"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

The cats made out like bandits! I got them a new tilted scratchy board, two rubbery mice infused with catnip and which you can put treat into (made of nontoxic material, as I know Nick will chew the tails off), a new sleeping pad, and two scrunchy ring-toss toys (annoyingly, cat toys always seem to come in two, which makes it difficult if you have three cats). But the present de resistance came from my downstairs friends (whose cats I'm looking after, and who look after the boyz for me when I go on trips), who sent them a turbo trackball! It has been played with continuously since I put it together--one of the best cat presents evah! ( I got great prezzies too! )

I love UPS. A. got her present this afternoon (there). I had only her work address, so I was afraid it would get delivered Saturday and she wouldn't have it until after Xmas. :-)

I really have the nicest friends ever!

gr_c17 and john_arundel decided to take me out to dinner for my birthday (technically Saturday, but I'm going to not be around, so they decided to do it tonight). And they invited A. and redactrice and shy_kat, which pretty much made the evening complete.

I am dearly fond of all my friends and relations, but these five people are very special to me, and I was really thrilled to be able to spend an evening with all of them. I got nice cards and lovely presents: two bottles of single malt--a Jura and a 12yo Macallen--and a SanDisk m250 MP3 player, preloaded with several CDs. I don't know how premeditated the selection of songs on the player was, but I prefer to think that there's a message there. :-)

Amy, Peter, Chris, Bryan, Melissa: I love you all. :-) Thank you for a lovely evening!