Nope, lost it!

 Birthday week is always wonderful--

And a little exhausting.

For example, today was the day of the two grandmas.

The first one arrived right before I started getting ready for aqua. The house was gross.  For those of you who are saying, "Heh heh heh…"

No.

Gross.

Absolutely disgusting.

Dishes--sink.  Trash-- ground.  Blankets--floor.  Dog--shirt.

Wait, scratch that.  Dog barking at the door, and Mate's mother, sweet little self-deprecating smile on her face as she waited for me to open the door.  She's such a lovely woman.  I had to invite her in.  It was…

Embarrassing.

And she made it worse by giving us our birthday cards with money in them.  (It used to be our age, doubled, plus a dollar.  Then we turned 45, and it was like, "Fuck it, have a fifty!")

But the funniest part of all was when I told her, "Yeah, I'll go get Chicken!  She'll be happy to see you!"

"Chicken!  Get up!  There's a Grandma here!"

"Fuck!  I'm up I'm up I'm up!"

She told me later that me and Mate had trained her well-- apparently nothing gets our kids up and moving with a lightning bolt up their asses like "Holy CRAP!  There's a Grandma here!"

Well, it's good to know we've instilled them with a reasonable fear.  Fear of God?  Well, they're pagan and/or agnostic.  Fear of us?  You can't fear what you pity.  Fear of bad neighborhoods?  Jesus, what did they grow up in?  But fear of GRANDMA'S?  Oh yeah.  They're terrified.  They'll do anything out of guilt, fear, and a desire for bras, Christmas cards, and banana nut muffins.

Oh!

About bras.  See, Mate's mom was this morning, but my stepmom was this afternoon.  She was taking Chicken bra shopping and tennis shoes shopping, and in case you're wondering if Chicken really does fear all grandmas, I'll have you know she did the dishes.   You have to understand.  When she arrives during her breaks, we have to remind her that she lives here, even for a week.  Sloths move more.  Sloths in a coma move more.

So seriously-- the power of little old ladies.  Fear it.

And as for me?

I'm leaving for GRL and FREAKING OUT about it.  In case you were wondering.  You should be wondering.  I actually just bought clothes for no other reason than I couldn't remember if I had any. (If you saw what my room looked like, you'd laugh yourself sick.  Clothes?  I have them.  God.)

Also, I'm trying really hard to finish this Bluewater Bay thing with some semblance of being on time.  Considering I've got a week and a half to finish it, and I'm only halfway done I think I pretty much it the "I suck!" button on my deadline fear.

And I need to do shipping, and maybe get my hair dyed again, and I got my toes done as a present with Chicken (she got her fingers and toes done-- she looks smashing in deep claret.  I look like a goober in neon orange.  Grown up?  Fuck to the no.)  but everything else is…

Dory.

I'm Dory.

I'm so Doried, it should be a new adjective!  

"How's she doing on the packing?"

"Oh, she's totally Doried-- she keeps running around the room with her hands over her head screaming 'I DON'T REMEMBER THESE FUCKING CLOTHES!'"

But I'm not so Doried that I don't realize that Part 6 of Beneath the Stain is out.  Now, I'm going to say this again, for those who didn't catch all the hoopla.  If you don't buy the serial from Dreamspinner, you don't get the extra content.  I mean, I totally get not wanting to read the serial as it comes out weekly, but if thou likest DVD extras in a movie, you may likest the extras here, and on October 17th, when the whole thing comes out from amazon and all those places, the serial installments with the extra content goes BYE BYE.  So, just sayin-- I get the desire to read it from the beginning to the end, but the extra stuff is worth it!

But if not, just the plain novel is pretty spiffy too.  I'll DEFINITELY be letting you know when that's going up.

And speaking of-- I've got a lot of great stuff for *kermit flail* this Monday, but by all means send me something this weekend if you haven't yet.  People are really responding to this, and I really love giving a little umph-umph back.

And with that, I'm going to bail-- Mate and I have a birthday date, and a trip to see Denzel in The Equalizer tonight.  Wish me happy steak!