Don't get me wrong: it was nice to see them and all.

But for much of those two days I took off from work, it was more like babysitting than hanging out.

They have arguments at regular intervals, such that 2 or 3 times a day one of them finds that their feelings have been hurt egregiously and begins to mope angrily.

And they're the most indecisive people in the world. It's like pulling teeth to find out what the hell people want to eat from dinner.

Meanwhile, Hunter would get home from work and immediately fall asleep, leaving me to deal with finding out what dinner plans we should make.

Honestly, it was like I instantly had two kids and a lethargic husband. Lucky me.

Dear Lord, people. They went through THREE BOXES of Eggo waffles. And they've been eating them all the time - even though we've fed them plenty - such that there were none left for me this morning to eat. :(

Sad Athena. Leggo my fucking Eggos!

But sure, it was nice to see them and there were some fun moments.

So those "days off" were frustrating - cleaning up after our guests and trying to make plans and such.

Not to mention the fact that I got ANOTHER phone call from the SimSequel people asking how much text I could write for them. AND another email from the exec producer on that project asking for my assistance on some important rewrites that "had to happen today" [this is of course again while I am out of the office...]

If these people were any more desperate for my help, they'd probably cage me up with a computer and some bread and water.

Hunter arrived home yesterday to find all three of us playing video games. They didn't really want to do anything (sightseeing, etc) and it would have been a painful process to argue, so I resolved myself to playing along with them. No skin off my back.

(Then Hunter promptly went to bed.)

Last night, after I decided we were all just going to fricking go to Wendy's to eat, we returned and played the Warcraft board game.

Here's the thing. I like board games. I really do.

But Warcraft was excruciating. And my "team" won! (Strangely, the only 4-player "scenarios" force you to play in teams. Hunter was my teammate.)

That one board game lasted four hours.

[Insert the sound of me bashing my head against a wall here.]

To add insult to injury, when I went to check the mail last night, we found it empty and taped over, as if it were marked as vacant. No signs, no notes, nothing. This is very disturbing to me as we have bills coming to this address. So I had to write a big note and tape it to the mailboxes demanding that they, in fact, find our lost mail and resume delivery.

And Hunter has returned to lethargic helpless-mode. He's tired all the time, won't wake up on his own, doesn't have an opinion, and he was even late for our benefits meeting this morning.

GRRAAARRRGH.

So anyway, I hope my actual birthday this weekend won't suck. It'd be hard to be worse than last year, but I've had some piss poor birthdays in my time so history could always repeat itself.

News isn't all frustrated and bad. I just received my "comp time" check - two extra full weeks of pay, magically turning up on my desk. Happy Holidays to me.

And I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I am moving out of my current "office" [an old conference room shared by 5 people].

Yes, that's right. I'm getting my very own cube.

Try to contain your excitement there. ;)

It'll be right next to my boss's new cube (she gets the window cube, natch) so it'll be much easier to collaborate and gossip and the like. Good times.

But this means I'm really a grownup, combined with the fact that I am officially full-time on Monday. I have my big stack of benefits paperwork now. It's all a little overwhelming.

Well, it's time to go do some work, and stuff.