Oh birthday, why.

A birthday story, told first in gif form.

( Because one should always cut a wall o' pics. )

So yesterday was my birthday. For a change of pace, I decided not to do that thing where I obnoxiously run around shrieking about my birthday is coming, my birthday is coming. Tried maturity and also possibly not tempting fate. I set my expectations at a nice reasonably low level.

Seriously, this is how I thought it would go: Go swimming, maybe go out to Target/fast food lunch, nap, get my Facebook wishes, see Cass, and end the day with some cheesecake or actual cake. Oh, and dinner would likely be chicken enchiladas or ham and cheese casserole because yum. This was not an unreasonable set of birthday hopes, okay? This is essentially the bare freakin' minimum.

Then... Saturday? Cass posts on FB that she's got the ick and has had the ick since Wednesday or something and immediately I realize nope, poof to the see someone I do not live with part of my birthday. Fine, upon closer inspection of the past I realized this is probably an ongoing thing where I make my biggest flaw in birthday hopes: the hope that someone who is not my mother will want to, I dunno, spend part of the day with me. Craaaaaaaaaazy talk, right? But this is different- she's sick. Sunday I get my breakfast interrupted with "hey, you never told me what you want. Tell me now so I can order it and have it arrive tomorrow. But be fast cuz, y'know, Amazon's got a short window left for next day delivery." So I look around because the hell do I know what I want? I told you, I set my expectations to really low. This means no presents. Still, y'know... I like shiny things. So I assemble a small list and send it off and she mentions that she got it and then I assumed she was shopping and then dying of the ick.


FF to birthday time! It started off okay. Fed the cat, had some breakfast, ditzed around online, tried to take the dog for a walk and we're gonna sammich this in here because otherwise I'm gonna end on it and it will be too sad. I'd be surprised (pleasantly) if she makes it through the rest of the summer. She's slowed down tremendously and is blind as a bat and deaf as a post, though she's been those for a bit. She doesn't really seem to even enjoy her walks anymore, although this is a recent thing because I swear, last week she was dragging me around for her Sunday walkies. I'm hoping this is just me blowing a few days out of proportion but I also need to prep myself as it's a very real possibility. I suppose, given the life expectancy of her breed(s), this is to be expected but still.

Anyway, I checked the weather to see if it was still calling for storms at swimming time but nope, all clear and the actual weather outside seemed to agree. Went up to watch my Golden Girls at 8 and get ready for the pool (sunscreen, my friends) and by nine, I was skipping my way to the pool, after taking a moment to invite Mums but knowing she would decline. She didn't officially decline, but she also did not show up so... yeah. Anyway, no one else was there and basically spent an hour swimming by myself. It wasn't bad and when I started to feel a little lonely, a bunch of different kinds of birds decided to fly over and have a meeting at one of the trees between the pool and the pond. If animals are good enough for Disney Princesses, they're good enough for me. The water was pretty warm, which was a bit unusual since it had stormed the night before and the day wasn't all that hot yet but it's summer so not super weird either.

While I was drying off, D & Ari called and she and I talked for a fair bit. She had to go and said she'd call back, but I'm guessing she forgot or the family was busy and since she's still very much not the same as she was, I decided to take it as a good thing that she could and would talk to me on the phone. Look, universe, I tried and tried without being all obnoxiously Pollyanna about things, ok?

Went home, showered and then tried to con Mums into making lunch. She asked if I could wait and so I killed time (Sephora birthday gift order) and eventually lunch! Yum! Followed almost immediately by the storm from hell. It was raining so hard that I started to worry, but never fear! The weather channel was all "light rain." Guys, guys no. Sigh. I'm not sure the sun was properly seen again, really.

Watched a little Netflix, read a little, checked the non-existent FB messages because sure, why not, and realized that without the sun and with all the rain, I was going nowhere for the rest of the day. Sigh. Decided to take a little nap because why not. Also, at this point I figured I would be going to the store with Mums for dinner stuffs and for once I was kind of looking forward to this so you know I was desperate and also that the universe had a PLAN.

Yup. I drifted off with the cat snoozing next to me on the pillow. I wasn't that close to her and besides, she's been known to sleep on my friggin' head so I thought nothing of it. Until I remember hearing the phone ding but I wasn't getting up to get it and the next thing I know, the cat has fucked up my face. I don't know what happened. I can only guess that maybe sleepy!me made a move to get up, decided "fuck it" and put my head down on the cat or maybe she just had a kitty nightmare and my face was in the way. I don't know. I just know that I remember thinking "ow, shit, what the fuck, cat?!" and still not really waking up until I realized my hand, which I'd moved to the pain site, was now kinda wet. Like either I'm drooling (ew) or there's going to be blood when I open my eyes. Yeah, blood. Good. Freakin. Times. I've now got a hole in my lip, scratches on my face that aren't super visible BUT anytime I move beyond my resting bitch face, they hurt like fire, and also she got my arm but good. So... yeah.

The best thing about this is the stupid feeling of betrayal. Which you know is stupid but still... you fucked up my face, cat.

Sigh. Then my brother stopped by, Mom disappeared while he was here, and oh yeah, the ding from the phone that prompted the mauling (mebbe)? Was Cass letting me know that ha, she was just now ordering my present and it would be here Wednesday and she'd drop it off Thursday after work and... sigh. I shall not complain about a gift. I shall not. It's just... I would've liked to know that a) she was shipping it to her place and b) not to wait up before I, y'know, waited for a thing that was not coming. But okay.


Oh, oh. The storm also knocked out the internet/phone/cable which is why it was only Netflix for a bit. Like twenty minutes of an hour long show. Sigh. This spotty connection continued for much of the night. And at some point, my keyboard broke a little. Because why not.

I will say I got to have cheesecake for dinner... or at least at dinner time. It started out tasting a little weird but by the last few bites was delish. And later the chicken enchiladas were also quite tasty. So this was good stuff, y'know?


It was after nine and another storm was kicking up but not the kind where you sit and watch/listen in awe. The kind where you just say to heck with it, I'm going to bed because yeah. I'm done.

I'm not quite done though. Oh no. Just when I thought I'd made peace with the day, accepting that without me being obnoxious about alerting people to the day coming most would forget, even with FB reminding them and that the storm was just clearly the universe saying, "hey, you like rain and shit, right?" and presents are for suckers and basically it was a day that really could have been better but short of the cat mauling it wasn't TERRIBLE...

The dog started to whine, so Mums and I took her out. I very, very carefully walked around the area where someone had not picked up after their dog yesterday and another person had run over it with their car. VERY. CAREFULLY. I had my new sandals on, the ones that kind of squish my pinkie toes but are awesome in every other way. The ones that I might even love after less than a week. MY NEW SHOES.

You know where this is going. You're not stupid.

Yup. When we returned home from the least productive walk in awhile, Mums has her flashlight and looks at something on our walkway and asks, "What's that?" I peer and say, "Pretty sure it's dog shit. That someone stepped in." Oh no.

Oh yes. I look at the bottom of my shoes. Left is fine! I think oh, poor Mu-SHIT. My right shoe is not so lucky. Yup. Yup. Attempts to clean it made things worse and despite being very, very careful to avoid water and worse things, my new sandals are fucked. I wash them off as best I can and take the bag of used cleaning things outside where I realize the asshole who didn't pick up after their dog didn't just leave one unfortunate piece. NO. They left three. Two of which are on our fucking welcome mat.

I give. You all can fucking keep 36, I'm done. I tried. I fucking tried all the silver linings I could. Fuck this shit. Fuck it all.

And then, as I was typing this up, I saw an e-card from zallia and now I feel less ragey. Doubly helped by the loverly luxken27's comments on tumblr and also the DW gifs of the day. Huzzah!

But I still think yesterday was a dumpster fire of a day that I'm forgetting something about.

Today, since Prime Day seems to have nothing I am interested in aside from ONE thing that is naturally not going on sale til midday, I am going to attempt to hit the Target and see if they have anything of interest. Or just wander aimlessly for a bit. We shall see.