Clean, glorious clean!

Our house is getting so clean, Clean, CLEAN! And I love it, Love It, LOVE IT!

Jennifer is currently dry-mopping/vacuuming the 929437902791 tons of cat hair around this place, and she did the futon, too! And I cleaned the bathroom and the laundry is going and the dishes are (mostly) done and the table is brand-new-clean. The windows are all open and the weather is gorgeous, and soon the furniture will be dusted and the kitchen/bathroom floors washed. It is going to be beautiful in here!

Really, there are few things I like more than a freshly cleaned house. I'm sure this makes me some kind of OCD wacko, but I totally don't care!

Daniel-san, you need to use the crane.

I miss 'stina. I want her to come over and play!

Surprise party

This evening we threw a surprise "do-over" birthday party for my smurfbrother, since his actual birthday was the day my dad was found unconscious in his house and the day before he died. He has spent every day since the day after his birthday in Rhode Island dealing with all of that stuff and we thought it would be fun if we could get a bunch of his friends together to make him feel good.

It was a total success, both on the surprise front and also the party front. People seemed to have a good time and since everyone knew everyone (pretty much), no one really felt left out. We had some snacks, some pizzas, and some ice cream cake. Not exactly healthy, but hey - it had to be done. I was glad that not only was he totally surprised, but that he was also happy about the surprise. I always get nervous about that sort of thing. (Some people don't like surprises.) When I greeted him at the door, he said, "Jenn is here?" And I nervously said, "Yeah." And he said, "She's having dinner with us?" (I lured him here with the promise of a cooked meal.) And I said, "Uhh, yeah." But he didn't see anyone else's car, so that was a total score! Everyone was in the kitchen and he walked in and was just so surprised and shocked and it was so fun!

So thank you so much to everyone who came: Wiley, Jenn, and Hannah; Kristine, Dan, and Jacob; Amy and Elias; Dory; Shani and Matt; Kriss and Jon; John; and Aaron whom I haven't seen in a million years even though he lives on the other side of town. It really meant a lot to me and Jennifer (and to my brother, I'm sure) to have you here.

No one deserves a crappy birthday.