trick or treat

As a general rule, I prefer to live in a child-free bubble world, but I have to admit that on Halloween, when they come to your door in costumes and full of happy excitement, and no one is screaming or crying, and they worship you as their almighty Candy God, they can be pretty cute. Surprising but true.

recap

• We went to a fancy dinner up in the city last night to celebrate our anniversary.
• Even though Boyfriend is one of those people who likes to get up early, even on weekends, so that he can get things done, today, he caved in to my preferences and lounged around with me until noon.
• After getting up, I finally went and got a long overdue pedicure.
• I went to the gym for the first time since February. I only did 35 minutes on a bike, but that's 35 minutes more than I've done in the past eight and a half months. 

boo

It's the last work day before Halloween, which means that there are lots of people (and dogs) who are wearing costumes. So far, I've seen people dressed up as Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch (a lot of Sesame Street), Speed Racer, a double rainbow, and a pack of people dressed as our CFO.

say it with flowers

It took my boyfriend a long time to get home from work yesterday, which puzzled me until he showed up with these. He hates rush hour traffic and usually refuses to go to Whole Foods when everyone else is there, so this is more than a bunch of anniversary flowers, it's a bunch of anniversary flowers and anniversary ignoring-things-he-hates-to-buy-me-flowers.

And then we ate lobsters.

crusty consolation

One consolation for the advent of fall, with its shorter, darker days and cooler, wetter weather is that it's lobster season (and Dungeness crab season starts in a couple of weeks, as well). Dinner tonight will be steamed lobster with plenty of butter and a side of TV.

milestone

Today is the two year anniversary of when my boyfriend and I started dating, which may not sound that impressive until you consider the fact that I've only ever dated one other person for longer than two years. This is the equivalent of someone else making it to their 25th anniversary.

life-changing event

I showed my officemate a little time- and paper-saving trick yesterday, and she is still inordinately excited about it.

recent records

Found this picture of Fiver from a few years ago. He was staying with my friends, and they caught him sunbathing. It's funny to compare the older pictures when he was slim and spry, with this one, where he's... not so slim. He's back somewhere in between now, in a happy-grumpy state of senior citizenship.

share

Found out over the weekend that Amazon is going to start letting Kindle users loan books to each other. I only have a few friends who have Kindles, but I'm still glad they're adding this. 

sweet dreams

I didn't sleep very deeply last night, but I had a lot of dreams that were funny enough to wake me up several times, from laughing out loud.

bright light

The moon is bright enough tonight that it casts visible squares of light through the skylights in my house onto the floor.

hearsay

My friend passed along a complimentary comment that her friend had said about me.  So sweet of her, and the secondhand nature somehow makes it seem more sincere.

nori and aloe

They've been stocking a lot of nori (crispy seaweed) and aloe drinks in the microkitchens at work lately, which has been convenient, as I'm on one of my periodic nori and aloe addiction cycles.

payoff

I've been going to get allergy shots for the last fifteen months, initially twice a week, then once a week, and now every other week, and there have been two benefits: (1) a decrease in my allergies to cats and dust (which was expected), and (2) a new indifference to needles (which probably should have been expected, but I didn't really think about it until I noticed that I no longer cringe and whine about getting shots, like today's flu shot).

inbox schminbox

I got my personal inbox down to 40, and my work inbox down to seven (a few of which are only there as reminders, so it could be even lower, at least until I wake up tomorrow with replies to everything I sent out and a batch of brand new problems). This is a new personal best, even better than when I posted this.

life in the spaceship

I have an aunt who sends out emails with subject lines like "Life in the spaceship." The body of the email is in Chinese, which I can't read. I love the randomness.

relief

My dog always gets really hyper and excited after I give him a bath, trim his nails, brush his teeth, and clean his ears. It's pretty funny to watch. It must be partly because he knows he gets treats after suffering through such mistreatment, but I think he probably also is just giddy with relief with having gotten through it, sort of the way I feel when I finish up at the dentist.

oldie but goodie

My favorite sandwich when I was little was peanut butter and brown sugar. No one else thinks it sounds good, but it really was the best. I haven't had one in many years, but I'm having one for dinner tonight!

archives

After looking through a lot of old pre-digital pictures, I decided to scan a couple and post them on Facebook. Based on the reaction, I'm not the only one who gets a kick out of the old pictures, so I'm going to start doing a few here, a few there. So many to pick from, I don't know where to start...

efficiency

I'm going up to the city tomorrow, and I managed to schedule the visit for maximum efficiency. One trip up to the city = lunch with a long lost high school friend, drive by meetings of two new babies, and dinner with my sister and her family.

first time

I was running late for a doctor's appointment today, and the only nearby parking spot was a parallel parking spot. I never learned how to parallel park, and although people have tried to explain the concept to me, it never registered. I always just find perpendicular parking, find parking at the front or back of a row of parallel spots, or get someone else to do the parking. Today, I had no options (and the spot was a pretty big one), and somehow, I managed to get into the spot without much back and forth, and to get the car almost parallel to the curb.

This may be the only time it ever happens, because I still don't know how I got the car into the spot, but I'm surprised and pleased, anyways.

t's and i's

I've felt a little bit guilty (for no particular reason) about not tagging the posts in this blog. I've always liked for things to be categorized and labeled (which you might not suspect, since I'm not always the most organized or neat person, but categorizing and organizing are not necessarily the same thing). Today I stopped feeling guilty and started tagging (work in progress). I've even started putting together another blog that my boyfriend thought would be a good idea. And I did this on top of all of the work (and random pre-trip madness) that I'm trying to wrap up before we go for a very quick trip to upstate New York for a wedding (I doubt we'll have time or Internet there, hence the rush to get everything done before we leave). I think I deserve a pat on the head.

distraction

I like when people I know have meetings in the conference room that's right by my office, because it has glass walls, and I can dance around and make faces to try to distract them.

lol

Oh, Internet, you always give me something to laugh about. I'm loving the Hyperbole and a Half blog these days, and wondering if the writer is my long-lost Caucasian brain twin.

81

My Kindle's "birthday" is on Wednesday, and I've been busy reading short books and polishing off half-finished books in my spare time. I just finished off one more, #81 (while cuddling with my snoring, paws-twitching-in-his-sleep dog), and I think that's going to be the final tally for Year One, as the next book I want to tackle is almost 900 pages, which is not going to happen in the next day and a half. I'm very pleased with 81, especially considering that my original goal was 40 books a year, which kept getting bumped up, first to 52, then 60, then 70 or 75.

tamed

A wicked beast of a deal (with a wicked beast of a lawyer) finally closed today.

clean

My two favorite pairs of jeans were in the laundry, and now they're clean! This is a big deal, since I wear jeans to work every day, and being forced to wear less-favored jeans was seriously irritating.

weekend update

In just one weekend, I've turned two drafts for an urgent deal, taken a nap, read a book, shopped for and attended a bling-themed party up in the city, had a long conversation with my boyfriend about my strange family dynamics, gone out for brunch, done two loads of laundry and one load of dishes, gotten a facial, gone to the library, and hit the ATM. Now I'm going to polish off books 80 and perhaps even 81. I should be a professional weekender.

first

I just heard an ice cream truck in real life for the first time.

records

I was digging back through old pictures last night, and came across a lot of funny memories. I need to get a photo scanner before the pictures disintegrate or are lost. They are already completely disorganized. There are about eight years of pictures in there, in no order whatsoever.
I found these pictures of my dog from about six or seven years ago, still looking young and spry.