It was Tom’s birthday today – we were very low key. He opened his first present before we went to breakfast: a new Garmin GPS Navigation Thingy! We used it to make our way to Elmer’s where I had blueberry pancakes and my version of a mimosa which uses grapefruit juice instead of orange juice.

Then I made Tom run a couple of errands for me where I picked up his surprise presents!

When we got home, I let him open them. He got a fancy set of old fashioned (cocktail) glasses, a bottle of Bushmills, and a bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon. Arrow got him a card, which I think really surprised Tom.

Then the rest of the day was spent napping and working on and riding his motorcycle. We watched some movies, some new to us, some we had seen before. Overall, a very relaxing and lovely day.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to wish him a happy birthday – it really meant a lot to him!

I tried to do 12 of 12 today, but I forgot to take pictures after a certain point and I can’t find the USB cord for my camera… such is life!

In health updates, last week I started another round of physical therapy. It’s at a different clinic and they have a slightly different approach than the first clinic I went to; less massage, more strength training and I think for me and my injury it’s a better approach. My range of motion has improved significantly in one week and my pain level has dropped from what I would call a 7 to a 5. THIS IS SUCH AN AMAZING DIFFERENCE.

I also got a spinning kit from the Yarn Pirate – now I just need a spinning implement and I can teach myself to spin! Hooray!

Tom has about two weeks of summer left. The floor is not close to being done. I am trying to be patient.

When he goes back to teaching, I feel a little less stressed about my job and the house (even though we are now officially upside down in our mortgage instead of just theoretically) because I’m also less jealous because he’s not home all day while I’m underemployed and bitter.

But if he’s not at home, who will sign for our packages? I can get them at work, but everyone is so nosy about what I get. I am tempted to order sex toys from Good Vibrations or Babeland and have them delivered to the office just for the shock value.

Needless to say, I am on that Flight Attendant’s side in this recent carry-on luggage/dramatic beer + inflatable slide fracas. Sometimes, you just can’t take anymore shit and somebody hits you in the face with something they shouldn’t even be touching, and you need a drink and to ride on a slide.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling like I had been punched in the eye. I rubbed my eye and a clump of eyelashes came out. I freaked out, stared at my eye in the magnifying mirror for a lot of minutes and went online to check my symptoms.

Oh, it’s just a stye. A STYE!? I think the last time I had any kind of infection in my eye, I was a very, very small child. And it wasn’t the dreaded Pink Eye, either. I’m pretty sure this is from wearing my contact lenses too long and not cleaning them well enough. So, I’m wearing my regular glasses and doing warm compresses on my eye, and it’s swollen but it doesn’t hurt as much as it did yesterday. I think I’m winning this battle and won’t have to go to the doctor.

It did not affect my movie going experiences on Saturday, when I saw Toy Story 3 AND Inception. They were both TOTALLY AWESOME. As I was discussing with my brother, though they may not seem similar on the surface, they both explore similar themes of love, loss, and moving on. It’s just that one is a movie about make-believe and daring escapes… and the other also has, um, daring escapes and make-believe.

While I was in Seattle, I spent a day hanging out with my brother, @nathanisthebest, his friend Kate, and Mike (@elbowsandknees). We went to the comic shop and I was looking at a rack of Wonder Woman trades and whatnot.

As I’m reviewing the materials, a person of a certain stereotypical comic book nerd persuasion stands next to me to look at the same rack. Or, as it turns out, my rack. He asks, “So, who’s your favorite superhero?”

As I am standing in front of the Wonder Woman display, holding an armload of Wonder Woman comics, I mumble, “Uh, Wonder Woman?” and figure that will be the end of it or he will ask me what I think of something specific about Wonder Woman, since that’s how these nerdy conversations usually go.

But then he says, “You usually don’t see girls in comic book shops, so I had to ask.”

I took a breath and replied, “You usually don’t see women my age being referred to as girls,” turned on my heel and walked away. I didn’t see his reaction. He’s lucky I was in a good mood, I guess.

Later on, as we were driving Mike back to the Lynnwood Park & Ride, I began to feel some regret about my brutal shutdown of the nerd and mentioned it to the car – which then exploded into laughter and full-on judgement of his poor-social skills and, apparently, bad personal grooming. I really didn’t get a good look at him, but I’ll take their word for it.