Chillin' love

Last night everything broke

"We're Desperate," John Doe and Exene Cervenka

Am I supposed to write something on Valentine's Day? It's been too long since I wrote anyway. Sorry about that, my few readers. It's winter, and I just haven't had stuff to write about.

Sweetie and I went to see Avenue Q a little over a week ago. That was wicked fun! She had seen the show in New York a couple years ago and really wanted to see it again. I loved it, and she loved it again. That's some of the catchiest music I've heard in a while, and several songs' worth, not just a showstopper or two plus filler. And of course the lyrics are very funny. The show somehow manages to be both liberal-minded and politically incorrect—my kind of combination.

Last Thursday, I met a friend whom I hadn't seen in far too long for coffee. We chatted for nearly two and a half hours until they started to close the place around us. Not exciting to you, I imagine, but a very nice afternoon for me. And it's never a bad day when you know you're looking good and as you step out of the SkyTrain station some guy who's not creepy and in fact kind of good looking says you look pretty.

So here we are on Valentine's Day. Sweetie and I have rarely made a big deal out of it. We're going out to dinner tonight, which is probably the biggest thing we've ever done.

As nice as that's going to be, you know what I'm really hoping for today? That the refrigerator repair people call back and say they can come right away. Yep, the fridge started to make lots of noise and the freezer stopped freezing. We don't keep that much in the freezer, but we didn't want to lose it all. Our very kind next-door neighbour let us use a bit of space in hers, but I'm a little apprehensive that things had started to thaw just enough to cause trouble later. We'll see. Meanwhile, the freezer is off but the door keeps pissing on the floor, which is not at all nice. And I'm not even sure that the fridge, which is supposed to be separate, is keeping anything cold any more—milk and yogurt and cheese and tofu and a few squares of leftover lasagna and lots of leftover chick pea curry. Maybe even though the fridge and freezer have separate controls, the broken compressor runs them both.

You don't even want to hear about the screwed up US tax forms from 2008. Suffice it to say that US taxes when you live and work in a foreign country are beyond hellish.

So please, refrigerator repair person, please be our Valentine today! And somehow I'll figure out that tax thing.

Happy VD, y'all! Sweetie and I have been together for nearly 30 years, and we still get all squishy inside thinking about each other. We'll survive tax forms and a broken fridge!