Philosophical things, religion, spirit, poetry, songs, stories, mafia games, art, and all sorts of similar "distracting" thoughts. I give you deep insight into my mind, be it my creative process, my emotions, my thoughts, my feelings, random facts about my family, or even random quirks about my body.
...Not so much today. At first, in spite of the significance of the date (more on that in a second), I thought I'd be without material today altogether. But it turns out I do in fact have something I can talk about today! (Aside from the obvious which I wasn't going to make a big deal of.)
Basically, today's my actual real birthday (which I suppose if I lacked material would be maybe worth a ramble, but right now isn't my focus though I will talk about it in a little bit), but this being a Sunday, I expected nothing in ways of actual acknowledgement of this outside of family (and maybe online friends).
Directly, of course, this has been true. No "Happy Birthday"s, no gifts, no presents, not even a Caught Ya card which are sometimes given for this purpose. (Don't be depressed, though. Once again, for emphasis: This is Sunday. I don't think I can quite convey what that means, but essentially, it means this is the norm. The default. The standard. What would happen to ANY employee with a Sunday birthday, is not exclusive to me, thing. Where I'd quite frankly be surprised if anything was done. That's just how it is, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.)
...Except...
...All the same. I ended up with gifts anyway. Aside from the pool not being busy today and me not having to enter the men's locker room (both big bonuses for the day), today I saw...
...My corrected order had come in!
Now, this is a complete and total coincidence, of course. I could tell it wasn't meant as a gift--after all, it was just them giving me what I had actually ordered, which they were going to do regardless. (I'm 100% positive I'm not special in this regard and they likely were doing the same for everyone whose orders were wrong.)
Plus I found it in the Aquatics Office area (AKA, my bosses' work station), so it is probable they intended for my supervisor to hand it to me the next time we both would be around. Meaning it was mere happenstance I stumbled upon it during my birthday. Yetstill, DANG does it look good! (And I imagine feel good as well but I can't check that for another five minutes as of me writing this sentence.)
Now, for those who have forgotten, are new readers, and/or are too lazy to check.
Basically.
The Y (where I work) was having their annual merchandise catalog, where you could order various swag as an employee in particular. I believe it's part of our annual fundraising though I'm not positive. Regardless, there were five items I wanted. I ordered all five, used three years of accumulated Caught Ya cards, and then paid the remaining $50 out of pocket (literally, the cash came out of my jacket because I apparently kept about $100 in literal-pocket-change inside of my coat pockets).
Now my family has seen only one of these. They believe it was given to me by the Y as part of my job. (Which I haven't corrected them on because from a certain point of view you could argue that is technically true; the stuff I got isn't things a non-employee could get even though there's swag which non-employees can.)
And if they figure out that I have more, they may eventually ask, but I've developed a half-truth story to tell them (I am after all a storyteller so while I may flub the details especially if they interrupt I will probably be able to entertain them by telling them).
Basically, my official story is that the Y was offering employees the chance to purchase gear, but offered discounts for turning in caught ya cards. I asked three questions (all of this is true thusfar) in succession: "Is there any expiration date on these Caught Ya Cards?" Nope!
"Is there a limit to how many Caught Ya Cards you can use?" Nope!
"Is there a minimum price you have to pay?" Nope!
So I turned in three and a half years' worth of Caught Ya cards (still all true) in order to get some free gear (which is still true because when you look at the prices at least two if not three items would be covered by that amount of Caught Ya cards meaning I got them for free--I just chose to pay extra in order to have other stuff in addition to the free stuff, where the story ceases to be all true and becomes only a half-truth).
And the full list of items once more:
-Female Lifeguard Shorts. Officially, I got them because they were cheap and yet look official, they allow me to use my swim suit as a spare rather than a necessity, and they're more comfortable. (All true, especially the last I've found.) Unofficially, it's also because they are feminine and bring out more of my womanhood as it were.
-Female V-Neck Shirt. Officially, I got them because of wanting something to wear as an emergency spare to my lifeguard T-shirt. If necessary, under the hoodie. Unofficially, I got them because heck yeah I want them. <3
-Lifeguard Hoodie. This one's all official with nothing unofficial, except maybe it being a potential reference image for Red Hood Rider down the line. Basically if the pool air gets cold again (it shouldn't but it could), I'd wear it as my default guarding shirt: still being in an appropriate uniform but being dressed appropriately for the climate. It also makes a nice emergency shirt to wear (and is thus, a spare) if, say, I need to get into the water for whatever reason. This is one of the items which was gotten wrong and yet is now fixed. <3
-The red staff jacket. The one my family knows I have. Mostly official here, too. I wanted something to wear over my guarding outfit when I'm not on-duty, yet which wasn't as heavy as my jacket, and which if things got really cold could even be worn underneath my jacket to keep me warm. It's pragmatic on every level. Unofficially, it also makes a stellar reference for Red Hood Rider because a lot of the patterning is almost exactly as I envisioned for Ruby's hoodie.
-And finally, the gray staff t-shirt. This one's also pragmatic in that I want to wear it as a workout jacket rather than getting my lifeguard t-shirt all sweaty when I work out. It's also something I want to wear underneath my tae kwon do uniform. I'm technically not staff when there (I'm an unofficial volunteer), but the idea is essentially that I'd feel more authoritative and have a greater command when wearing it. Which I now actually have!
So it's nice to have that as an unofficial birthday present.
Now as for my birthday plans...well. I'm not sure if my family is planning to eat out or eat at home. It's not going to be a family night I'm pretty sure (we had it on Friday for good reason, after all), but this does make a difference all the same. If we eat at home, then I'm basically home all day once I get home from work, and probably have free time but not assuredly so.
If we eat out, then it's to Denny's, for as long as it takes for them to receive our order and us to actually eat it. And then when I get home from that, I would definitely have free time, just less so than the equivalent amount of free time from eating at home. (Because of the wait time, drive time, size of meal eat time, etc.)
Basically, high but not guaranteed chance of an extra couple of hours or so with no real break in my online availability, versus guaranteed chance of no real break in my online availability but at the cost of an initial break in availability (the gap between coming home and leaving) plus the time spent eating (two hours or so).
Denny's also has the con of triggering my misophonia via being right next to my dad, but. While I get less time with those I'd really want to spend time with. And there's the misophonia. I kinda sorta still want the Denny's anyway? My mind is like, "I want to eat out please let us eat out I want to eat out I hope we're eating out and not staying at home", which isn't something I can rationally explain since rationally I should be saying the opposite yet my mind is basically set on it.
Oh well. It might not even be relevant. While it's my birthday, it's largely dependent on my family. What they assume, what they choose, what they want, what they think. If they put the decision in my hands then I would have to choose but my plan is to ask them what the dinner plan is and then schedule around what they tell me.
Regardless of what our dinner plans are, though.
I can tell you without a doubt what my plans following dinner will be.
Spending time with my two lovely girlfriends. <3
It might be difficult to schedule that, we might not get time together at the same time (i.e. it might end up being one girlfriend then another if schedules don't work out), any number of things could crop up (I haven't really discussed plans with them if you couldn't already tell in that they know it's my birthday and I did vaguely suggest we should be together during my birthday but I suck at having solidified things beyond that given that I didn't so. HEY MY GIRLFRIENDS LET'S HANG OUT!), but dangit.
It's my birthday.
And there could be no greater gift than spending time with the ones I love. <3