Late as usual, so I'm postdating this one by a few hours to be on the right day...

Sparky and I had our 14th anniversary today, or our 7th in my parents and the state of Texas eyes. We got married on the same date we met so we could keep it simple in our mind. We went to the same seafood restaurant that we did last year, and I ate the same thing, broiled shrimp, scallops, oysters and a stuffed crab. And I broke my diet a bit for a piece of their key lime pie ;-) My parents gave us a "universal gift certificate" (cash) to eat at Macaroni Grill also, but I think we'll do that next week because farfalle alfredo con pollo is really off my diet. So we've officially been married now longer than we lived together, which was already the longest relationship either of us had survived. It's a nice feeling, we've got the house, no kids, and can work from home without too many worries (knock on wood). We exchanged cute cards, and he proudly wrote on mine the first thing I said to him this morning, 14 years later, and her only request is "Don't fart on me". OK,I did say that, but I prefaced it with "please".

Then we drove around the Westheimer area, which we hardly ever go to anymore because of all the traffic and construction, and went to a new & used DVD store that some of Sparky's friends had been telling him about. He ended up buying one DVD and I bought three CDs. I have a "look for cheap" list for when we go shopping to replace some of my old cassettes and things and managed to get two of my Pixies CDs new for $10.99 each (Surfer Rosa and Trompe le Monde) and the latest David Bowie CD Reality, which is playing now and sounds very much like Heathen, which is next up on the CD changer. Hmm, Amazon has the same price on the two Pixies CDs and the Bowie CD for a buck less, oh well. I have a huge Amazon wishlist, lots of things to get when I get a windfall, or business gets better. I'm glad they let you rate the items now, because I have lots of "maybes" on my list and it's nice to be able to see the "must haves" first... Damn, Amazon's selling diamond jewelry now?

Time to take Phoebe in for her annual checkup, she's got some itchy spots that don't look like fleas, poor thing. I changed her food last time from the Hill's Science Diet for Sensitive Skin to the new one they just came out with the Advanced Protection one, but I'm going to switch her back. We killed another feather toy last night and they're hard to find in stock at Petsmart so I looked them up online and found them at a place called PetfoodDirect.com. Shipping was like $6.99 for just a couple of them or a lot, so I picked four and then wondered how much more it would be to order her food and it was only another dollar so I added it on also. And got an extra 5% off (and after I checked out got a pop-up for 20% off, dammit!). I've never bought pet food online before, this is a new experience. I really like that brand of feather toy, though, it has the nicest wand (doesn't hurt my hand) and the feather swivels nicely and makes little swooshing sounds.

Oh yes, bad news, turns out my mother does have a small fracture in her hip but the doctor says it's already mending and won't need surgery. I've been trying to figure out what I can do to help them the next month or two while my mom has to rest and stay off her feet. I've looked into meal home delivery for them, I know when I worked downtown a lot of people would have their lunches delivered daily. She didn't sound too enthusiastic when I mentioned it, but two months is along time for my dad to have pick up their dinner daily and I'm not much of a cook at all. I'm still trying to figure out what we can eat regularly to substitute for the pasta I'm not supposed to have anymore. I love beef, but chicken bores me and I'm not a fish fan. I'd eat shrimp every day if I could but we'd go broke ;-)