TGIM?

I'm having a flashback to the days of yore, when I actually looked forward to Mondays because I needed to recover from the weekend. Trust me, those Mondays are few and far between anymore, but this is definitely one of them. Don't get me wrong — it's all been fun. Saturday night, for example, we went to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, led by the world's cutest conductor, Marin Alsop. We haven't done anything like that in quite a while, so it was nice to get a little dressed up, go to dinner downtown, and go to an event. Thank you MK and ML!

But the "big" event was a birthday gathering for Unnamed Partner's (U.P.) nieces and nephew on Sunday. A house (requiring 2 full days of cleaning) full of people, including an unexpected 2-year old which my dog did his best to herd, but damn those 2-year olds are quick. (And that sound you heard was of universes colliding: the 2-year old belongs to the 16-year old girlfriend of U.P.'s nephew, but she also happens to be a former student of mine when I taught middle school. So having her run around my house yelling at her toddler was a little, um, "surreal," to say the least.)

I love U.P.'s family. They are so different from my own, it's fascinating. My family is all about decorum and manners. U.P.'s family is all about living life. So it's always loud and boisterous and there are always several conversations going on at once, so then someone turns up the t.v., and then the conversations get louder and then the t.v. goes up again (am I right, Scepter66?).

Add to that the foster kitty living in the front bedroom until we can get him tested (tomorrow) to make sure he's not carrying something lethal to our other cats. Somehow during the party he ended up in a different bedroom with the door shut. I suspect this has something to do with the aforementioned 2-year old; I have no proof .... This kitty is an incredibly well-behaved lover-boy, and as far as I can tell he did no damage in the second bedroom. He does get a little lonely being by himself, so I sat with him for a while after the crowd was gone to give him some attention. But as I crawled into bed he began pathetically mewing from across the hall.

Boy it's great to be at work today. I think I'll just shut the door and put my head down for a moment ... I think I read that tomorrow's going to be a big day in political news, so I'd better rest up ....