Hello, Life? Remember, it's The Month-O-Jenny? Stop interfering with my need to par-DEH har-DEH. So demanding, Life...didn't anyone teach you any patience, or, I don't know, MANNERS?

Oh, that's right. We're talking about MY Life. I've been lax on enforcing social niceties.

So! Thank you for all the birthday wishes! I'm midway through a king-sized mudslide, and feeling rather swoopy and grandiose. I have to restrain myself from pretend-conducting the orchestra in my head.

My morning started off slowly...because sometime in the middle of the night, our entire neighborhood lost power. I drifted awake and realized that it was light outside. Too light. Uh-oh.

There was flapping. There was laller lallering. There were exactly 35 minutes until our scheduled departure to school. My son announced that "the machines were taking a nap." The machines, including all the appliances, including my coffee maker. Yeah.

My husband ran out and bought us some weak-ass coffee from someplace, and as I loaded the kids into the van for a mad dash to school, the dog leaped up and spilled my entire cup all over the sidewalk. Hee hee hee, hoo hoo hoo - those Lamaze breathing techniques are useful after all!

I dropped the two bigguns off at school (which was also without power, apparently) and returned home to my powerless, pioneer-style hovel.

Crippled. I was completely stymied by the lack of electricity. Toast? No. Dora The Explorer? No. Email? No.

You wanna know what hit me the hardest? THIS IS DAY ONE OF GYMBUCKS REDEMPTION. I had online shopping to do, and I was off. line.

Distraction in the form of helping my mom shop for a laptop for my sister came up during our morning phone call, which I made via my husband's cell phone, since our house phone is a cordless that needs electricity. So, so sad.

We shopped, and shopped and finally ended up with a nice little computer. So, yay!

Then, I began the Orff Shuffle. See, last week I signed the kids up for Orff music classes. They love them, I'm really excited about it, and all three kids are doing it. At three different times. So, normally I take my youngest from 10:30 to 11:30. I pick my son up at school at 1:20, take him to his Orff lesson at 2:15, and rush back to pick up my daughter at 2:30, returning to pick up my son and drop off my daughter at 3:15. At 4:15, we would normally be on our way home.

I will be smoldering ever so slightly and may appear charred. This is normal.

So today we did that, too. Except I blew off the baby class because I was a-shoppin'. But instead of going home, I went over to my mom's house, where I helped set up the new 'pooter while the kids romped in her yard.

Finally, I loaded the kids up and stumbled back into my brighly lit (thank GOD) house to a husband with a big chocolate cake, several crusty baguettes, brie, and the world's largest bottle of mudslide mix alcohol included! We blew out candles, cut the cake, and had ourselves a little party.

Now, I'm getting ready to watch some Survivor and swill the rest of this drink, and perhaps demand a foot rub. I mean, it IS my actual birthday and all.

You see? This is why I claim the whole month. Thursdays are just WRONG for birthdays.