(XML Cake courtesy of one of the IT guys at work – actually, he’s the only one at work who noticed it was my birthday.)
As Lisa and Melanie noted, Tuesday was my birthday.
“You didn’t blog on your birthday!” Novy said Tuesday afternoon.
“No, but I’m going to,” I said. It’s taken two days, but here it is – the belated birthday blog.
Tuesday morning – birthday emails from my mother (telling me she’ll call me later) and my brother (asking what I’m up to for the day). I told him I’d wanted to take the day off, but had just a bit too much work. “I might be able to work a short day, though,” I said. (Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.)
Around 11, Mom called, and promised not to sing. (My mother is funny. And she likes to think she can’t sing.)
At 12:30, I took myself (and Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother) out to lunch at Maxwell’s Cafe, then went to the Venice Grind for chocolate chip cookies and kick-ass iced chai. (The brewed kind, not the blended kind. They fill their own tea bags. I love that place.)
“Sounds like a good birthday so far,” Novy said, via IM, when I got back.
“So far, it is,” I agreed. “Despite the client bugging me for an update on a job he ordered Friday.” (Our normal turnaround’s 8-10 business days; we’ve told him he can have it in 4-5, but dude, 2?).
At 3, the mail came. And in the mail, there was a notice that my health insurance had been canceled. Um, what? I called my manager. He promised to get back to me. “It’s just a clerical error,” Novy told me. “They’ll get it sorted out.” Well, yes. He was right. I’m not sure whose side the fault was on, but somehow, everyone’s insurance was canceled – and then reinstated, on the same day. There was no actual interruption of coverage, but legally, they only have to tell you when your insurance is canceled. They don’t have to tell you it’s been reinstated.
Brief panic averted, I went back to work. Got a heads-up there’d be some work coming in from another department. That’s fine; I’m not that busy right now. A little past 4, I see that it’s not just some work. It’s a lot of work. And all of it’s due by the end of the week, because most of it came in last week and they’re just now getting around to sending it out.
This does not make me happy.
So instead of taking off early, I work late, which also means I miss class. And when I’ve done as much as I can stand, I finish my last assignment for American Art History. (One of the online classes I took through SMC this semester.) I was almost done when Novy came home.
“I turned the oven on,” I told him. (Tuesday night is pizza night, because we both get home late.)
He turned it off, and took me to La Cabana for margaritas and Mexican food.
It was a pretty good birthday after all.
at the end of his Jack the Ripper 
, which nurtured my love of fantastic literature and helped spark my feminism. (There’s a reason it’s the first book I ever gave Novy’s daughter.) She loved food and music and she had a beautiful mind and an amazing talent for gift-giving. She always chose just the right thing. It’s something I’ve tried to emulate (with, I flatter myself, some small degree of success). I’ll miss her, but as my mother (ever wise) said, Lindsay enjoyed her life, and she died quickly, painlessly, and doing something she loved. It’s a sad thing, but not a tragedy.
