Happy Birthday?

Today was Joe's birthday, and it was all sorts of topsy turvy. This was Joe by the end of the day with his "birthday cake" ice cream cone from Bruster's. What a toughie. :-)

We formally celebrated last night with a sushi feast and a movie. It was great. We hadn't had sushi in a long while or any sake for that matter. Yay. Then we went and saw Date Night which was pretty good. It dragged in some places, but in all of Mark Whalberg's scenes he was topless, so no problem! That was basically all we did and then came home and hung. Before we went out I gave Joe his present - a gift set of Calvin Klein's Euphoria cologne and after shave. Smells like a dream. Big sexy.

So that was that. The plan for today was that I'd get up and fix something a little healthier than the waffle feast Joe prepared yesterday. We would hang and drink coffee and then later hit up Baskin Robbins and get a mini ice cream cake. (Yeah, I didn't bake him a cake; sue me.) It didn't go that way, though. Joe's first phone call of the day was one telling him his grandpa died earlier this morning. We knew it was coming, and Joe was glad for him to have peace. But uh. Still hard for Joe to take. We're busy making plans to get up to Missouri for the memorial service this Saturday. Everyone is doing as well as they can. In the midst of just learning that news, Lu refused to eat breakfast. There was so much going on as soon as we got up that it took a minute for me to notice that Lu was blown up like a damn doggy sausage. She had no definition in her abdomen at all. It was solid, and she was a little shaky. I called the e-vet, and they said she might have bloat, so off we went. Long story short, an x-ray revealed that Lu's stomach was in fact full of the dog food that she'd gotten into while Joe and I were still in bed. The vet said had she been a bigger dog, her stomach would have twisted and indeed bloat would have been the outcome correctable by expensive surgery. Instead, they gave her a shot to induce vomiting. $150 and some vomit later, we were able to leave with Lu and the knowledge that if given the chance, she will eat herself to death. We then swung by our local favorite doughnut shop and opted for a less healthy breakfast. Sigh.

We watched the Proposal when we got home. Then Joe drank and play video games throughout the afternoon while I freaked out about needing to get off work next weekend, board the dogs, and oops I forgot to get Joe's tags renewed. I thought I had until the end of the month (ALL THE PAPERWORK HAS BEEN READY FOR WEEKS!), but they definitely expired today on Joe's birthday. Damn it. I got everything but the tags worked out. Joe will just have to deal with that. In getting my work schedule straightened out, I asked the other hourly if she could work for me next weekend due to another death in the family, which would unfortunately have her working two weekends in a row. The first thing she said was "You know how I feel about that [working 2 in a row]." She never said anything about the loss. I figure she thinks I'm lying, as that place breeds mistrust. But seriously, I was ready to quit right there. In the end I asked a FULL TIME worker to work for me with the stipulation that she would flex out two weekdays that I will cover. The hourly was willing to work, but our schedule would be all fucked up - I would have to work the final two weekends in a row leading up to Joe going back to Ranger School. I hated to ask my full time bud, as she is already so run over there, but she actually has the ability to empathize and even told me to stop worrying and said before anything else, "I'm sorry for your loss." I'll be writing my boss an e-mail informing him of what's cooking and how much of an asset my coworker is to the hospital. If anyone accuses me of lying about another grandpa dying, I will freak out. I can feel it coming, though. Maybe not outright questions, but the suspicion will be there. God may not be giving me signs of what I should be doing, but I think these are pretty blatant signs that I need to get out of there. In the meantime, I am so thankful for the handful of people whom I can rely on and know have my back.

With that, Joe's 26th birthday is drawing to a close, and we are preparing for a crazy week. Think good thoughts for us and Joe's family. And say a few payers for my 13 year old Maxima. We did not anticipate taking the ol' gal on another Missouri run, but here we are and off we'll go...