The Minutiae of Life as a Militant Squirrel

Friday afternoon was the annual Staff Summer Party, which is usually an exercise in both futility and boredom, but this year was actually really fun! Someone came up with the idea to hold it at Dave & Buster's, and it turned out to be the the BEST THING EVER.

I hadn't been to Dave & Buster's since they first opened in Philadelphia, more than fifteen years ago, and the group of us who went were so confused and overwhelmed just by walking in the door that we ended up fleeing without even doing anything. It was a lot more fun to be there on a weekday afternoon, when it was less crowded and much less crazy. I'm actually looking forward to a return trip!

The weekend was mostly laundry, cleaning, and napping. And marathoning American Ninja Warrior, which is a total guilty-pleasure show . . . and yet, I still watch it.

No, I still haven't caught up on my other shows. Enough with the judging, already.

Sunday evening, my dad took me out for my belated birthday dinner. It was nice to get all gussied up for a change-- I wore my bridesmaid's dress from Kristin's wedding, and it looked perfectly nice, which was awesome, and had been one of the selling points of buying it in the first place. The food was fabulous, and I have leftovers for lunch, which will be excellent. I got to bed at, for me, a decent hour, and although I didn't sleep well because I totally need a new mattress, I was counting it a good weekend.

Then the alarm went off at five this morning, and when I stretched out, my right foot hit a cold, wet spot in the bedding.

I shot upright and shrieked, "STOLI!!!! What did you DO?!?!?!?!"

Ah, yes, the joys of a dog sleeping in your bed with you . . . a dog on steroid medication. Side effect: incontinence.

Son of a bitch.

I was thisclose to making a rug out of her.

So I had just enough time to strip the bed and stuff all the bedding into the washer before I left; Dad will get it dried for me, which is definitely one of the good things about having him there.

At least it didn't soak through to the electric heating pad or to the mattress itself . . . seems like the blankets and sheets soaked up everything. Small favors, I guess.

And, since I got to work, I have been able to happily watch Novak Djokovic wallop Juan Carlos Ferrero in the first round of Wimbledon. So the day is looking up, I suppose.

I forgot today is my birthday.

Whatever, so I'm forty-three now? I think. I'd have to do the math, and I hate math. Born in 1969 . . . you figure it out, if you care that much.

I sure don't.

For the sake of consistency, I'm going to put up my shiny, sparkly birthday banner, though I really don't feel particularly shiny. Or sparkly.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!


Birthdays. SUPREMELY LAME.

I'm gonna have ice cream for lunch, because it is my birthday, and because I wants it, yes I does. SO THERE.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!



I made a nifty sparkly banner! Okay, for me, this is quite an accomplishment. I'm not usually the "let's try it and see if it works" person. I'm more of the "let's ask somebody how to do this" person. But I decided to give it a shot and BANG!!! I made myself a shiny pretty banner!

Now, let's see if I can make myself a shiny pretty boy toy.

*pause for experimentation*

Rats. Not working out so well. *sigh*

I'm forty-two this year. My last boyfriend was a big Doug Adams fan, and he used to say that 42 was the most momentuous birthday, but it doesn't feel any different than any of the last ten or so birthdays. I looked back on my birthday journal entries for the last several years, and the running theme seems to be "universally lame".

I still want cake and ice cream and presents, though.

Ice cream. YUM.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

Yay! Made it through another year!

I know I'm supposed to be all depressed over turning forty, but I'm actually kind of excited about it. I don't feel that much different, and it's pretty neat to have gotten this far.

All things considered, it's been a pretty much rockin' birthday week.

Dinner with my dad last Tuesday was awesome. We went to a very hoity-toity resturant called The Prime Rib, and they brought out an ENTIRE COW ON A PLATE.

Well. That's what it looked like, anyway.

It took me three days to eat all thirty-six ounces of rare meat.

Yum.

Amanda and I didn't get back from the shore until around midnight last night. That made it hard to get out of bed this morning, but God! It was a great weekend!

I only got a little bit sunburned, which is very good. However, it's a part of my back that I can't reach with the aloe, so I'm going kind of crazy BECAUSE IT FUCKING ITCHES!!!

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

And, burned on the backs of my knees and down my calves, which I somehow managed to miss with the sunblock.

It's kind of funny . . . you can see white streaks through the red, fingerprints of sunblock in the burn.

Like art gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Yesterday was the perfect day at the beach for us. There was strong ocean breeze, so no bugs! The air was about sixty-eight degrees and the sun was shining brightly in a blue and cloudless sky.

The few other people on the beach were bundled up in sweatshirts and long pants, towels and blankets wrapped around them, huddling together for warmth.

Amanda and I, penguins to the very cores of our beings, happily whipped out our beach towels, doffed our terry-cloth coverups, and sprawled gleefully in the sun, basking cheerfully in the chilly wind.

The water was just cold enough to be shocking, especially when the undertow sucked my feet out from under me and dumped me on my ass in water up to my neck.

I've never been to Ship Bottom before, and I couldn't help comparing it to Wildwood, which is where my family always went when I was growing up.

The comparisons went something like this:

Amanda: The sand is really soft, so be careful.

me: Can we go down nearer the water, where the sand is packed?

Amanda: The sand doesn't get packed. Even when it's wet, it's still really soft.

me: That's kinda weird. Wildwood's not like that. I thought all beaches were sort of hard.

Amanda: Oh, great. Greenhead flies. I'm glad I brought the Skin-So-Soft.

me: Wildwood doesn't have flies.

Amanda: Are you wearing your beach badge?

me: No. It'll put holes in my suit.

Amanda: The beach patrol is gonna throw you off the beach if you're not wearing it.

me: Wildwood doesn't have beach badges. Their beaches are free.

Amanda: What do you want to do after dinner?

me: I dunno. Boardwalk?

Amanda: Nope. No boardwalk.

me: No boardwalk? Wildwood has a boardwalk. I guess this mean we don't get fudge, either.

Amanda: We can go inland if you really want fudge.

me: Rides?

Amanda: No rides. Unless you want to go up to Seaside Heights.

me: Wildwood has rides. And, ew. North Jersey beaches don't count.

Amanda: Southern snob.

me: So what does Ship Bottom have, anyway?

Amanda: My parents' shore house. Which you are staying at for free. So shut up.

me: Um. Yeah. Good point.

Amanda: *glares*

me: Shutting up, now.

She wasn't really mad, more like play-mad. But I was being unintentionally whiny, which I attribute to the sheer weirdness of being at a beach other than the one with which I am intimately familiar.

After shutting up and lying peacefully in the sun, dozing to the sound of the surf and the calls of the gulls, I realized that there were no competing radios, very few screaming children, and not even much in the way of conversation. It wasn't crowded, or noisy, or trash-ridden.

In fact . . . it was damned nice.

Even though I'm tired, I feel really good. It was great just to get away for a weekend and do something different than the ordinary round of chores. I would've liked to get a little more rest before class started up again tonight, but oh well. I can catch up later in the week.

For those of you looking for more of my story, keep reading. There's a cut tag at the end for you.

So . . . the post-birthday week went fairly well. There was TGIFriday's for lunch on Wednesday -- which was actually an interesting amalgation of "Happy Birthday", "Welcome New Person", and "Good Riddance to Useless-Waste-of-Space-Person".

Now that's the way to kill birds with stones -- three different purposes, three different people, all in one fell swoop.

lucifrix took me to a place called Jones for a birthday dinner on Friday night. It was a nifty experience, and the fried chicken was absolutely wonderful -- as were the chicken-and-shrimp dumplings. It was also nice to have the chance to talk outside of work.

On Saturday night, I worked until eight at the mall, and then Amanda and I snuck off and went to dinner at a new place in the area called GoodFellas. I say "snuck off" because the management very blatantly disapproves of our friendship and has gone so far as to attempt to institute a ban on fraternization at or outside of work.

What the fuck?

We're both just salespeople, so it's not like there's some sort of favoritism thing going on. The only thing I can think of is that TPTB has discovered our nefarious plot to take over the world!!

Ahem. Got a little carried away there. Anyway, it's weird no matter how you slice it.

So, you know . . . lots of birthday goodness going on this week.

In other news, I hear that thamiris will be writing a Clark/Lex Inquisition story. Although initially I was quite excited, because I love her stories and am ceaselessly impressed by her writing skills . . . I'm quite worried about how my poor little Medieval Clex will suffer in comparison.

I mean . . . Thamiris doesn't do metaphors. She does conceits. Her similes are like monuments, her plots are never less than Biblical in length, and the quality of her themes makes the Mariana Trench look like a creekbed.

Sigh. I can't wait to read whatever she writes, and yet I am now creatively paralyzed with fear . . . mostly that nothing I could write would ever measure up, and that my story would look like a shoddy knockoff in comparison.

Maybe that's just the rabid insecurity talking.

So in a fit of some insanity, I jumped ahead in my story and wrote "The Revelation of Attraction" scene.

( Medieval Clex, Part IV. )

Other parts are in the following links:

Part I.
Part II.
Part III.