Thank you everyone!  The cake is adorable, Anais, and I love the poem, Lisabelle!

BB, you aren't crazy; my birthday is next week, but we celebrated our birthdays early this year (Mom's is the 25th and mine the 29th) because we're all going to be busy on the actual dates. 

Hee hee--the cat on the cake looks remarkably like Bogie; without all the evil, of course.

Reality continues to smack Gorey around.  Last night he wanted to lie in my arms on my chest all evening.  I wanted to organize the crochet patterns I've printed off of the internet lately.  I compromised--I held him until my hand fell asleep, then I started to give him squeezey hugs and kiss his shoulder which makes him annoyed so he leaves.   8)  I started to organize, he comes back and I let him sit on the lap desk and I work around him, petting him as I go, but it's not enough.     The honeymoon is over.

Half-up with my Inner Glow Labradorite Gemstix.  These sticks are responsible for the wretched weather today.  I'll explain:  as I said before, these sticks perfectly match my dark grey polar fleece outfit, and I was a bit upset because it's been too warm to wear it so far this year.  So today I get up around 10 till 7 and everything is fine.  When I get out of the bathroom, there's a half-inch of snow on the ground and we have a white-out.  So I did get to wear my grey outfit and the sticks do look fabulous with it.  They couldn't have arranged a precipitation-free cold snap?   

Chagrin Valley has 2 new kinds of shampoo bars:  one with mud and clay and one with neem and tea tree oil  I ordered my year's supply yesterday and included these.  I got an extra bar of the neem one for my brother because he has a flakey scalp and this could help--if he uses it.  We've already discussed different things to try, like aloe and TTO massaged into the scalp, C-COW-C and scritching but he won't give 'em a shot.  He might use the shampoo bar and an ACV rinse, though.

BPAL:  Pink Phoenix (Vanilla bean, honeycomb, sugared pear, sweet pea and a dribble of strawberry)  This is the third wearing and this time there was no nastyness from the honey.  It's sweet with a slight berry overtone and is translucent fuschia in color.  Matches the grey outfit nicely, I think.

Early happy birthday!  
Ya know,I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all those crochet patterns I got off the net myself!!  lol  There's such a pile!  I'm almost done with the granny square tote I started on Saturday.  I think I'll give it to my mother.  I want to do other colors that will be for summer.....

Your idea sounds great about the pattern storage.  I've got to get all this stuff organized!!! Now we won't talk about all the left over skeins of yarn I've got  way too many here!!  love the idea for the skirt,too!  If I had a camera to post the tote I would.....my sister got a digital camera for Christmas from her hubby,though....hm this gives me ideas!!!!!  
Good luck with "Aunt Flo"!

Curlgirl64, I bought a hanging organizer at Meijer.  I can't find a picture of it, but it's a long tube made of red mesh; it has shelves of mesh along the length, and holes at each level to put things in.  I found it in the children's organizing section.  Anyway, it's a fantastic storage place for my yarn.  I don't have closet space for it, so I bought a hook that goes over the door and hung it on that.     With the new crafting craze, Big Lots and our local discount store often have cheap yarn and I just can't help myself.   8)

Ear to ear lace braid with rose bun held with my large red Ficcare beak.  Hairwash night.  I got my shipment of new CV shampoo bars, but the neem and TTO and the mud and clay aren't ready yet.  I went ahead and cut them into thirds so they'll dry faster.  The bars I'm using now are 6+ months old and they lather like nobody's business.  I think I still have enough of the old bars to let the new bars get really, really cured. 

I've nearly finished my stuff for the flower exchange at Crochetville and I should be able to mail them off on Thursday. 

If anyone has never seen Arrested Development, stop what you're doing right now and run out and get the DVD's.  For once the critics are right--this is the funniest show I've seen in years.  Made me laugh out loud all weekend; I scared the heck out of the snoozing cats. 

How I Met My Cats, Episode 1:  Bogie.

When I moved here, I was looking for a house with a big enough yard to bring my dog Grunt to live with me.  I chose a house that was being built on spec. and was nearly finished.  Hanging out with the workers was a teeny, adorable, outgoing, and not-at-all cranky tabby kitten that one of the workers had adopted, feeding him bits of his lunch and even going as far as buying canned shrimp for the little thing.

When I first visited the house, the kitten ran out on the parking pad and dropped at my feet, rolling over on his back and purring.  I...stepped right over him and kept on walking.  No, really. 

Sometimes I think I should have paid attention to my first impulse.   8)

After I bought the house, I brought my new mailbox to the workers to put up for me.  The one who was feeding not-yet-but-soon-to-be Bogie approached me, holding Bogie in the palm of his hand.

"You're taking the kitten aren't you, lady?  I have an apartment and I can't keep him but you have a house, and you're keeping him, right?"

"...Yeah...I'll keep him.  I have to go back to my old apartment to pack, the fourth is coming...I'll be back in 4 days.  I'll get him then." says the short-sighted woman who's planning on having an outdoor cat to whom she'll throw occasional kibble when she thinks about it.   

"No, this is our last day and he'll get eaten by the foxes and the hawks, you have to take him now!"  And he plunks the thing in my hand and is gone.

He spent the hour and a half drive back to the apartment sleeping on my forearm.  I named him Agatha for about 20 miles, then turned him over and re-named him Bogie.  When I turned him over, he spread out his big giant feet.  "Man, am I in trouble.  This cat's gonna be a monster."  Quite right, and in more ways than one.

He explored every inch of the apartment, he climbed up the tablecloth when I was eating supper so he could poke his tiny pink nose into my food, and he mewed in my ear at 3 am, earning him a trip to the computer room to be locked in for the rest of the night.

The house wasn't move-in ready for another week, so we stayed in a local motel.  We were roommates for the first week.  By the end of the second week, I was apologizing to the little thing if my dinner wasn't up to his standards.    

I never did bring my dog up.  She was happier on my parents' farm, anyway.  She was half beagle, half cockapoo, and all neurotic and I think my neighbor's Rottweilers would have driven her crazy.

BPAL:  Freak Show (A strange, disconcerting embrace… to some, alarming, and to some, intimately familiar: fig, pomegranate and cocoa bean with lemon, bergamot, vanilla, mellow honey musk, calamus and tonka)  I traded Usher for this.  I like Usher and will probably buy another before the Maelstrom is gone, but I can't resist anything called Freak Show.  Freaks is one of my all-time favorite movies. 

Anyway, first and second wearings:  fruity, but not obtrusive, sweet, icky fruity that I don't like.  It's a nicely restrained fruit scent.  On the drydown, I get a whiff of cocoa and maybe a hint of musk.  It's a surprisingly pretty scent.  I expected something a bit more disturbing, but this is nice, too.   

The problem with sales is that I'll buy a bunch of yarn cuz it's cheap, then have no idea what to do with it.  The fact that I can't crochet as fast or as much as I used to because of this horrid tendonitis (in my left elbow--hurts like the devil after only a few minutes  ) lets my yarn stash build up to critical mass.   

Hair:  My patented PoP bun (Pile o' Poop).  It's a 3 part bun; today the center part was a rose bun, then I wrapped half of the remaining hair around it, then the remaining half around all.  Looks nice from the back but from the side it does have a bit of a resemblence to a cow pie.     My brown hair does nothing to dispel the illusion. 

How I Met My Cat, Part II:  Rumpole

About a year after the Bog and I moved in I noticed a skinny black cat slinking around the edges of the yard.  I started leaving food out for it.  I could tell he wanted to be friends but didn't quite trust me:  I remember on the Fourth of July I was sitting on the front steps and he wriggled around on his back in the grass just out of arms' reach.

After about 6 weeks he decided to trust me and around that time I named him Rumpole because I was reading my way through the Rumpole of the Bailey books by John Mortimer.  He was skittish, and I think he'd been abused.     

At first I fed him at the bottom of the steps; after a few weeks, I managed to lure him up the steps to the front of the porch.  A couple of weeks more and we could hang out at the back of the porch.  When winter came around that year, I got one of the cat carriers and put a blanket over it and a cat bed inside for him to use.  He ran straight inside, tucked up his paws and looked so happy--he finally had his own little home!  I almost cried, but I'm a big, old, soft-hearted sucker when it comes to animals.   

One summer afternoon as I drove up to the house, I heard Rumply's "meh, meh, meh" and saw him running down the hill.  He looked a bit odd and I realized that some @#$@#$ had sprayed shaving cream all down his back in hopes he'd lick it off and poison himself.      My Rumpole's too smart for the nasty old bully and came home for me to wipe it off for him.  Nyah.

Next winter it was very, very, very cold, so I started luring him into the garage.  First, he'd only come right inside the door, then he'd come a few feet inside but the door had to remain open.  Finally, after a month, he'd come into the back of the garage where there's a couch for us to lie on.

After 2 years as outside kitty, a clean bill of health, a neutering, and coddling of his neuroses, Rumpole came inside.  He and Bogie get along OK.  It was a further 2 years inside before he could stand to be in a room with the door closed and he didn't cringe when a loud noise was heard.

I'd love to find the SOB who abused my Rumpole and have a deep, heartfelt talk about the wrongness of animal abuse.  Then I'd like to beat him with my baseball bat.   8)

BPAL:  Fire Eater (A glowing red and flickering scent: warm, lurid, seductive.)  Many of the reviewers said this was a cheerful red-orange floral.  First and second wearing on me it smells hot, then slightly sweet, then it is gone before noon.  Huh.

So I tried Psyche (Bulgar rose, Chinese white musk, lavender, orchid and frankincense.)  First wearing:  in the imp I can smell the lavender and frankencense.  On, it's a sweet floral with frankencense in the background.  I like the first wearing; I wonder how much it will change for the second?