YADHTRIB YPPAH

POSITIVE:

- Getting my hair cut by my favorite stylist, and feeling about 25 degrees cooler immediately as approximately 7.5 lbs. of hair hit the floor.

- Drinking a Starbucks Double-Chocolate Frappuccino with extra EXTRA whipped cream (I know Patty, the manager, well) while reading "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (the movie's coming out this summer, so I need to become reacquainted with the plot).

- Getting 30 minutes of professional massage from a woman who worked with a chiropractor and gives SERIOUSLY deep massage - not quite shiatsu, but I left the studio feeling like the Pillsbury Dough Boy - all soft and squishy. It was great.

- Having a Frosty from Wendy's literally handed to me mid-route on the drive to a church meeting; my husband had picked one up for me, and since I had to leave for the meeting before he got home, there was this very motion-picture sequence hand-out a couple miles from the house.

- Returning home to eat the Oriental Chicken Wrap from Applebee's waiting for me.

- Watching (and recording) a two-hour episode of "LOST" with a LOT of face-time with Sawyer (sigh) and Sayid (double-sigh) and Juliet ending up at the bottom of a. SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT.. oh, sorry, shouldn't give that away, should I?

NEGATIVE:

- Having to take my daughter to the local you-no-longer-can-watch-regular-cable-television digital-cable-conversion shops, signing in as #87 on the list, and finally having to depend on a mutual friend to give her a ride home.

- Receiving an email invitation from one of the sweetest women I know for an early dinner to celebrate my birthday... eight hours before the 'event.'

- Being called by the same daughter, frantic that she cannot get her digital-cable-conversion-system working - told her to call the apartment complex office and have them help her.

- Having to send a polite refusual for the early dinner invitation early enough to be realistic but late enough that it was obvious I could not make it.

- A hysterical call about the digital-cable-conversion-system that still doesn't work; spent twenty minutes on the phone walking her through the most common mistakes I could think of.

- Fighting the urge to scream and/or throw away my cell phone when it was discovered that the new system did not work because IT WAS NOT PLUGGED IN.

OVERALL: A most enjoyable birth day.