* * * I have been absolutely flooded with e-cards that are funny as hell, and email “Happy birthday”s and the like, and so I’ll take a moment to say thanks, you guys. You rock, you really do. Which I believe I’ve mentioned. Sites going bitchy for the day include Nance (except you can’t see, because you don’t have the super-secret extra-special password, ha! I do, though, and it’s funny as hell), Bonnie, Say, and Debbie. I haven’t opened presents from Fred or the spud yet. We’re going out to eat tomorrow and we’re going to have the birthday cake then, too, so I thought I’d just wait until then to open presents. It’s the anticipation that’s the best part of presents, don’t you think? Speaking of presents, when I told Fred what I wanted for my birthday (“Just stuff from my wish list is fine”), I said, very loudly and firmly and staring into his eyes so he’d get the idea, “IT WOULD NOT BE OUT OF LINE FOR YOU TO GET SOME SMALL THING TO SURPRISE ME WITH.” He understood, and then spent many a day wondering aloud what he might buy to surprise me with, and then yesterday he went to the mall before he came home. We went upstairs to lay down and talk for a few minutes, and then as we got up and headed for the stairs, he turned and looked at the top of my incredibly dusty, yet not cluttered dresser. “Where,” he said in a casual tone, “Are all the candles that were sitting here?” Now, the amount of interest the man has shown in candles in the past amounts to, probably, a negative number. So I turned and smiled at him. “Why?” I asked. “Because you want to make sure I don’t already have the scent you bought me for my birthday?” Taken by surprise, all he could do was laugh, splutter a little, and then call me names. Ha! After 6 years he still hasn’t figured out that there’s very little that gets past me. Silly man.
