So I had a pretty good birthday on Saturday: tons of good food (dips! empanadas! chicken-on-a-stick! cheeses! homemade ice cream!), nearly all my favorite people (Shawn & Peter came up from Tucson! I’ve missed them), plenty of Campari, etc. I’d done a lot of the food prep well in advance, so I was able to spend less time in the kitchen, yay.

There was much hilarity, too: Tom brought a Hulk pinata he’d got for his own birthday, and after Fenris was done barking at the strange guy hanging from the patio roof, we all took turns punching and whacking it until it finally broke apart. Good times!

Yesterday I woke up with a skull-splitting headache and upset tummy, and spent the morning ignoring the dishes in the sink and watching Top Gear reruns until Loki got out bed, when we switched to Band of Brothers. Also, I can highly recommend the curative powers of Mafia Mike’s toasted veggie sub.

And then this morning, my mom called to say her brother had died from the inoperable brain and esophageal tumors they’d found only a couple months ago. So obviously we’d known this was coming, but that knowledge didn’t make the news any easier to take. You always hope for a miracle, y’know?

So I’m throwing myself into work, hoping the day flies by so I can go home and hug my sweetie and the dogs and the kitties, and make them all promise never to die on me, and I’ll feel better for a little while, even though I’ll know they’re lying.