a very happy birthday: a play-by-play of a very good day

I woke up this morning to find a photo of mine on the National Geographic website. I screamed. This totally beats my previous high-point of having this blog on CNN.com. Unfortunately, my scream scared my cat, who had her paw on my neck, which then tugged away quickly, ruining the brand new gold chain my mother got me for my birthday. But really, a gold chain is nothing compared to National Geographic, and the scream was well worth its price in gold.

The cat needed blood work done today, so she came to work with me. As a result, instead of only dogs licking my feet under my desk, I also had my darling kitty shedding her hair all over my computer screen. It was glorious. The dogs are on vacation for a week starting tomorrow, so the next week will become “bring your cat to work day week” for me.

Then, this afternoon, I am called over to birds to take some photos. When I arrive, I am really unhappy about the photo they have called me over to take… a photo of a horrible, selfish woman potentially reversing everything we have spent months working for. And well, then it turns out it was all a ruse to get me over there… for a surprise birthday party and ice cream cake. Mmmm, mmmm! As happy as the party made me, I was more happy that that awful woman wasn’t there.

Upon arriving back at my office, melting cake left-overs in hand, Miss Molly passes me the new Dogtown book… my very first book. Of course, not all the photos are mine, but many are and I am absolutely thrilled to be able to add books to the list of items containing my photos.

I then come home and treat myself to a Totino’s Party Pizza. It was only fitting.

Other good birthday news include the fact that work is paying $650 of my $850 rent this month because the new tiling job on the house I was supposed to move into this weekend won’t be done for another month now. Also, my sick bird (whose health took a nosedive the other day and even required a late-night emergency visit from the vet) has pepped up and is looking good. My birds have passed their average expiration date by over ten years and I hope to make it twenty.

Ah yes, life is good.