valentine laundry gerbils

Valentine's Day

J surprised me on V-Day with roses, dafodils, and having the day off - hooray! We had lunch at our favorite spot, Moe's - where we split our usual Billy Barou and drank an obscene number of refills of Cherry Coke.

Our day continued by visiting the local pet stores and admiring/talking to/petting gerbils, hamsters, and bunnies.

The evening concluded with chocolate cake and a homemade meal by mois with strawberry dacquiris. <3

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On Saturday Munchkin and GooberBear assisted us with our laundry:

* Munchkin took each piece of clean laundry, sniffed it, and then carefully set it on the floor in a crumpled pile.

* GooberBear took over the socks by shoving the socks' mate down into the toe.

"Uncle J, do you know how to find the sock? You just put your hand down inside and then there it is!"

* Goober was also very impressed with one of my socks that had snowmen, reindeer, and snowflakes on it:

"Ooooh Aunt B, this sock is soooo cute!"

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Grizzly Bear was in rare form on Sunday (yesterday, if you will) - he's still pretty grumpy, but we've tricked him into putting his paws on us when we have sunflower seeds (by far his favorite kind of seed) - but yesterday he actually hopped right out onto our hands, looking around with his little blind eyes and quivering his whiskers like crazy smelling his surroundings. It was so cute! And he didn't bit us once!

I've also discovered something rather disconcerting: gerbils...shed. There are little gerbil hairs all around in his cage - I've never seen such a thing from a rodent!

valentine's cheer

Waiting for Valentine's Day to have a special dinner out is for chumps - that's why J and I hit Red Lobster on February 7th to celebrate our love. J came home from work and exclaimed "Tonight's the night, let's go!"...I love it when he's all spontaneous about things like this, it makes it so special. So we got dolled up (...I got dolled up, J did the male equivalent), and after 30 minutes of chipping the ice off the van we were ready to go (J chipped the ice while I got dolled up. He's such a nice man!).


We went to Red Lobster because 1) we had gift cards and 2) I adore it...it's my favorite restaurant. One of the benefits of having your Valentine's dinner early is none of the restaurants are mobbed (it annoys me to no end that Red Lobster does not take reservations, I think they take sadistic pleasure in making people line up straight out the door into the freezing cold). Even though there were clearly empty tables they gave me a buzzer...a new, fancy buzzer that not only beeps when your table is ready, it tells you in a creepy automated voice: Your table is...ready.

We got such a bounty of seafood goodness, you would not even believe it - but the most exciting feature of our dinner by far was the 'ultimate fondue'. This cheesy greatness was filled with little shrimpies and crabmeat and auuuugh!! it was SO good.

The only downer to the night was that we had one of those mystical disappearing waitresses, so when we were ready to go it took a good 30 minutes before she came back with our bill.

All in all, however, the most wonderful evening was had. :)

my return to civilization

Life goes slowly and predictably until it socks you and suddenly you are reeling and busy and tired and not so interested in updating your online journal. :) I'm back for now, friends!

Grizzly Bear is doing soooo well. He is the cutest grumpy old man in the world - he spends his days rearranging his cage. This means hours of rustling and banging sounds as he shoves his food dish and cozy log around, and it also means that the carpet all around his cage is littered with shavings and food husks. He is kind of messy.

His favorite food EVER is sunflower seeds. And apple. And spinach. And he thinks carrots are stupid. Anyway, yesterday I held my hand to his cage door with a pile of sunflower seeds on it and he hopped out onto my hand. (!) This is the first time he has willingly come out on my hands, though he's done it for J a couple of times. I was SO excited and we gave him lovies and then he bit me and we put him back in his cage. Yay!

Oh! I should mention that Griz is apparently very hard of smelling. And seeing. He's very old, and we are realizing his humorous disabilities as time goes on. He'll be hunkered down eating and drop his seed...but he won't be able to find it again. It's so cute. And pathetic. And sort of sad.

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Super Duper Tuesday (as our local news station called it, dorks) was yesterday and I proudly voted in my first primary. It was pretty impressive and great. I couldn't figure out how to close the curtain to the voting booth or how to vote for who I wanted for that matter, but with the verbal coaching of J and some little old ladies I did the deed! Because I hate the guck that comes with all political discussions I will not inform you of who I voted for, you will just have to squirm with curiosity.

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My watch died the other day. It is now perpetually 5:15. I tried wearing J's watch for a couple days, since it works and we are trying to save money, but in the end I couldn't stand it and layed down $7 at Wal*Mart. J's watch is nice (my folks gave it to him a while back) but it kind of large for my bony little wrist and kept getting stuck on my sleeves and driving me crazy. Anyway. New watch is on and telling time and all is well in the world. We are contemplating smashing my old watch with a hammer, I'll keep you updated on that.

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Unfortunately for you I suddenly have zoom and am going to clean up the apartment a little, but just so I don't forget these topics will soon be written about and posted by me:

* Our new mentally disabled cocaine-addict friend, "Bud".

* My inability to resist purchasing picture frames on clearance.

* Taxes for the self-employed are a pretty sad and mildly stressful thing.

* Having lunch with J and our grandparents (i.e. the toilet water story).