Razzlefrazzlesnarfin....

My car is nearly out of gas, so I walked across the street to my ATM to acquire money for refueling. The ATM was "out of service". Okay, so I'll drive to the next nearest one, drive back to the gas station, then drive back to work; it's retracing my steps, but I'll do it. I started my car and saw that I should have enough gas to make it until tomorrow morning, so I changed my plans and decided to drive straight to work from the second ATM. It was a great plan, but the second ATM was "out of funds". The ATM in the student union darn well better have money in it today! What a way to start my birthday.

That's on top of me forgetting to turn on the dishwasher last night, when I went to bed. It was a natural error, considering that, being a bachelor, I never use enough pots or dishes to necessitate the dishwasher. Anyway, that means I had to pull out a spoon and bowl, handwash them for my oatmeal, then stick them back in the dishwasher. (Yes, I remembered to turn it on before leaving for work.) Yeah, I know I'm tempting fate this way, in case the dishwasher malfunctions while I'm not at home to shut off the water, but chances are it could have done the same thing last night, when I was asleep and unable to hear anything wrong.

The whole reason I needed to use the dishwasher was to clean up stuff from my party this past weekend. (I invited Boss, Thing One, Tweety, our mechanic, and even Worker Bee, who doesn't work for us any more, but I didn't invite Sub. We all were very careful not to mention the party when Sub was around. Does that make it subterfuge?) I had a remarkable turnout: far more than my usual 25% of invitees. Granted, all of them were "fashionably late", and I was sitting there for half an hour, wondering if anyone at all would show up...

I limited the menu to just hamburgers, hot dogs, side dishes, drinks, and desserts. I simplified it further by buying premade hamburger patties. They were large (extending past the bun) and thick (didn't shrink too badly while cooking), but the texture and flavor were blah. I had smaller but better burgers last year, using the ground beef from the supermarket's meat section. (Maybe it's because I had my mom shape the hamburgers, and the little bit of love she sticks in makes all the difference.) These patties dripped a lot of fat, so I felt as if I was working at Rustler, with orange flames shooting up from beneath the grill. (Here's a safety hint for you backyard barbecuers, which I was able to remember myself: shut the lid to diminish the flames!)

On my invitation, I had given my guests several reasons for the party, and they could choose one: my functional veranda lights, my new dresser, my birthday, or "bon voyage, good luck, and don't let the door hit you on the way out". Three guests chose the birthday option. I received a $5.00 bill, a $15.00 gift card to Blockbuster Video, and a bicycle pump.

Robomarkov: thank you for the card. It was perfect!

Betty: thank you for having the full (or nearly full) moon for my party and birthday. (Now I just need a friend who can control the weather, so those pesky clouds wouldn't have been in the way.)

Yes, I received a bicycle pump. Yes, I have a bicycle now. It is a Schwinn mountain bike. (I won't bother linking to the web page because they show only bikes available from bike stores, not from general retailers or mail order.) It is green. It is still in pieces, since I don't have metric allen wrenches and I refuse to pay good money for something that might be sitting in my dad's workroom in the basement. (In the meantime, I'm going to borrow some from Worker Bee or Boss, so I can get it together.)

Best of all, the bike was free. Both Hunter and Rain Bird have "rewards" programs for irrigation companies who buy a lot of their products. The more we bought, the more points they gave us. We amassed enough that Thing One, the mechanic, and I got bikes, Tweety got a smoker, and Boss got a range finder useful for golf. Sub gets a baseball cap. He doesn't wear baseball caps. :p