Today is my mother’s 60th birthday, so we had cake and presents this evening, and then spent several hours watching the Olympics. First curling, which I’m starting to think could be a lot more fun if the games were at least only half as long, then men’s skeleton, and finally ice dancing. NBC is apparently getting a lot of complaints about how they’re airing the Olympics, but beyond Bob Costas’ hair, I didn’t notice anything too egregious. My mother, my sister, and her husband are still downstairs watching, but I used the dog finally getting out of my lap on the couch as an excuse to come up to bed.
Catherine and Brian (the aforementioned sister and brother-in-law) drove down from Maryland to surprise my mother, and we’re all going out to eat tomorrow. According to my Forgotten English desk calendar, today’s word is bezonter, “an expletive denoting surprise,” which seems entirely appropriate. My mother is a big fan of Mary Chapin Carpenter, so over the past few months I’ve been putting together a collection of six CDs featuring rarities and interviews and video clips I don’t think she’s ever seen before. I put together something similar for her last Mother’s Day, but I think this may finally be all the material that’s out there to unearth. (This website was particularly very helpful in finding rare tracks.) I also ordered her a copy of Chapin’s new album, due out in April.
Beyond that, my day was pretty uneventful, though a lot better than I expected when I got to work today. Never underestimate the power of actually accomplishing something to turn the day around. I’ve still got a lot of work on my plate — and today took on another small project — but I made some serious progress today, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for next week.
I am really glad the weekend’s here. Overall, it was a long four-day week.