I Read The News Today Oh Boy: (For Saturday, February 14, 2009!)

Saturday, February 14, was Valentine's Day! So Sweetie and I were looking forward to a day full of romance and love and, if everything worked out, a dinner at the Irish pub-restaurant where I got some discount gift certificates at Christmas so I threw them in as an extra present for Sweetie and we haven't used them yet!

See, I was in charge of picking up the presents for our bosses. Everyone in the office pitched, so we had $90 per boss. One boss got a gift certificate for the Irish restaurant near his house. When I went there to get it, they had a deal that if you bought $100 worth of gift certificates, you'd get $20 free. So I threw in $10 of my own money and got the extra free-$20, gave the $90 in certificates to the boss, and gave Sweetie the $30 leftover.

Follow all that math?

I'm pretty sure that was ethical, right? On to Valentine's Day!


6:10 a.m. In order, when I wake up, I go start the computer, then I have to feed Stormy Jet Risotto, who will howl until I do that. This used to not be my job but somehow I ended up doing it.


6:12 a.m.: It snowed last night. I make an executive decision to not go get the paper just yet.

7:15 a.m.: The Babies! are up. Kind of. Mr F isn't feeling well -- he was kind of sick the day before, but we're hoping for the best and that he perks up so we can go get some of that... Irish food. What do the Irish eat, anyway? I bet it's a lot of potatoes and cabbage. Meanwhile, Mr Bunches has his favorite orange shirt on and is helping me with my 'puting by throwing Sweetie's in-box.

The contents of Sweetie's in-box before he threw it? A "Target" advertising circular and the most recent Cosmopolitan.



9:00 a.m.: Mr F is still not feeling well. So Mr Bunches and I are sitting with him in his room and trying to watch a video Mr F likes. This is made more difficult because Mr F has a fever, and because Mr Bunches likes to stand on his chair and press his face up against the TV screen. He's either kissing the puppets onscreen, or trying to get the static electricity of the screen to flow into him.

By 9:30, Mr Bunches will have lost the privilege of having his chair in his room, and he will have to resort to taking a laundry basket and turning that upside down to stand on and touch the TV. Later today, Sweetie and I will discuss whether Mr Bunches should have any furniture in his room.


10:15 a.m.: Errand time. First stop, the Walgreen's to get some stuff to help Mr F. This is the graveyard across from that Walgreen's. I thought it was more scenic than Walgreen's itself.

Ever notice that if you go visit a graveyard in some other city, it's okay, but if you visit a graveyard in your own city, people think it's weird and ghoulish? I wonder why that is.

Not pictured: Mr Bunches, as we are checking out, decides to make a break for it and heads for the automatic doors, so I have to bolt after him and drag him back, but he runs in a big circle and heads behind the cash register, where he grabs the cashier's broom and tries to knock stuff off the shelves. While I am trying to pull that out of his hands, the cashier says "Would you like to buy a candy bar for only $1.50?"

"Um... no," I say, and struggle to cling to Mr Bunches while I finish up paying. When I tell Sweetie about this, later, she says "It's a promotion they're having. If they don't ask you that, you get a free candy bar."

Update: On Sunday, when I go to get more medicine for Mr F, the cashier does not ask me if I'd like to buy a candy bar. But I opted against making a big deal out of it.

Back to Saturday:

10:30 a.m.: We stop off at the library after Walgreen's. Mr Bunches spent most of his time playing with this thing, the giant-block-with-bead-roller-coasters on it.

Near us was a guy with two little boys, one of whom was about 4. The dad was telling the 4-year-old that he could only get one book. The kid looked broken-hearted. I kept wondering why? Why only one book at the library? But it wasn't my place to interfere. Also, Mr Bunches was trying to throw pop-up books at other kids.

11:00 a.m. After finishing up at the library, apologizing to the parents of the other little kids, and taking a short walk around the block, it's time to saddle up for the ride back home. But first, we detour past the house, above, that I'm stalking.


11:05 a.m.: Also, I really like this house. I've added it to my route through this subdivision.


1:00 p.m.: The Babies! are in their beds. Mr F is still really sick. Sweetie and I have opted to find out what Irish food is, and whether it's romantic, on some other day and will spend the afternoon just hanging out. These flowers are part of my gifts to her for Valentine's Day -- I got her flowers and some books she wanted to read and a gift card for the store she likes to go and get salads at.

She got me a set of very beautiful portraits of her, because I'm always complaining that I have no good pictures of her (she ducks away from the camera). She also got me candy, and two t-shirts -- one reads "Gaius Balter 2008" and the other says I'm the 5th Cylon.

I would have been a better choice than Ellen The Cylon.


1:36 p.m.: I'm exhausted. Time to heat up some coffee in my "I Went to College and It Was Okay" mug. Then I will use all that newfound energy to go read Entertainment Weekly the way I always read it: From back to front.

4:30 p.m.: Sweetie would like pizza for dinner, and because it's Valentine's Day, I'll do it. Because I was reading an article in Newsweek just before getting up to make dinner, I will first put on Miles Davis' Kind of Blue on Youtube to see what the big deal is and whether jazz is, after all, worth listening to.


4:39 p.m.: It's not. I put on The Housemartins' "People Who Grinned Themselves To Death" instead.

6:15 p.m.: Dinner's over and it's time for baths. Mr F hasn't really eaten or drunk much all day, and barely enjoys his bath. Even shampoo space antennas can't cheer him up.


6:16 p.m.: Quick: Brian Setzer, or Mr Bunches? Only their mothers know for sure!



6:45 p.m.: Toweled off, into pajamas, and I'm sitting in the Babies! room with Mr F on my lap as he tries to fall asleep watching The Incredibles. Pictured: Sweetie in the doorway, reading one of the books I gave her by the light in the hallway. You can kind of see Mr Bunches flopped at her feet.

10:30 p.m.: After the Babies! finally fell asleep, we joined Middle for a romantic, Valentine's Day viewing of Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist, which was an okay movie with one great line at the end -- a line which I'm going to repeat here, so [INDIE/TEEN/HIPSTER MOVIE GREAT LINE SPOILER ALERT!]:

Nick and Nora leave the big concert at the end, the one they've been looking for all along, and as they fall in love/go down an escalator, Nora says: "Are you sorry you missed it?"

To which Nick says: "We didn't miss it. This IS it."