fenchurch | Today is a good day Todai...

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! I tried to reply to them all, but I may have missed some. And a big thank you to

slm76 for the birthday card!

It was a really fantastic day... starting with my mom driving up from northeast Oregon last night so she could spend the morning and afternoon with me. We just hung out this morning, then headed down to the local park to go walking (I thought about blowing off exercising today, but figured I'd feel better in the long run). We did a bit of shopping, since I've lost enough weight that my "thin clothes" are starting to get a bit baggy (and I was right, I've dropped another clothing size!!) and went out to lunch at my favorite Thai place up in Woodinville (followed by a quick trip to my Comic Book Pusher to pick up the latest issue of A:AtF).

My mom brought Daisy, her Miniature Dachshund, with her. Daisy believes that it is the nature of the universe for my mom to occasionally split into two people... who are still the same person -- she seriously cannot tell the difference between my mom and me. And apparently, Numfar had never encountered a dog before. The poor cat climbed on top of a bunch of boardgames stacked on top of a tall bookcase in the basement and huddled there for most of the time the dog was in the house, even though we'd gated off the downstairs so the dog couldn't come down here. Whenever the dog was outside, I would coax Numfar down and carry her around the house... and she would crane her neck around corners and generally be highly paranoid (and she's actually still being a bit jumpy, even eight hours after the dog has gone home). The funny thing is that if she'd just given one single swat at Daisy, the dog would have left her completely alone for the rest of the visit. But apparently, all she could think was "Aiiieeee!!!! Devil-Beast from the Pits of Hell!!!! Run away! Run away!!"

My mom headed home this afternoon, and I ~~wasted~~ spent a few delightful hours reading fanfic and generally doing nothing (which is harder than it sounds). Then

rackham and I met up with his brother, plus our friends

tomte,

gidgiddoni and their niece Miss V over at Todai for dinner. Yummy sushi! And crab legs!! And best of all, teeny tiny Crème brûlées! (No, I never have figured out what Crème brûlée has to do with Japanese food, but I don't care).

Oh, and I forgot to mention, there was sun today!! It was supposed to be overcast and drizzly, but we ended up with some rather extended sunbreaks through most of the afternoon, and a beautiful mostly clear sky this evening. It was simply a fantastic day... hopefully a good sign for the next year!