Birthday Week Bliss or Operation Spine Removal?

It's my birthday week (no, one day is not enough at Chez Barton, so Bob and I celebrate entire weeks when the important day rolls around). This basically means that for one week, I get to do whatever I want and don't have to do whatever I don't want (barring going to work, of course. I've never taken a birthday week off work, although I might try that sometime), and Bob has to come along for the ride. So far, these are the things Bob has had to "endure" (since Sunday, which was my actual birthday):


1. Going to Borders with me and spending as long as I wanted. We both love to go to Borders, but usually, just as I am really beginning to immerse myself in the experience (say, 15 minutes after arriving), he is seeking me out and wondering if I'm almost ready to go. You see, I like to spend at least an hour in any given bookstore, and I have been known to spend entire days in really good ones (like The Tattered Cover out in Denver or Powells out in Portland, OR). He was very patient with me and just went off and found some Rolling Stone Guide to Music or something that kept him occupied, while I browsed and browsed and chose the four books he had promised to get me as gifts from him (which was fantastic, since, I'm doing that whole TBR challenge thing, am not allowed to buy books for myself, and had been reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, only my third of twenty books for the challenge, for what seemed like months). Here's what I got:


The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks (a book I've been wanting to read for, oh, about twenty years now, and never have)


That was my nod to the psychologist in me. Then I had to indulge the lover of horror/Gothic and got these two:


Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

The Seance by John Harwood


Finally, what's a birthday without a little chick lit? I had actually thought I'd get nothing but chick lit (about the easiest thing to find at Borders), but that's kind of like going to the supermarket and getting nothing but bags of gummi bears and Swedish fish, isn't it? I kept it to one bag of Swedish fish (a nice accompaniment to the Lindqvist, huh?) instead:


The Charming Man by Marian Keyes


2. Go for bad food and ice cream at Friendly's. It's kind of annoying that my birthday comes only one week after Valentine's Day. That means we've just been out for a lovely fancy meal somewhere, and since I, despite loving occasional fancy meals out, am one who really prefers not to eat out very often, feeling that most restaurants don't really offer anything all that new, whereas my own kitchen always does, am not yet ready to do so again after only one week. However, I am always up for crap food and ice cream, because those are true indulgences that I do not often find in my own kitchen. I love Friendlys, because I can get both there.


3. Watch Bridget Jones's Diary with me. I, of course, had seen it (and read the book). He hadn't. We DVRed it quite some time ago. I don't know how I managed to convince him to take up precious space on the DVR to do that, but I did. It's been sitting there for ages amongst all these violent thrillers, doing a very good job of keeping its sense of humor, and I decided it was about time we paid attention to it. Still as funny as ever, and I love the completely implausible ending.


4. Clean the cat litter box. This is a job I despise. Usually, Bob does it in the morning, and I do it in the evening. This week, he's been doing it morning and evening. Now this is something I think I could get used to...


I suppose whatever horrible company it is that came up with that stupid Superbowl ad (I should have remembered them, so I could boycott them. Then again, I'm not ever planning on buying any tiny TVs anyway, so I boycott them by default) would love to talk about how I have succeeded in removing Bob's spine for a week. However, if truth be told, with the exception of cleaning the litter box, he seems to have been enjoying himself immensely (even while watching Bridget Jones). Of course, payback comes in November when I will have to watch Terminator 10 or some such thing. Is there an ad out there in which some husband has successfully shot his wife up with obscene amounts of testosterone?