*Insert clever title here*

Around noon yesterday, I sincerely thought that Tuesday not only sucked, it clawed, scratched and bit as well. The day started with a dead animal in the road right at the end of my driveway, and since all I saw as I grabbed the first opportunity to peel out was brown fur, I was afraid it was Rooter. I got to work just in time to deal with incredibly rude clients, a boss who didn't have her cell phone on when she swore she would, and then followed all of that stress up with a warddrobe malfunction.

I came home early, and after parking the car, walked up to the mailbox. Because I was worried about my resident groundhog, I looked more closely at the corpse in the road than I would have. The good news was that it wasn't Rooter, but the bad news was both that it was a kitty-cat and that I saw more gross bits than I ever wanted to. There was a reason that I never applied for the position of veterinary technician, thanks. *blurg*

After I'd walked back to the house and into the breezeway, I looked into the backyard, and there was Rooter, pretending to be a tree stump. So now I had kitty inside pictures in my head, and I didn't even need to look. I noticed that the handle on the breezeway door was turned, as if someone had tried to open it and stopped when he or she realized it was locked. I knew it wasn't Amy, because she has a key, but I also know that the mail carrier usually at least tries to get packages under cover before she leaves them on the steps. I opened the door, and sure enough, there was a small brown box out there.

Once I had unwrapped the oversized plastic bag the box was swathed in, I saw that it was from my Canadian angel, she who is known as The Heather. Despite only having known me for a month or so, The Heather sent me a birthday package comprised of Lush goodies, including a Rainbow Worrier, which isn't even available online any more! The goodies made my day, and I didn't even need last night's indulgent, luxurious bath experience to perk me up. I still enjoyed said experience, though. *grin* The Heather is a lovely, wonderful, amazing person who truly understands the need for fabulous bath products. She is firmly on my smit list.

Today didn't start out quite as badly as yesterday, but it had its own ups and downs. Work wasn't so bad, but when I got home, I got a phone call from a former co-worker, a young woman in her early 30s. She has two little girls under the age of three, a husband working full time and trying to start his own business, and she's got symptoms which could be MS. We talked for a long time about how I was diagnosed, what MS is, what the treatment is, things like that. She's had a brain MRI, which showed no lesions, but hasn't had a spinal MRI. One thing a nurse did tell me when I was diagnosed is that if there are spinal lesions, you have active MS symptoms. I hope I walked the line between being hopeful and encouraging and sympathetic and not being too optimistic and Pollyannaish. I also hope she listened when I said that I am NOT a doctor, and while I read all the articles in the MS newsletter & magazine, I don't speak with any authority on anything but my own experience. I gave her my cell number, and told her to call me anytime--I do remember how scary it is just to not know. It is tremendously weird that in the first half of this year, someone else who works at the same place started showing MS-like symptoms. She had a clear MRI too, so she's still waiting while the doctors try to figure out what's going on. My heart goes out to both of them, and to their families.

I was a little down about that, and in a reflective mood when I took the trash out to the curb. I grabbed the mail, and there was a package from my brother and sister-in-law in Dallas. Inside was one of the cutest cards I've seen in ages, and two pairs of earrings my sister-in-law made, one sterling & freshwater pearls, and one sterling & round amethyst beads. They are absolutely gorgeous, and I'm looking forward to wearing them! Then, in a moment of silliness, I wrote a little scenario for one of my smittees, and he thought I should post it for everyone to see. Three other people at Lit thought I should submit "Ode to a Cucumber Sandwich" to the poetry section, so after a quick editing, I did so.

Lots of ups and downs this past half-week. I'm looking forward to the zoo tomorrow with Mom & my nephews, but not looking forward all that much to Friday. It's possible, though, that I will get lucky and slide my birthday under the radar this year. *crosses fingers* I don't mind online attention, but I get all pink and flustered when it happens offline.

Perfect bathrooms, fluffy pink baths, fluffy pink people

Last night, in a reversion to my high school years, I started a convo with Canuck Girl about a dream house in Canada with Canadian toilets, lots of land, a central area of the house with a huge kitchen, giant rooms for entertaining and communal lounging areas. Off the main area would be three wings, one for Canuck Girl and Runs with Beer, one for Sherri and Jay and one for me. That way, everyone has privacy and room for pets, but room to get together and have fun, too. As we were talking, I was perusing the Kohler website, and if you want to see something amusing, go to Kohler.com and look at the "Traditional" bathroom gallery. A strong stomach is a requirement, though. CG and I both agreed we could live with this one, which is contemporary, but this one just screams for the prisoners to riot. My personal favorite is this one, as it's in soft colors, the sink faucets spout from mirrored boxes and the overflow jacuzzi (a must!) fills from the ceiling. That is just so intensely cool. I'd need a giant addition on the back of my house to do that, so anybody interested in giving me $20K can drop me a line.

After that, it was a bit of a letdown to take a bath in my rust-stained, blue, too-small bathtub, but I managed to make do with very hot water, an Amandopondo bubble bar, a Chelsea Garden bath bomb and the attitude of a pink fluffy person to go with my pink fluffy bath. There was a lot of rose scent on and around me, and giant fluffy bubbles, and really, although I dream of giant extravagant bathtubs that fill from the ceiling, I wind up being happy with what I have. The bathroom looks much better now than it did when I moved in, I know that! I was browsing Lush's site, and they have some new bubble bars. I fell instantly in lust with the Sunny Side bubble bar. I shall be sending out a Lush wishlist to my entire family before the holidays. *grin* And yes, Snicker, you're part of the family.

This morning at the grocery store, I spotted the Chief Wahoo chocolate bars Mike's been dying for and can't get his paws on in Eerie. So I snagged five (and forgot the milk, how very me of me) and will mail them out on Monday. It made me wish I had pots and pots of money, so I could send things to friends whenever I wanted. *sigh* Hi, my name is Jammies, and I have a spending problem. I want to spend money both on myself and on my friends. I also found the cutest pair of terry flip-flops for my sister in law. They're orange and have monkey faces on the bit that joins the straps to the base. I'll have to take a pic and upload it. All in all, I have a very good start on my weekend of not doing anything.