Well, I will not be matriculated, but I am going to take the first college course I've taken since 1999. 1999! Dat's right! It's a medical terminology course at Monroe Community College, paid for by the fine folks at my workplace. It starts next Wednesday, and I'm having first-day-of-school jitters!

As I was walking on campus today to register for the course, it hit me when I looked around at the students and realized I was NOT in flip flops and a tank top, that I am an Adult Learner: someone I used to detest when I was an undergrad. Annoying Adult Learners with all of their questions and their grade grubbing...But you know what? You better believe I'll be getting an A in this class. I'm one of them now, b1tches!

Okay, I'm a little distracted as I write this because the Democratic National Convention is on and Joe Biden's shiny, smooth forehead is confounding me. His skin looks better than mine! What's up with that? (That's the closest you'll get to politics talk on this site.)

Greta moved up to a new classroom this past Monday. We were surprised to find out that she would actually be moving up two classes instead of one. Skipping a class is not to say that Greta is some advanced super-genius. Sometimes I think they just do whatever is convenient for them there. (I realize it's probably hard for them to decide where to place kids, and I'm sure they probably put a lot of thought into it. I liken it to table assignments at a wedding. Not every person is going to be happy with where you put them, but at some point you've got to just put some people someplace because it's never going to be perfect.) Pat and I are trying to wait and see how things go without being alarmists, but we have kind of had a bad feeling about it. We had been excited for Greta to be with one particular teacher, and now she is going to miss being with that woman completely.

Pat and I checked in on her at lunch yesterday and were very pleasantly surprised to see she was doing great. Two teachers even came up to us while we were there and commented on how much more sociable and chatty Greta has been lately. It was really nice to see her so happy and hear that news from other people (I feel like so few people see the Greta that we see everyday). Not letting our guard down, however, we have been asking Greta a lot of questions about her school day. This morning, Pat and Greta had the following conversation in the car.

In case you need a quick refresher, Greta Bean got sick Wednesday night. Greta has been pukey sick 3 or 4 other times, and Pat and I have never gotten sick from her. This past time, I realized I made some sloppy mistakes in caretaking, the most egregious including going to kiss Greta in the dark and accidentally kissing her hand that still had some vomit on it. Not shockingly, Friday afternoon at work, I felt a rumble in my tummy, and then another, and another. I headed home a skosh early, and after an hour or so of my brain trying to convince my stomach that there was nothing wrong with it, it failed and I realized I needed to get myself in close proximity of the toilet. I will fast-forward a bit because I think you all know what kind of night I had. For being such a pessimist, I had high hopes I would feel fine on Saturday. Greta had bounced back so well the day following her bug, so why wouldn't I? Oh wait, she is two and I am almost thirty-two. It takes time for a lady of my years to recover from that sort of thing.

On top of this, we had a party planned for Pat on Saturday, and he was all, "party or bust" and I was all, "I'm gonna die," so I took Greta and did the one thing I could think of doing: I went to see my mommy. Pat threw his own party while I recovered from throwing up. It is kind of poetic if you think about it, but it's actually pretty lousy. After recuperating at my parents' for a while, I decided to rally and drove back home (sans Greta, who stayed with her nanna and hoppa), basically in time to show up as a regular ol' guest to Pat's party. I was very glad I did because seeing friends and having some good, clean, childless fun really made me feel better.

Part of my negligence leading up to this weekend was that I didn't bake Pat the cake I had tentatively planned, so at midnight he got a marshmallow with a candle in it. Wife of the year!

Among many things I slacked on, I didn't take many pictures at the party. Here is one that shows a handful of the guests.

Today we picked up Greta and had a nice lunch with my parents. My mom made chicken wing pizza, per Pat's request, and she and Greta made him some peanut butter cookies. They also gave him cards. These are all things that I cannot say myself. I did, however, buy Pat a coffee and a blueberry doughnut at Dunkin Donuts, and I bought him beef panang takeout from Esan, and I helped him make room in the fridge for all of our leftover beer. Speaking of which, who's thirsty and in the neighborhood? I like the one random juice box in the sea of beer bottles.

This fridge in no way rivals our fridge before our trailer trash ripper of 2004. Look at those shelves bow!

I told Pat that we're having Pat Reed Birthday Observed next weekend so I can redeem myself. Stay tuned.