Ooh, ooo, I want on that list!!!

Happy Birthday Trudes!!!

Happy Birthday Kara!!!

Much calm and relaxed ~ma, Aimee. You utterly rock to quit smoking. I need to do that with food. Ok, maybe not quit altogether, but you get the idea.

Also, I could use some getting out of the doldrums ~ma, if anyone has any spare. Between the grey skies and one of my best friends moving away, I am utterly bummed, with a side of daylong gronk.

Happy birthday, Trudy and Kara!

We are home now. London was fabulous and Paris was insanely gorgeous. We are already planning a France trip for next year. We toured Versailles, which was incredible and has us waiting for the Marie Antoinette movie (even though neither of us is a Sofia Coppola fan). It was a great trip. Happy to be home, though.

What Plei and Cashmere said, JZ. Don't make me scroll back and see what your doctor actually said you could do, because sanding, painting, and hauling recyclables? Probably not on the list.

Glamcookie, I'm so jealous. How great!

Welcome back, GC! I'm glad you had a great trip.

Kara says, "You are... thank you for sending those birthday wishes, and I love you. You're so nice people. You make my world glow, full of stars and beauty and love, although, I do like you. You're very awesome. You're great guys...girls...You are the perfect people. You are great. You are beautiful. That's all I want to say to them."

I read all the birthday wishes to her and she was thrilled. Thanks everyone. We went to Chuck E. Cheese for the birthday dinner. She bought (edit: with her tickets) glitter makeup and a pink thing that would make Jilli jump if it were real.

Oy. Jeopardy just had an entire category that was elementary-school level arithmetic. I guessed it was going for who could do the mental math first, so whatever. Then one of them was a Daily Double, and the guy got it wrong. Not only wrong, but completely illogically wrong. The problem was to add a bunch of numbers, and he answered something that was smaller than any of the numbers he was given.

Happy Birthday, Kara. I wanna Raptor nap her after reading her comments. So. Damn. Cute.

Happy Birthday, Trudes!

I really just want to share that today was my last day of chemo, which means my course of treatment is over. Surveillance phase starts next, and it is my fondest hope that they surveil exactly nothing out of the ordinary. My doctor had encouraging words today, so I'm pretty happy.

Checking in from San Diego now and about to head to the airport to fly home.

My sister is all huge and pregnant. The twins are both just over four pounds right now and she is at 31 weeks today.

My sister-in-law (of the married to my asshole brother) was at the shower and we were civil so that's fine.

But????!!!!! My neicelet is back! Has been for a couple of months but no one mentioned it to me. Oh well. She looks so much better and I was thrilled to see her. And she gave me her address and I am a very happy auntie.

Nephlet is doing well but I didn't see him for long sadly.

Kittenish has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and (we are hoping because it will answer stuff and be treatable) hyperthyroidism. I can pick her up tomorrow likely and I miss her like crazy. She's taking atenolol now. The cattery was nice when I called twice a day to check on her.

And my mom came down to have lunch with me today. Yay for nice moms.

Off to return my rented PT Cruiser and hop a flight to Portland.

Sounds like a perfect Kara birthday.

I didn't really do anything stressful -- a bunch of empty plastic bottles, a half-dozen plaster splotches, dishes. No big. The thank-you notes were really by far the worst part, and I did take an ice cream and cheerfully brainless comedy break afterwards. Nothing heavy was lifted, I'm fine and un-leaky, and the Halloweenie is prancing about inside me even as I type.

I don't know if they have it in Ireland, but in Scotland and Yorkshire I found something called Eirn Brew, or something like that. It was orange and chock full of caffiene. Good stuff.

hee! On the train in Scotland once, encountered a young teenage girl who started chatting us up in an incomprehensible glaswegian accent, asking if we wanted an "Irn Bru"--but we'd never heard of it, so couldn't understand a WORD she was saying, and started looking at each other wondering if she was crazy or slow...Eventually we figured it out. :)

t sometimes feels very strange to me that I didn't know y'all on 9/11/01.

Amych? You weren't here then? I feel like you've been around forever!!

I'm not quite ready for that commitment as a new Buffista. I will, however, let you touch me behind the cyber bleachers.

HAH! We can work up to it. Wear you down with peer pressure.

"You are... thank you for sending those birthday wishes, and I love you. You're so nice people. You make my world glow, full of stars and beauty and love, although, I do like you. You're very awesome. You're great guys...girls...You are the perfect people. You are great. You are beautiful. That's all I want to say to them."

AWW! I want to hug her and kiss her and call her Tyrone.

This isn't the best picture of it, but here's my new tattoo: [link]

t edit It's not a sharp picture, so you can't really see the shading, which is the part that makes it look so good. I'll have to shanghai The Boy's digital camera for a better picture.