is mah birfday w00t!

It's birthday week here at Casa de Phibetakitten: mine was last Tuesday and James's is this coming Tuesday. James showed up last Monday, and when I got home and saw this hugemongous box in my living room I thought I'd finally gotten that pony I've always wanted:


Turns out it was an iMac 24", which comes in at a very very very very very close second to a pony. Plus, as Jenny Jo pointed out, it's way better than a dead pony in a box. I have to give her that one.


I'm really wondering what James is going to do for Xmas this year, because I am running out of room for Apple products in my home. Maybe I really will finally get a pony!

April is a dangerous month for my pocketbook, because it turns out that I can justify quite a lot of things by telling myself they are "for my birthday." I don't exercise a lot of fiscal restraint during the remaining 11 months of the year as it is, so you can see where this attitude might get me into trouble. My favorite birthday present to me this year is this painting, which I got from a Romanian artist named Andrada Anghel:


It's called "Outer Space Landscape." (Click on the photo to enlarge it and get a better sense of the texture it's got going on.) I love it.

We spent this weekend in Santa Rosa, visiting one of our favorite restaurants (GG's Earth and Surf) and our favorite brew pub (Russian River Brewing Co.) and going on a geeky hike called the Planet Walk in Sugarloaf Ridge state park. I don't have anything particularly funny to report about any of this, but since I refuse to miss an opportunity to use my "inappropriate animals" tag, allow me to present to you two rattlesnakes I noticed hiding out under a bush:


We also saw two ridiculously large wild turkeys running down the trail and making ridiculous noises.

Even though James's birthday isn't till Tuesday, I was unable to resist giving him one of his presents ahead of time. This is handknit sweater #31:





And by that I mean it is #31 for JAMES, not the 31st that I've ever knit. I have no idea what that number would be, but particularly if baby clothes count it is easily in the many hundreds by now. I may need to get a life.