Older and wiser? Meh. Just browner.

My father handed me a present he has painstakingly wrapped at work, yelling at his nurses not to let in his next patient yet, his hands full of shiny wrapping paper and scotch tape. It's silly, but I can never bear to throw away the wrapping paper my dad's presents come in.

"I hope you like designer chocolate!" he yells with glee. Chocolate is not his usual sort of gift. He's more into extravangant presents which we will protest but adore. I know it, he knows I know it. Something is afoot.

It's awfully heavy for Godiva. Blinded by camera flahes, I open it up upside down and stare blankly at the sexy-looking black box. Prompted by my dad, I turn it around.

"DADDY!" I holler. "You lied!"
"No, I didn't! It's chocolate! Hee hee hee." He is so pleased with himself he's all but patting himself on the back. My mother gave me badly needed cash, which I'll probably be using to buy christmas presents with. Parents rock.

While all this is happening, The Boy, after a full day of work, runs around dogproofing his car, buying food and wrapping presents.

Bright and early on my birthday morning, he turns up to take me and Tesh to the beach. As you can tell, Tesh likes car rides.


Dogs can smile

It's a change from Zeph, who tried to take your hand off when you hoisted him into the car. I miss that grumpy bugger.

The nice thing about going on a weekday in the morning is that there aren't annoying lifeguards who will ignore about 3486 small yappy dogs who are off their leashes to tell me to leash my big softie because it's 'regulations'. (Regulations my flat Slinky butt. Discrimination is what it is.) But on my birthday we were in the clear, and Tesh could do her favorite thing on earth - chase her ball.




Deceptively noble and heroic photo of my idiot dog

All that running around and getting fried in the unexpected sunshine was followed by a picnic lunch the Boy had packed, replete with some of my favorite things (rocket salad with feta cheese, cherry tomatoes and balsamic dressing, and cold roast chicken, washed down with honeyed greek yoghurt and cranberry juice). It would have been brilliant if there wasn't so much dog fur in the food. I'm still coughing hairballs. And if it wasn't for some speedy intervention, there wouldn't have been cold chicken. It seems that wet pony-sized dogs can be stealthy if they want to. Still, all my favorite elements were there: sun, surf, Boy, dog and food.


Slinky loves her idiot dog.

No potos of the Boy because I'm not sue how he'd like being pictured shirtless and fungus-pale from his deskbound job.

Later on, I met the most interesting bunch of people at a job interview I didn't get (perpetually joless, bah!) and then saw the Boy again. It was a brilliant birthday.