The Big 6-0

Today is my dad's 60th Birthday and I just want to give him an Internet shout out congratulating him on being 60 years young!

As I have gotten older I find that I look at each birthday as an excuse to throw a bigger party, and so birthdays are actually still a lot of fun. And with this mind-set I also get super exciting for other people on their birthday because, hell, it's another party!

So, if you are drinking a beer, or a glass of wine, or are enjoying a low-fat, vegetable laden snack ;-) Give my dad a toast, because he always comes down for my parties, and I'm looking forward to many, many more good times!



Word of the Day Thursday, January 07, 2010

quotidian

\kwoh-TID-ee-uhn\ , adjective;

1. Occurring or returning daily; as, a quotidian fever.
2. Of an everyday character; ordinary; commonplace.

"Hey! Look at this!" Leonard exclaimed popped his head abruptly over the top of the cubicle wall.

Elliott sighed and looked up at whatever it was that Leonard was dangling over her head.

"What is that?" she asked in her usual semi-annoyed-semi-sarcastic-sounding-work monotone.

"Cough drops," Leonard said. He pulled one out of the bag and tossed it down to her.

As expected, she didn't catch it and had to fish out from behind her magnetic paperclip container.

"Why are you showing this to me? I don't have a cough," she continued, flinging the cough drop back at Leonard's head, "Do you hear me coughing through these paper thin cubicle walls?"

He ducked the projectile cough drop and grinned at her, "It is a special cough drop, just wait and see. But first you have to eat one."

"I'm not going to eat a cough drop. That is inappropriately medicating myself. Besides I'm at work. Are there any warnings on there about operating machinery? I AM using a computer at the moment. I could get fired," Elliott continued trying to keep up her bored, annoyed tone of voice while consciously stifling the smile starting to play on her lips.

She actually adored Leonard.

He had been sitting on the other side of her cubicle wall for the past six months and even though she would complain bitterly to anyone who listened about how much she hated the quotidian slog of being an insurance company data-entry drone, she actually looked forward to going to work each morning specifically because Leonard would eventually pop his head up over her cubicle wall.

She always tried to feign indifference or annoyance, but they both knew they were partners in crime.

The crime, of course, being that they were both too smart to be data-entry drones.

"C'mon, just put one in your mouth. Here I'll unwrap it for you, and feed it to you. It'll be like communion," he said his eyes twinkling. He held the lozenge out over her mouth.

"Gimme that," she said snatching the unwrapped cough drop and popping it in her mouth, the lock-down smile leaking out at the corners of her mouth.

They both waited there in silence for a moment sucking on their throat lozenges.

"Ok, so what is so special about this?" Elliott finally asked thickly through a mouth full of saliva.

"Look!" he thrust the little plastic lozenge bag towards her face, "It is "Blue Ice Flavored"! At this moment we are tasting a color!"

She looked up at his triumphant face, shining down at her like the sun rising through an office gray sky, and finally turned the key on that smile.