Fat Thurdsay?

Yeah, it's turning out to be Fat Thursday, one of those so called "exception" days where you just eat whatever the hell you want because it's your ninth wedding anniversary. Except I am not also feeding three kids with what I am eating.

So ... we agreed to a double non-exchange of gifts, considering she could not get anywhere outside of the Internet and did not much feel up to trying to order something. I had to agree to the plan, and I did.

This morning it was a pancake breakfast, which is a treat, since I cook them pretty well. She had her share and I had mine, and then I finished off the three eggs that were left in the package, seemingly for no other reasons than I wanted to get rid of the package. But I responsibly(?) placed a slice of Alpine Lace swiss cheese on there. I also responsibly eschewed (GodBlessYou) the english muffin.

Late lunch was a driveby to the pancake house, and I brought back a garden burger, fruit and cottage cheese. Damn, that garden burger was good, and it had been such a long time, for some reason, since I had one.

More important stuff today - it was a year ago that I got a very early morning call from VanishingJames, who broke the God-awful news that he lost his sister. I thought, "Wow, this is a nice touch - getting a call this early on my anniversary. How did he remember?"

Instead, my buddy was beginning a suffering that will last a lifetime. I know he has some good days now, 365 days later, but there are still a lot of rough patches. It will be a long while (and maybe the time will never come) before he will go a day without thinking of her. But somehow time makes things a little bit better. I am sure he is a lot better with it today than he was a year ago, 11 months ago, or six months ago.

Sorry for the downer, but it's just the reality of things. OK, time to go clean the mini-flood out of the basement.