The ides of March… Julius Caesar was warned about the date, and it’s funny that I should remember now, today, that it was in late February 2006 that my mother went to have some chest x-rays taken because although she didn’t have a cold, or any sort of infection, she couldn’t seem to stop coughing. She had an appointment to see the specialist on March 15th – she told me this on the phone, and with an uneasy feeling, I told her jokingly, “Oh dear! The ides of March! That doesn’t bode well!”, and we both laughed. She found out, on the ides of March, that she had inoperable lung cancer. She passed away at 4.00am on January 1st, 2007. So, the ides of March wasn’t kind to Julius Caesar, and it wasn’t kind to my mother… but it was a lot nicer to himself and me, today, as we shared a (somewhat belated for himself) Big Birthday Bash… and although I might not have reached “double figures” (weight-wise) for my actual Birthday last Monday, I did achieve them within my Birthday week! And so, my Birthday week ending at midnight tonight, my Pisces icon has been replaced with the Autumn icon, until the next Birthday, Terry’s – my favourite youngest daughter’s husband – in early May. Lisa and Neale gave himself the full 8 Series of “Foyle’s War” – a really excellent British detective drama television series set during and shortly after the Second World War. Highly recommended! 🙂 They gave me an indoor (table or desktop-type) fountain – my old one, which I’d had for a decade or more, had finally turned up its toes and died, and I missed the gentle sound of water splashing. Kate and Terry gave both of us Amazon gift vouchers – one of our most favourite presents to get, because we’re always buying books, ebooks, and music, through Amazon… A good day was had by all – lots of happy chatter, good food, good champagne (and good mineral water for me!) The Nandos chicken tenders looked yummy, as did the chips… even the salad looked good (I’m not really terribly big on salads) – and the Birthday cake! It looked absolutely deliciously divine! It appeared to be (*sob* unfortunately I couldn’t have any this year 😦 ) a sort of hazelnut and chocolate torte with whipped cream and toasted almond slivers coating the sides. My flavourite! Oh well, this time next year will come, and I’ll be able to have my cake, and eat it, too! 🙂 I shamefully neglected my guests and I did do my before luncheon Stair Walk – with pockets in my slacks it’s a lot easier to carry the keys with which to let myself back into the apartment – and I went on my own because himself was busy dividing up the chicken and chips and making the salad. After lunch we repaired to the lounge room for coffee, and more chatter and gossip, and the kids finally left at about quarter to four.
I didn’t get much of a chance to do anything on Rift this morning – just my Auctions and my Minions – hopefully I’ll get a chance to catch up with things tomorrow. I did download some more flower brushes – I found a Chrome theme that I thought was quite nice, and it’s sort of green and cream with – er – pink flowers on it. No, I know that green and cream with pink flowers doesn’t sound much like me, but I thought it was worth giving it a go… I’m going to have to change my desktop wallpaper though – at the moment it’s in shades of gray with silver-blue snowflakes, which doesn’t really go with green, and cream, and little pink flowers… 
Kate said that maybe I could just change the background colour, and make the snowflakes pink (working in layers makes things soooo much easier! 😉 ) which is an idea, I suppose – I might try it (or I might just try looking for an easier to match Chrome theme! But that’s taking the easy way out, isn’t it! 😉 ) And anyway – the last lot of flower brushes I tried out this morning did look promising… sort of… (himself is setting up my new little fountain, even as I type! This one has a light in it, too! 🙂 )
Weigh-in this morning. Well, my Birthday week ended on a happy note, with me back into double figures! Back down to 99.7kg – a drop of three points. Hopefully I won’t bounce back into the 100kg zone again – with a lot of luck, and lots of crossed fingers, I might even go down another point or two, establishing me more firmly in the double figure zone. Perhaps the third Stair Walk per day is paying off at last! Hmm maybe I should try to fit in a fourth Stair Walk somewhere… but I only have three meals a day, so when else could I go? Morning tea time? Perhaps afternoon tea time… but I don’t have morning and afternoon tea any more – I haven’t for a long while, in my attempt to whittle down as much food intake as I possibly could, without dying of malnutrition in the process… So anyway, let’s see what tomorrow brings! (hopefully not another bounce back up – even staying the same would be preferable! (the novelty of being in double figures hasn’t worn off yet!))
So drop in again tomorrow night! I’m sure you’ll want to know how my new little fountain worked, and whether or not it leaked water all over the dressing table! 😉 My single coat of lusciously ripe red raspberry nail polish is holding up quite well – it’s just a teeny titch worn on the very tippy-tip-tips of the nails of my right hand (but not the left! weird!) I’m wondering if I should add a second coat tomorrow, or just re-do them altogether in a day or two… more decisions! I hate having to make decisions sometimes… I’ll have to remind himself that we only have until the 18th of March to book for the photography “gift voucher” wot we got from the Vet – I’m still in two minds about it – I hate being photographed, and I do not photograph well (in fact I won’t allow anyone to take a photo of me, full stop!) but it’s like promises made by makeup companies about their face creams – you know damn well that the product isn’t going to make you look younger, or more radiant, or less wrinkled, even if you use them religiously for the next ten years – but a secret little part of you hopes that this time it’ll be different, that this time, it will make you look younger, more radiant, and less wrinkled – and that’s why we women keep buying these wretched (and very expensive) products, while the manufacturers laugh all the way to the bank. We know they won’t, but we hope they will. And so it is with this photography gift voucher. I know I won’t look any better this time around than I did the last time I had a “professional” photo done (I looked ghastly! Mum loved it, but I thought I looked awful!) but part of me keeps hoping that this time they’ll be able to make me look… human? So I dunno, but we’ve only got a few more days to make up our minds… I’ll be able to tell you tomorrow if, like Cinderella at midnight, my double figure weight will turn back into an ugly, fat, 100kg pumpkin! So until tomorrow night, please try to contain your impatience, and bee good, don’t eat anymore Birthday cake, no matter how chocolaty it is, and… above all… stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 