Oh my goodness, I've had such a nice night with Rick... actually, I've had a really nice day. Let's start at the beginning, shall we? After calling out of work sick with the uckiness of a cold yesterday, I dragged myself out of bed in order not to miss another day at the museum. Good thing I did, too, because today's batch of tours was really rewarding. Every single group was great. With the exception of one group of developmentally handicapped young adults, they were all about ten years old and the most (including the special group) engaged, enthusiastic bunch so far. I learned that it's not hard to teach about Egypt to high-functioning autistics and people with downs-syndrome, you just need to appeal to their emotional understanding. They all loved the concept of the Egyptian afterlife, which is a farm where the fields are always irregated, there are animals ("I don't like goats - they're smelly"), and it's always sunny. Hey, me too. Sign me up.

As a slight digression from my day, I feel really comfortable in the Eternal Egypt exhibition now that I've taken Mom and Julie through it. Spending over two hours talking about nearly every piece and certainly every period of Egyptian history makes me realise just how much I actually know. And I keep thinking of things I could have said while I was taking them through and never got around to mentioning. I really do enjoy this new job in Education and I'll be sorry when it ends in June. I'd happily work the feathered dinosaur exhibit that's coming next year, but God-willing, I'll be in school. There will be other exhibits, though, and maybe after I'm done at school, I'll be on a different end of things - making some of the magic happen.

I ran some errands following that and took my self-portrait in to be framed at Frames 'n Graphics on Bloor Street before heading home to have a nice afternoon nap. I also cleaned out Willi's litter pan, disinfected it with cleanser and all. She naturally spent a good portion of my nap-time digging in it fiercely and waking me up. It clearly meets her standards of clean because she was in and out of it at least three times before she let Tobe anywhere near (who then also made use of it). Once I was awake again, happily noting that it is now still light out until past six o'clock in the evening, I headed out to meet Rick at our favourite (only?) Indian restaurant, Red Rose. The last time we were there was the day I told Rick I needed a break, so this was a much happier occasion and we enjoyed every moment of it. He gave me They Might Be Giants' children's book, which was very sweet of him and totally unnecessary.

We had initially intended to go see Ladykillers tonight, the new, seemingly quite bizarre Tom Hanks movie, but we ended up walking all along Bloor Street, ducking into Cheapo (Sonic Boom) Records and then Book City. It's very nice to be able to afford a couple of used CDs and one book on sale. It's been so very long. This past two weeks I've been able to buy clothing for the first time in months - with my own money - and now something to entertain my ears and my brain. In fact, one of the CDs I bought was an EP by my old favourite indy band, Red Autumn Fall. It's kind of surreal to be sitting here in my house with Rick in the shower, Willi sleeping on my monitor, and Simeon pouring out his mellifluous soul into my room. I haven't listened to RAF in years, but this EP is so much better than the CD they put out before they broke up.

So, we ended the evening having a coffee at Dooney's and being all hipster like. I enjoyed some tasty, if not exactly like how I remember it, New York cherry-topped cheesecake and a cappucino and Rick had an Irish coffee. We walked to Spadina Station and Rick slid his way up the immobile moving sidewalk and when we finally got home it was after eleven. Now we're both clean, well-fed, and ready for a snuggle.