We invited Pauline and her daughter over, and another neighbor dropped in, too. They all sang me happy birthday...this was Sunday. On my birthday, Mike took me out to dinner and after that, everything went to shit pretty fast, though it was certainly not Mike's doing.

Mike's mom called to wish me a happy birthday and let us know that Mike's grandfather is pretty sick, had some surgery and was going to have some more (as of 7 this morning). I've had nightmares the last two nights about it. This man is a very gentle and kind person -- someone who commands respect because he's so damned nice. Mike couldn't sleep either and while we were both exhausted, we have spent nights tossing and turning.

Then yesterday morning, the consequences of what was supposed to be a practical joke sorted themselves out. I did something remarkably stupid.

I know this woman, through her partner, a co-worker, who keeps a journal. In her journal she wrote about a horrible neck and back pain thing. I am good at relieving that kind of stuff for people and offered to help. Over several days, her partner said she wasn't really taking help particularly and on a lark, I talked to him and a fellow co-worker about setting up an account on her bulletin board that we could all access to tease her about not getting help. It was a gentle tease...and very definitely was written so she knew who the author was, but I caught some flak for it, though not from her.

I apologized. I had just wanted to play a little and obviously just pissed people off.

I talked to Mike last night about birthday stuff and apologized, too.

Oh, yeah. I apologize about my birthday entry. It was a core dump.