hoping for rain...

So, it's my birthday. Yes, 33 years ago at something after 6am I was born on 21 June 1979...

Normally, this festive occasion is celebrated with a cherry chip cake with cherry frosting (Betty Crocker, yo)... except last year it was like 89˚F when I baked the cake and it got kind of sad and melty and the frosting continued to drip and droop even when I put it in the fridge. So, this year we are celebrating with some Edward's Key Lime pie. Yeah, it conveniently thawed on the ten minute trip home from the grocery store... but it's refrigerated, so, it's fine, and tasty.

Google apparently also knows it's my birthday. As when I put my cursor over the graphic to see what the occasion was, the little yellow box popped up and said "Happy Birthday, Sarah!"

My etsy accounts are also aware of the holiday nature of this date...

 

The family pets, however, not so much in the Happy Birthday mode... it was more like what is that flashing light thing, and where is my food. Yes, that's Clive - the blue one, Crowley the purple one, and Juni the female (who is mostly known as Juni Juni Juni). Crowley and Juni arrived last Friday after a visit to Petco.

So, that's today's forecast. And really, I hope it rains. In fact, if the temperature drops to 59˚F and it just rains for like 4 hours, then that would be awesome. I would also accept an entire day of rain. It was 93˚F here yesterday when I bothered to google it, and since I live in a house with no air conditioning - well, that is not my desired temperature. If it was like 68˚F year round - I'd be good with that. Sadly, it isn't.

Anyway, I'm on vacation, or staycation as the kids apparently call it. I have 5 days off from work. No, I haven't been fired or suspended. I filled out that little form on the request thingy... so, yeah, day 3 or 4 — they all start to blur together. Anyhow, I spent the first day mostly sleeping, and then the rest of my time at home, aside from that trip to the store, has been spent cleaning or recuperating from cleaning. I cleaned my bedroom (6 hours, and yes, I washed all my sheets and vacuumed under the bed), I cleaned the bathroom (and why does that always take 2 hours?), and then I started cleaning up my living room but ended up spending 4 hours cleaning the kitchen. Of course, really, it took 6 hours, but only 4 actually involved cleaning. The rest of it was me stopping and swearing at the heat and the wheel that fell off my vacuum cleaner...

Yeah, thanks, Sears. What the hell did Kenmore do to the Magic Blue? I bought the original model back in 2001, and it still works. It has all its part — in tact, and it sucks like a mofo that knows no ending to suction. So, I got a newer model 2 years ago, and the fucking wheel broke off, I can barely manage to get the thing open to change the bag, and the second time I put in a new bag - the clip that holds the bag down broke off. Jesus Christ. It sucks, literally and metaphorically, but what's up with all the easily breakable parts? People buy cannister vacuums to abuse them - do drag them down hallways via the tube / handle and to drag them weightlessly up and down stairs. The new magic blue is now like a lame 1-legged dog... It works, but not the way it should.

Thoroughly cleaning a house with no AC w/ a fragile vacuum cleaner in ninety degree heat is probably not going to be the most awesome vacation I have ever endeavored... but, well, it's almost done... except I have a network of spiderwebs to take out in the basement as well as a living room to clean and make orderly.

Anyway, I can't say that I've been sad to not wake up to an alarm clock for the last several days. And I did purchase the obligatory chips and Mrs. Renfro's peach salsa (aka the greatest salsa ever, and once you've had it everything else pales in comparison). Plus, I had birthday dinner w/ Mom at Sal's last night — lasagna, the best in town, and they were playing seventies music (which would be preferable to hearing anything by Taylor Swift)... Yeah, they even played the radio edit of "Inna Gadda Da Vida" — heh. I was -11 years old when that song came out, I think my Mom was 10.

Yep, everything ages.

So, anyway, have some cake today, and hopefully it rains.