The reclaimed computer has a virus and I have a cut on the end of my bird finger. No one admits to being the one who clicked on the Wrong Link, and typing is hard. Therefore, the source of my irritation is twofold: I have several hours of work ahead of me while I de-virus the computer, and the bandaid on my hand makes typing awkward which hinders my search for a cure. OK, threefold. We have a slight infestation of cockroaches and the bug guy was here today. Before I could remind him not to use spray in my house, he did, and now there is the smell of chemical bug spray in my house and not that yummy essential oil stuff so I have a headache AND a cut finger AND a long night of computer tending ahead of me.

This is a bad time of the month for me to run into trivial problems, if you know what I mean.

And also, it’s Avery’s birthday today. This post should be a letter about how the sky opened up six years ago and the angels sang a heavenly song of love and light and the mother earth gifted me a package of pure awesomeness that turned into this little thing of beauty that we call Avery. Instead it’s this, a mini-rant about who infected the computer and how I can’t adequately type. Besides, Avery is upstairs right now screeching about how she’s not having a good birthday and today SUCKS because where is her party and why isn’t everyone here to give her ALL THE presents! She’s only six so the logic of our trip to Sea World and Marineland to pet the dolphins and how that WAS her birthday present/party escapes her. She’s ready for the baloons and throne and cake and ice cream and pile of presents, please.

And I’m kind of like yeah, me too.

But now she’s swimming at her grandfather’s house and I’m on round 43 thousand with the computer which is not popping up with fake virus warnings anymore but instead just won’t get on the internet, and really that’s not as bad as it was three hours ago. So, her day and mine have improved tenfold since I started writing this post several hours ago.

I’ll tell you this one thing: I could’ve stood there and watched those dolphins swim back and forth in front of me in the underwater viewing tank at Sea World for hours and hours. I know I’m not supposed to say that because Shamu killed that trainer and really those dolphins are probably thinking something like “fuck you, you ignorant peons, one day we’ll get you all for this!” but for that few minutes watching them with their fake smiles and half open eyes lazily cruising by us (and cruising by is really more like pacing in circles in a circular tank of water when you think about it), when I could tune out that little boy who growled at them every time they came close and before my kids started tugging on my arms and yelling about getting out of there, I was pretty happy and I chose to think they were winking at me.

I really, really like dolphins.