Quick! Name the eye!

No, no, name the OWNER of the eye.

Hint: it's not mine.

Kris and I joined a whole host of other people at Keith and Katie's tonight for Alex's second birthday party. I knew it was going to be a fun time when Alex greeted me with this expression:

I mean, come on, how can that not say, "Hold on to your knickers, lady, because we're about to PAR-TAY!"

I mean, really.

Kris and I opened the floodgates of guests with our arrival. Before we arrived, there were four guests. After we arrived, about 12 people followed within ten minutes of our arrival.

Or maybe we just have perfect timing.

Say, like me with Mia.

I met Mia a while ago, but hadn't had the opportunity to hold her. Tonight, however, I asked Keith if I could as he was looking around distracted at something else. To my joy, he said yes, and I walked around with this itty bitty tiny little girl as she fell asleep. For some bizarre reason I'm unable to fathom, I didn't take a picture of her as I was walking around with her. Given I'm shoving that camera in everyone's face all the time (6745 pictures in 5 months), this is actually a huge surprise.

Mia has these adorable, long, dark eyelashes. Thought I'd mention that. That, and I imagine this little person resembles what Katie looked like as a baby, possibly darker coloring, but still very close.

As much as the party was for the adults, it was also for the kids, and ooh, boy, were there kids! I hadn't realized just how big the second generation had grown among my circle of friends, and that's not even counting the ones who have moved the various corners of the country.

As Kris said, I can get my baby fix without actually having to bring one home.

So charming.

Among the kids were Liza and Maeryn and Sophie and Mirabelle and Meter and Mia and, of course, Alex, er, Danger. There was also Doyle and Mike and Kris and Tyler and Warren, but let's not say that too loudly.

No birthday party is complete without a cake. When Alex was plunked down in front of the cake, he didn't quite know what to do with it. I mean, hello, a big whopping lump of SUGAR! What kid, after being told daily "No, you can't have this lump of pure sugar called candy," isn't going to look at this newly offered lump of sugar in the form of a "cake" with "FIRE!" on the top, and not be just the slightest bit confused?

Even one born to geniuses is going to see through that ruse.

After Alex managed to blow out the candles, no small feat, as "blow harder" has no meaning to a two year old, I tried to encourage him to grab a fistful of cake. He's quickly approaching an age where this is not socially acceptable behaviour (in certain company, meaning, not Kris' family's house), so do it when you can, kid!

He reached out with the most hesitant of touches, and wiped his finger in the icing, then tasted it. Keith commented, "Here it comes. He'll stick his fist now that he's tasted it," just as Katie whisked away the cake for cutting.

Too slow, kid. Have to be quicker next time.

The rest of the evening was pretty mellow, with talking, playing on the swing, puzzles with the kids, and tasty cheese and crackers. I think the best part of the party was the realization that we were all surrounded by friends. It's an incredible group of people. I feel blessed to be a part of this group.

I gave up some time this past week. With taxes due and my inability to complete them on time (but not for lack of trying, even Mom tried!), I just gave up and called for help. Trying to figure out who to call was hard, though. Mom had just left to go home, so she was out. Megan has two little ones, so, unless I managed to time my crap with their nap, I was out of luck asking for help with Megan. Who else among my circle of friends was unemployed? School isn't out until next month so I didn't have any one to ask for help.

Oh, wait.

Martha!

Whoo!

I gave her a call, and, yes, she was available, yes, she was willing to help me out.

So, she came over today to help me out. And, good lord, did she help me out.

My filing system is one of the most finely tuned filing systems on the planet. It's consistent. It's easy to add papers to it. It's concise and efficient.

It consists of throwing papers into a box and "dealing with it later."

It's also one of the most disastrous filing systems ever. My original plan was to buy a scanner, then, as I received papers, bills and receipts, scan the papers into some, of course, secure system with a recognition system where the bill amounts are extracted and tallied. The papers would then just go into a box, because I had the electronic copy of my papers.

Well, I have the scanner. The rest of it never quite happened.

So, with tax season here and past, extension in hand, I decided I needed to both, organize my 2007 papers, and find the title to the car Kris and I are selling. Sure, I could get another title, but, hey, why not find the one I already have?

Well, for one, it may just involve looking through 10 years of paperwork.

And crap. 10 years of crap.

Martha and i made it through 5 years of crap. I ended up finding recipes I had lost four years ago, including those for sugar bomb cookies (even though I refound the recipe last Christmas at Kris' parents house); documentation for electronics I no longer have; magazines I haven't read in five years BUT STILL HAVE; pictures from our wedding, which were padded by my bathing suit WHICH I LOST THREE YEARS AGO and have been trying to find a replacement ever since; and all sorts of other crap that is going to take me another month to go through.

At one point, I pulled something out of a box, something I couldn't quite recognize. "What do you think this is?" I asked Martha.

"Trash," was her perfect answer.

We processed 10 boxes, reducing them to 4, generating three bags of paper trash (yes, they were recycled), one box of freecycle-rereuse-donate items and one bag of just plain trash.

And an entire box of blogging material. I'll be set for writing material until the end of the year.

Martha and i went over to the local Mexican fast food restaurant for lunch. I wandered over to the bathroom to wash my hands and was greeted by this sign:

This is the first time I've seen the notice up on these doors. I couldn't help but think, gee, you know, if I really, really needed to go to the bathroom, and saw this sign, I'm 100% sure I wouldn't be deterred by a sign telling me that I need to pay before I use the toilet.

How useful are these signs? I mean, I consider myself fairly considerate when it comes to businesses: I try not to waste sales clerks' time if I'm just looking; I use restrooms when I am a customer; I'll buy something, even if it's just a pack of gum, if I have the time and the money.

Yet, in an emergency, those signs mean nothing. In a non-emergency, the sign makes me wonder what motivated the management to post the sign. Was it another few bad apples ruining the management's trust with its customers?

In the end, why bother?

Huh. Look at that.

Dogs like popcorn, too!