Words Written: Animal Attractions: 500+

Happy Birthday to me! It started with the alarm going off too early (but necessarily early), followed by not tea being delivered to me in bed, but Eostre knocking almost a full cup over on me, the coffee table (and various magazines and catalogues on it), the sofa, and the floor.

See, it can only get better from here!

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Aw! My boss got me flowers for my birthday! All yellow and orange daisy-ish flowers (see Dayle display her floral ignorance) with greenery. So pretty sitting in my window!

My first present was last night; Ken gave me a tea accessory. It's a set of tongs with which to squeeze the tea bag. Cool!

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So, yesterday late afternoon, Ken called me at work. I wouldn’t’ve thought much of it, except for a bunch of tiny clues. He called me on my work phone, not my cell. He said he was sorry he hadn’t met my boss on Monday when he’d brought me to work, and asked me to remind him what my boss’s name was and his extension. (Not strange—it’s good to have for emergencies.) But a few minutes after I hung up, my boss’s phone rang, and the entire conversation would have been completely innocuous and not caught my attention at all except that Denis said “Hello Ken” early in the brief conversation.

He later told me “Kenny” was his gardener. I didn’t believe him.

So when I got home, I asked Ken if he’d called Denis, and he got that “whoops, you caught me” look. He said he had, because he’d planned to come up and surprise me by taking me to lunch on my birthday, and wanted to make sure I didn’t have any meetings or whatnot.

And I believed him.

I jokingly said I’d hoped he’d gotten me the whole day off. Anyway, he showed up at work to take me to lunch, met Denis, and we were halfway down the hall when Ken said, “I couldn’t get you the whole day off, but I got you the rest of the day off.” What a goober! Of course, I hadn’t shut down my computer or picked up my attaché case (I just had my purse for our lunch date), so I had to go back. Plus, believe it or not, this was the first day when I actually had a job with a deadline to do. But Denis said go, and I went, wondering what other surprises my beloved had in store for me.

We grabbed subs and went to the beach and ate them, and he gave me my second present: DVD-Rs of the entire series of “Wizards and Warriors”. For the uninitiated, this was a wretchedly bad sword-and-sorcery spoof TV show from the early 1980s. It barely lasted a season. But it did star a yet-to-be-famous Julia Duffy, and already-famous-what-is-he-doing-here Jeff Conaway, and fantasy’s yummiest villain, Dirk Blackpool, played by Duncan Regehr. Hee hee!

After lunch, we drove up this little windy road, and I learned my big birthday surprise: We were going horseback riding! Now, I haven’t been on a horse in about 20 years. But every so often, we say, “wouldn’t that be fun”, and today we were finally getting around to doing it. We went on a two-hour trail ride up in the hills. Gorgeous scenery: babbling brooks, trees still green thanks to the copious spring rains, buzzards occasionally circling overhead. We heard (but didn’t see) a rattlesnake. At the high point, we stopped and gazed over the valley to the sea.

I was riding Dolly, a lovely palomino with a lazy streak and an eye for the choicest leafy delicacies along the trail. Sigh. I guess we were well-matched. We were in the back and moved to the beat of a (slower) different drummer. We passed another group and the leader asked how I was enjoying Barbie’s Dream Pony. Hee. It occurred to me that, as a child, I wanted Barbie's Dream Horse far more than I ever wanted Barbie (which was, upon reflection, never. I had hand-me-down ones, and occasionally received one as a gift, and did play with them, but they weren't my favorite toys at all).

My butt is killing me right now, but in a good way. :-)

We came home after that, stopping briefly at McDonald’s because I had a sudden urge for a chocolate milkshake and gave into that urge because it was, after all, my birthday.

At home, Ken gave me my final (I assume!) present: a stunning amber-and-silver necklace I’d admired at Twelfth Night. Amber-colored amber and green amber (I think), in the shape of a central flower and outlying leaves. Gods, it’s gorgeous. I think I have to buy new clothes that are worthy of it.

I also had a present waiting from my sister Donna, which turned out to be a set of spices and shallow bowls. You add the spices to olive oil and get French bread or focaccia for dipping. Yum! What a great party addition.

I missed a phone call from my parents by mere seconds, and was thrown off because they used a calling card from Atlanta. I had no idea where they were, assumed they weren’t yet home, and I couldn’t get hold of my sister Debi in Atlanta to see if they were there. However, then Donna called, and told me the ‘rents were home. By the time I got off the phone with Donna, it was too late to call—but since Donna and I don’t talk nearly enough, I was happy to stay on the phone with her as long as possible. We have little in common—she’s got four kids, is a home-schooling stay-at-home mom, and is quite religious—she’d be shocked and appalled at much of my life, and I’d certainly lose my status as godmother of her eldest child if she learned about any of it. But she’s my sister, and we have happy memories, and I regret that we live so far apart and rarely talk. I think I convinced her to cc: me on the update e-mails she sends to my parents. Inexplicably, she didn’t think I’d be interested in them. Duh. I barely know my nieces and nephews—tell me what they’re up to, what they’re interested in, how they’re doing!

There’s more, but I must sleep. Updates tomorrow.

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Currently Reading: Time Management From the Inside Out, Julie Morgenstern (her Organization From the Inside Out is wonderful); Too Much Temptation, Lori Foster (Brava)

Lately Listened To: Styx, The Grand Illusion

Recently Watched: too busy celebrating!