Hi, my name is Special Sauce.

I'd like to introduce myself, as I seem to have been mighty scarce of late.

First up, THANK YOU ET, for the festive bird day wishes, and right back at you, with ones of your own- rockin' the elvis, we are. :)

Second of all, wheee! I'm still alive, though after the past two weeks, that was somewhat in doubt. First, we'll do the fun stuff. I did have a smacktacular birthday. P and I spent the day before together, as he was headed out to the Superbike races in OH for the weekend, (I couldn't make it, I didn't have the time to take off work) and he started things off right by making me crepes for breakfast. (YAY!) We went to his place to open presents (yay presents!) which included a really swell Global knife, which is similar to one of the ones I've coveted of his (but with the spiffy sankotu style blade I prefer to the standard chef style, and smaller to fit my hands- the man pays attention.) other kitchen gadgetry, and tea. Lots of tea. (Which would be a running theme.)

We got to spend the rest of the day together, went to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, and had a great time. And I got to get up and do it all over again, minus the crepes and the really cool knife, with my mom on Saturday. The day of the big taa-daa, ma came over with Pa, and brought all manner of wunnerful stuff for the apartment, like new dishes (yay! Corele!) organizers for my desk,tea, and some other fun things that I wouldn't have picked out for myself. We spent the rest of the day picking up other important items (an apron, saucers, cutting boards) at the outlets, and G. Monkey came out for cake (Bearing more tea!) before we headed out to Hildy's to cap off the evening. WOo!

Lots of other fun stuff to celebrate too. Like the reason for ALL that tea. The stuff I'm taking for my headaches does make soda taste like ass, and alcohol is out of the question. So I've been drinking a LOT of iced tea lately. As in, "there are always 2 pitchers workin' in my fridge at all times" lot of tea. (One regular, one decaf.) The downside is beverage options are somewhat limited, the upside? I haven't had a migraine in almost a month. That is cause for celebration.

Other amusements- P is an outdoorsy sort of guy. I'm the kind of girl who likes to sit on the porch outside and read a book, and have that qualify as outdoors-y. But for him, (and for my own well-being) I'm trying to be a bit more ambitious. So... last week, when he asked if I wanted to go on a "nice, easy mountain bike ride, either through the neighborhood, or on the local rail trail" I thought it'd be fun, a nice way to spend an evening, and a good way to blow off some of the steam that had built up getting ready for this massive recertification we're dealing with. Little did I know that I'm dating the Marquis de Sade. Our "nice, easy mountain bike ride" turned into 12 miles, half of which were constant-pedaling up an incline. The other half were bone-jarring, ass-mangling, dear-God-please-just-make-it-stop-please-tell-me-those-are-the-cars-up-ahead-why-does-this-hurt-so-bad-it's-downhill-for-crying-out-loud make you want to die miles.

Aside from the ass pain (seriously, it felt like I gave birth to a goddamn schwinn), I was fine the next day. And I even volunteered to try again this weekend, IF he promises to keep it a bit easier this time. (To be fair, I could have said "No mas" at any time, but was totally afraid that we'd only have gone a mile or something, and I would have looked like a total wuss. So instead of being a wuss, I stuck with murderous rage, alternating with weeping like a toddler who just lost her dolly. It worked.)

If things work out this time, I may invest in some padded shorts (though I don't think they come in "husky girl" size) to minimize the "birthing a schwinn" phenomenon, and hope I can build up some tolerance. In all, it wasn't half bad, when I didn't want to kill him/myself...

Anyway... hope you're swell. I'll see ya 'round.