My 49th Birthday

Except for the giant dead possum under the deck and Barney going missing for 12 hours, I had a great birthday.
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I had originally planned to attend a volunteer appreciation event called "Night at the Museum." All MOW volunteers got free admission and it happened to be on my birthday so I had thought it would be fun to do that and then meet my daughter and her fiance at a Mexican restaurant after they finished class. But what happened was, as I was shopping for groceries on Monday evening, my fifth OUT day in a row, I knew I was done. Except when I am at the beach cottage, I very rarely go out five days in a row and it had worn down my soul or my psyche or something and I knew I wanted nothing more than to stay home. Not only for my birthday but until Friday morning for MOW. I bought the food I needed to make my very favorite comfort food meal as well as the rest of the groceries and went home and I am still here for the next 10 hours. And I have loved every minute of it.
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I had to get up early on my birthday to catch the Fed ex guy. I got an awesome package from Lo - a Duke National Championship T-shirt and a cool Duke rock. Damn! I should have taken a pic of the rock. Anyway, later in the afternoon Carole came by. We walked out onto the deck so she could see all of my flowers and that's when we smelled the giant dead possum. Except, we didn't know that's what we were smelling and then I realized that I had not seen Barney all day and my mind went to a bad place. It was easy to pinpoint the spot where the dead animal was by the flies, but I was afraid to look. Carole was brave and said she would look, so we got a flashlight and she got down and looked and told me it looked like a "white-faced possum." Well Barney has a white face. Carole handed me the flashlight and I looked under there and because it was not a great flashlight, I at first imagined I was seeing the pointy tip of Barney's chin as if he was upside down. Then finally my eyes made out the possum's eyes and I realized that "Barney's chin" was in fact the tip of the possum's nose. I tried to convince myself of that anyway, but I was still wondering where Barney was, he never left the yard. Barney has always been in the backyard or the garage.
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Anyway we came back in the house and Carole gave me these gorgoeous Asian windchimes:
It's a shame you can't see all the details. The weight at the bottom has symbols and even the little bells have something going on. And the sound is lovely. I cant wait to get that hung up this weekend. When My Sweetie came home, after dealing with the giant dead possum, he gave me two Duke National Championship T-shirts. So now I have three! Three Duke NCAA National Championship T-shirts. woot woot!! The one in the middle is the one from Lo:

I can't wait to wear those. I also got some lovely tulips from My Sweetie:

Although it took me forever, I finally finished cooking my Birthday Meal of barbecued chicken thighs, mac and cheese and asparagus. After dinner, My Sweetie went out to the garage and Barney was there! We were so happy. We had been out calling him off and on all evening. After that, my daughter and her fiance came by and her gift was my favorite bath and Bodyworks lotions. Yum. It ended up being a great birthday.

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I have a theory of where Barney was and why, but I'm just glad he's back and he was alright. I took this picture this (Thursday) afternoon:

So now I'm 49, I got some great gifts, Barney's fine and all's right with the world.