This "best birthday ever" began on Friday when I decided that I would reboot my computer to allow a few Windows Update items to refresh. As I detailed in another post, the computer took a dive. I spent most of my spare time over the weekend fixing that. It's still not complete, but I do have a working OS now. And that's just the beginning of the fun.

Saturday morning while I was working on the computer and Berta was moving some laundry around, the kids decided to play on the stairs against all other instructions not to, and yes, there was an incident. Abby came out pretty much unscathed. Riley looks pretty beat up, like he landed on his nose. They had a good hour's cry and nobody was happy.

Also that morning (before the falling incident), Riley started rubbing his ear like there was something wrong with it. Infection? Well, both he and I have colds now, including stuffed/runny nose and resulting post-nasal sore throat.

Saturday afternoon was Abby's dance recital, which went pretty well. Riley didn't sit for the whole thing, and so we took him out to run around in the lobby. After the recital, we went out to dinner with Mom and Nana, driving by the houses that we are considering buying. Boy, that one is pretty far out there.

Mom gave me my present a day early - a zero-gravity chair. It's the outdoor model. Pretty nifty. I used it on Sunday to sit in the livingroom and play Oblivion while Windows reinstalled.

Sunday, the actual birthday, we went out and got a few things. A new hard drive, the Imogen Heap CD, and some lacrosse balls. I also got a photo-illustrated juggling book with mill's mess instructions. I will learn to do this routine. It may kill me.

While I was playing Oblivion waiting for things to install, Berta was at the store getting dinner stuff, Riley was asleep, and Abby was with Will (our neighbor her age) on the back porch torturing the baby birds in the nest that was built out there. Berta was very upset when she came home to find the nest knocked out of the porch rafters, and the little bird babies all over. Seriously, that's sad. What is going on with this kid?

Abby ate none of my birthday dinner (salmon, wasabi mashed potatos, snap peas, and spinach and artichoke dip on bread), and although Riley ate his share, that seemed his downfall. Whether the sickness or the intolerance of the food, he chucked it up all over the place. It's terrible, but he was like a fountain of vomit. Ever the trooper though, when I asked him, "Are you ok?" he would say "Uh-huh."

Kids had a bath, I installed some more Windows, we ate cake, and then after the kids were asleep, Berta and I watched Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, which wasn't a bad movie, but it was a chick flick. Alexis Bledel will always be Rory Gilmore to me no matter what role she plays. Shame.

So yes, it has been a wonderful weekend. I think I would like to go lay down now.

Sorry in advance for when this doesn't make any sense.

I drove Abby to school this morning we were listening to this music on the ride. So we weren't talking. I can try to think of it as a moment of quiet together, but really it's just needless quiet. I wonder what she's thinking. Every moment. Every second. Don't waste it. Be together.

Big hug in the Discovery Room, where Abby has a new cubby. How big she is getting didn't catch on until just then. Gotta get out of there. Here's where I'm putting your spoon.

Did you ever use a video camera to film out the window of a car? Notice how it doesn't track the same way that your eyes do?

There are segments of my ride to work in the morning that are so pretty when the sun is out. Driving through the woods, the way that the light falls through the leaves and leaves and makes jaguar spots of gold on the leafy carpet. It's one of those moments, looking through as the leaves twist in perspective and reveal sky, where you laugh at how high there is nothing like this and it's everywhere. Unrecorded because it's unable to be recorded.

New rule #2: People are people. Don't be scared of people - they are the same as you. There is no better or worse when it comes right down to it, just people. Just as alone. Just as impermanent.

I had a dream last night that Mahesh and I drove around the lot of a movie theater looking for something. Berta ran off behind a group of thugs and got shot dead. "Why doesn't Mommy wake up?" Why do I feel guilty about leaving dream-Abby by waking myself up?

I had written before about the Marriage Amendment to the US Constitution. About how it does not explicitly deny states the ability to grant similar rights to homosexual couples as to heterosexual couples. Well, Pennsylvania lawmakers are forging ahead with insanity and codifying discrimination into our laws.

You can't make laws to tell someone how to behave unless their behavior imposes on your rights. Since homosexual coupling is not affecting you personally, you have no business telling anyone that they can't do it.

People who improve the quality of American character by creating families of support should receive benefits from the government for doing so. If you create a loving home for your own or adopted children, the government should encourage the support you provide, which would otherwise be more costly to subsidize. This encouragement in the form of tax breaks and other benefits shouldn't be denied to anyone who produces a healthy home environment.

Anyone who says that gay couples can't make as healthy a home environment as straight couples needs to review the statistics.

I've been trying to figure out what rational explanation a person could give for opposing gay marriage in terms of its meaning to our government, and nothing comes to me. Where does all this hate come from? Why do we need to write it into law?

This optical illusion colorizes a black and white photo of a castle using an after-image effect. Check it out!

I added my XBox 360 to this XBox Live Blogging service which apparently will create blog entries for when I play games. Weird. 1984. Cool.