Instead of dwelling on all of the things in life lately which make me want to hunker down in my room and shut out the world for, oh, a month or two… let’s talk about a positive accomplishment. While you may not find it impressive, consider that it took several minutes of internal debate, clear instructions and some encouragement from Kyla to pull it off.

I fried up some chicken to add to my pasta-and-cheese.

I hit the store on Saturday and picked up some ingredients for my (in)famous baked pasta-and-cheese dish, the one that only the kids and I actually enjoy eating. I figured that either I’d feed the kids during their visit, or I’d make it up and use it for lunches. Since Kyla came up with awesome nosh while the kids were over, my fixings were promptly earmarked for the work week.

Part of Kyla’s recipe involved chicken breast meat, but she didn’t use all of it. When she left this morning she was going to take the last two hunks of meat but I made an off-hand remark about what it might be like to add chicken to the pasta-and-cheese. “Well, you could fry it up,” she said.

“No, I can’t. This is me, remember? Mr. No-can-cook?”

“Yes, you can.”

To shorten a rambling post, I kept the chicken and she went home for day. Following her instructions I sliced the chicken meat into reasonably small chunks, pan-fried those in butter (adding a liberal sprinkling of lemon & herb seasoning I found in the cupboard), and… they turned out pretty good.

It took five full minutes for me to work up the nerve to turn on the stove, however.

Let’s see how many anxiety triggers we cleared this afternoon: Using a sharp knife (never mind cutting difficult-to-handle, for me, foodstuffs). Making sure I cooked the meat thoroughly. Making sure I didn’t burn anything or anyone. Trying something completely new, unsupervised.

Am I a sad, pathetic example of humanity? Most of the time, yes. But today I prepared tasty chicken bits which, once drained and added to the pasta dish, worked superbly. (Yes… I enjoyed a small plate of the freshly-made product. It would’ve been a shame not to!) And I have lunches for four of the next five working days, assuming I remember that they’re in the refrigerator each morning…

Oh, yeah: Bonus points if you can name the tune in the post title without cheating.

Right off the bat, please allow me a moment to thank everyone who commented, emailed or called with birthday wishes. You all helped make the day better!

Friday night, Lil’ and I went out to dinner at Kell’s, both of us choosing the lamb stew. Saturday morning, I slept in. Saturday afternoon, I played games with Alex. Saturday evening, Kyla and I went out to dinner at the Broadway Pub & Grill, our favorite “pub grub” dining spot.

On the “big day” itself, we played games until early afternoon and then visited Lil’ & Geoff’ & Anxiety for a while (the chocolate cake with maple flavored frosting was dee-lish), after which Kyla and I took off to go spend my birthday money gift card. (Lil’ will be chagrined to learn that her efforts resulted in expanding my anime collection. I’ll make it up to her somehow.) We dined at the Red Robin out at Cascade Station… and probably won’t do that again. The burgers were okay, but the “garlic & parmesan” fries… weren’t. Still, that cast only a slight shadow on an otherwise wonderful day. We went back to Kyla’s place to watch my cheesy $10 DVD purchase, Christian “Batman” Bale starring in the “1984 meets Metropolis meets The Matrix” flick, Equilibrium. I liked it, though I won’t claim it’s one of the finest acts of cinema ever produced.

My haul? Kyla bought me the CD of the “Peter Gabriel and friends” musical project, Big Blue Ball. (Some of you will be tempted to crack wise, here. Go ahead, but it’d better make me laugh…) I haven’t had the chance to listen to the whole thing, but what I’ve heard so far is quite good. As for the gift card purchase… well, turns out that Funimation has finally copped a clue and put out the collection of Fullmetal Alchemist anime DVDs in a semi-convenient two-box format for a not-wholly-astronomical price… that I still wouldn’t have paid my own money for unless I hit the jackpot, but I was delighted to pick up with the help of the gift card! 51 episodes making up one of the finest anime series I’ve ever seen? Huzzah!

The only downside, really? I had to go to bed earlier than I felt like doing because of the stupid Daylight Savings change… and it didn’t help with the massive jet-lag sensation I’m feeling today. Ah, well.

I’m not asking for or expecting anything in particular for my birthday this year. The economy’s a great big mess, and it’s not like I’ve been such a wonderful person over the last dozen months that I deserve fancy nice things. However… I’d prefer that a couple of items in the schedule for Sunday not take place…

First up, thanks to a lovely piece of idiocy a few years ago, this Sunday marks the changeover to Daylight Savings Time. That’s right: On my birthday, I lose an hour of sleep and get to fight a sense of jet-lag at work for most of the following week. Joy.

Then, the weather forecasters are suggesting that we may get a dusting of snow Sunday morning and/or evening. No. I do not want snow. I’ve seen plenty this year. I don’t think I’ve experienced a winter with this many snow events since I moved to Portland in 1989. Yes, I’ve seen more severe winter weather. This whole, “a bit of snow here, a bit of snow next week, a bit more snow a couple of weeks later” thing, though? Totally bizarre. And silly me, I figured that it being partway into March that we’d be done with the stuff.

Oh, well. I’ll try to enjoy the day anyway. So there, US Government. Take that, Mother Nature.

I had a plan for the usable portion of my tax return, that which wasn’t earmarked for state taxes or Alex’s school testing fees. I wanted a camera so I could take the usual array of snapshots as well as working on a couple of creative projects I’ve had in mind for a while now. Research led me to the FujiFilm S2000, a generally well-regarded entry-level not-quite-SLR type of camera. Add a tripod, high-end rechargeable batteries plus charger, and a memory card, then I was looking at somewhere close to $350.

In other words, my entire pool of spendable funds.

OR.

I could be responsible and buy piddly little things I’ve been needing, such as shoes. A replacement set of cutting heads for my shaver. Pants. Groceries. Replacement brushes for my electric toothbrush. I might even have enough left over to pick up a smaller “fun” item or two.

It’s the right thing to do. I’m just annoyed at myself for taking so long to realize it. Then again… I could’ve come to this conclusion after the fact, eh?