Work is my break from vacation.

Yesterday was both awesome and just really disgustingly uncool. I probably would have had a better day if I had gone to work, honestly, but there were other things that wouldn't have been able to happen if I HAD gone to work.

Wednesday was a normal workday followed by a relaxing evening, and then tango for 2 hours afterward. I LOVE tango. D was practicing for Triangle Open 1.5 hours away with his partner, to whom I will facetiously (and slightly maliciously) assign the pseudonym "Minor," and he didn't come back until around 10:15 or so - too late for la fille aux cheveux de lin to do anything exciting on a day she woke up at 5:20 AM, no sirree. So I had popcorn, and I got to sleep in yesterday morning.

The day started out on a sour note when suddenly, from the office, came a shout of "MOTHERF***ER!" Jesper had chewed through D's Zune cable. Not 15 minutes later, Jesper peed on the living room floor. I knew it was the start of something wonderful, and by wonderful, I mean distasteful and perhaps slightly heinous with a hint of kitty pee.

I had all of these plans, beginning with porting a disgruntled Jesper (you'd be disgruntled too if somebody screamed at you mid-stream) BACK to my apartment to be placed in solitary confinement, but there was construction and it turned a 5 minute pleasure cruise into a 35-minute round of Bumper-car Fakeout. I consider myself an honorary member of the Asshole Police, and one of my myriad duties is to take up two lanes prevent idiots in Lexus SUVs from passing everybody and then cutting in at the last moment before a lane ends. I had so many people honking that we could have started a symphony, if I had a conductor and a sunroof for him to conduct from. When I arrived at my apartment feeling frazzled but self-righteous, karma struck - no hot water. Grrrraaahh!

It was 2 PM before we made were on our way to my parents' for lunch, stopping at Carrabba's to pick up the gift certificates that will be prizes at Triangle Open. We were just about there when we ran into what was probably a serious accident, involving fleets of cops and a county's-worth of fire trucks and ambulances. I took the only route I knew to to get around it... And we arrived at my parents' at 3 PM. Neither of us had eaten a bite all day and I was resolutely clamping my mouth shut, fearing that a violent, frustrated, low-blood-sugar-induced tirade would spew forth.

Lunch was nice though, and my parents had decorated with frosted glass balls and blue and green ribbons for my birthday. My mother (who'd thought that I was turning 27, and had written that on my card!) made me open one present from Williams-Sonoma, and we had coffee and chatted until about 4:30, when we headed back to D's to meet his mom and brother for dinner. Having just eaten our breakfastunchner, we weren't hungry, so we went along for companionship and a tour of D's brother's workplace. Man, was I ever uncharacteristically moody! My mood improved considerably though, and D and I went out shopping, where I bought a delightfully retro black and white minidress and a pair of comfy - but not matronly! - shoes that I'll be wearing every day to trek 1.5 miles to work and back.

It was almost a relief to unlock my office this morning and collapse in my chair with a sigh.

I went to the gym this morning at 5:45, but nobody came to open it, so I had to do body ball weight lifting exercises in my apartment, as it was too cold to run outside. They're fun, but I'm always musing over what my neighbors think when they hear all of those rhythmic creaking noises. That's when I try to find the creakiest place on my living room floor and see if Monique downstairs will have the guts to come up and yell at me.