My Ongoing Birthday Celebration and Pure Evil

I do believe, and I say this much to my delight, that this has been my most widely recognized birthday. Woohoo! I received cards from each of my in-laws, including two in-the-mail cards, two in-the-e-mail-box cards, and one video of my gift from my mother-in-law who lives oh-so-far-away (how many more dashes can I fit into this filled-with-dashes sentence?). I received a homemade card from Sweetheart and another from Monet, another in-the-mailbox card from my dear friend P. and yes another in-the-e-mail-box from my dear friend Tina. What a blessed woman I am!

On the actual day of my birth, the children and I took our bunnies to auction. Sweetheart and Monet made $25.00 on the sale, and I picked up a couple of bunnies for myself to raise--three sweet mini-rex rabbits, two does and a buck. I bid on a pair of ferrets as well, but the bidding simply ran too high, and I was unsure of their health.

When we returned from the auction, it was time to head into town to pick Bard up from her last Algebra class, where her Algebra teacher and daughters sang Happy Birthday to me, handing me three slices of Treatza Pizza from Dairy Queen. YUM!

And then, it was off to stock up on milk from our favorite farmer. On the way, we dropped off a bunny cage that we'd borrowed from a friend while transporting Brutus, our newest mini-lop, to his new home: our living room. While there, friends Sara and Laura serenaded me with loverly birthday greetings.

After that, it was back home to get ready for Irish Step classes, which were fast-paced and high-energy. Whew!

What I love: extended birthdays. Yesterday, after music appreciation class, Bard and I went thrift store shopping and found, appropriately, a bunch of poetry books in honor of National Poetry Month. We've been lacking in good poetry collections, and I've surely made up for it now, with my thrift-store and PaperBackSwap finds.

And then, Bard took me to a movie! We saw Jon Heder, Rob Scheider and David Spade in The Benchwarmers. Yes, I thought it was funny, but don't take my word for it. Those three guys just know how to make me laugh. We ate half-a-bag of buttered popcorn. More on that later.

After that, we drooled over pet supplies and cute little animals at Petco, where I bought some new water bottles for our rats and covers for our rabbit tanks.

And, finally, we perused the used bookstore, where I found Thornton Burgess's Bird Book and Animal Tales (a later printing of Animal Stories, which was there, too, but was $25.00!), and Minn of the Mississippi, soft cover, but it's our second copy. These are all books I've been looking for forever! The Burgess books will be presented to Sweetheart today...her birthday!

When we arrived home, the plan was for Bo to take me to a movie and out to dinner, but as I unpacked my goodies, I found myself feeling worse and worse. My stomach was in knots, I felt feverish, and every movement or smell made me want to vomit.

Buttered popcorn.

It's evil, I tell you. Pure evil.

I haven't eaten movie theater popcorn or drank pop in months, aside from the one Dr. Pepper I allowed myself for my birthday treat. That popcorn was actually difficult to choke down after the first handful, but I found myself reaching into the bag even after I was sure I couldn't eat another kernel.

While we were walking through the pet store, my stomach began a strange, unearthly gurgling. And by the time I got home, I was extremely repentent of the very moment I purchased the stuff.

While I suffered in my bedroom, struggling to sleep and waiting for the Zantac to work (it's my dad's--I rarely take ANYTHING, so I was quite desperate), Sweetheart called from the other side of the door, "Are you sure the popcorn wasn't poisoned?"

I uttered to myself, "I know it was. Oh, boy, do I know it was..."

Today, I feel much better and can't wait to begin Sweetheart's birthday celebration.

Woohoo for birthdays!