Man, I am SICK. As in fever, chills, achey, totally nauseated at the thought of food.

Guess who was planning on cooking Valentine's Day dinner tonight? That is SO not going to happen now. Damn it.

I think The Boy is still going to come over and take care of me, though I told him not to (I am a HUGE baby when I'm sick, and no one needs to deal with that).

Meh.

(Slides over on one of the guys bench) Probably. Although when I'm being polite, I'm a natural for the Naive and Wholesome bench, too.

by any calculation, I'm middle aged

By my calculation, I'm old. There's a guy in our black belt group who's got to be in or near his fifties. And I'm the next oldest. The youngest won't turn 23 before the test.

My knees are old, dammit. I never asked for old knees.

Thanks, JZ. I was trying to explain that I wasn't angry, just hurt, and that I was really excited to give him his present (which he didn't want to open because it would make him feel bad).

Then he told me it was my fault because I didn't leave the card this morning.

He's run off now for a couple of hours to try and salvage the thing, which is a nice gesture, and I hope it works, but I kinda feel like he missed the point.

See for the past 2 years he's had to work on V-Day. I have too, but I got off earlier, so I'd go get flowers-something manly like birds of paradise-dinner, chocolates, card and present. I think last year I even made his favorite pie. I mean, I was kinda busy too, but I thought it would be nice to have me do something for him on V-Day. Today I worked and he had the day off, but he paid a parking ticket and took the cat to the vet so I guess that left him no time.

Aw, DJ, that's sucky. But maybe he can make it up to you in other ways.

Yeah. I think I'm going to have a glass of wine, a cigarette, watch FNL and hope for the best.

I can't help it -- I have to share a cute kid story.

So Sara's standing on her bed, telling jokes (she's seen The Amanda Show on Nick with her brother) that include such original gems as, "What does shark do on a fishie? ... Swim!" She ends her act, and Ben and I tell her, "Take a bow, take a bow!" as we mime the action.

Crickets, as she looks at us.

Finally, she sort of salutes and says proudly, "Tinkerbell!"

Oh, billytea, that's incredibly sweet.

Isn't it? I'm pretty sure that a pen is a symbolic gift here, indicating intelligence. So that's nice too. I'm intrigued by the children's exercise book too, it's rather more complex than the other ones I've seen.

I'm pretty sure that a pen is a symbolic gift here, indicating intelligence.

Or maybe it's because "pen" are the first three letters of "penguin."

OK, probably not.

Or maybe it's because "pen" are the first three letters of "penguin."

Ah, not in Chinese. In Chinese it's 企鹅 (I'm curious to see if that comes out), or qĭ’é in Pinyin. It means, roughly speaking, 'goose standing on tiptoe'. And the Chinese for Echidna is 'spiny mole'! It's very charming.