrating to even deal with. Either I have hypothyroidism or I don't, my THS result was either a 6.26 or a 3, either the staff of the lab and the doctor's office are idiots or they're not, and nobody seems to know what's what. Needless to say, I'm going back for my third blood test in the span of a week tomorrow, and I just can't wait! I mixed up Daisy's food with water to soften it because her gums are sore and she would only eat it out of my hand and now my hand reeks of Dog Chow and no soap on earth seems to be capable of washing it out. Between that and the $200 vet bill, I feel a bit awash in the stink of dog duty. I don't even know what else to say, so, pictures: 
Photo by B
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