well. i have neglected this diary for so long that any regular reader who might have stuck around will probably have given it up in disgust. but i ask for your forgiveness and indulgence, as the events of my life have so conspired to keep me from regular updates. i have half a dozen half completed entries, really i do. but now, they are hopelessly out of date, and it seems silly to post them. i can recap them, though.

here’s one: one week after becoming engaged to the fair ephelba, i, along with ephelba and boi, become violently ill with some of the best nausea and vomiting i have ever done without having to drink too much first. i write about this, and my first sentence goes like this: my new family makes me sick. boi sees this sentence and begins to look upset. i explain that it’s a ‘joke’, since we had all recently actually been sick. he gets it, but doesn’t think its funny.

then there was another entry about getting the back of my neck waxed. not waxed with actual wax per se, but this adhesive tape product. ephelba was more than willing to help with this project, and was giggling the whole time. it went fairly well except that the tape took off a fair amount of skin as well the hairs. this cracked ephelba up, and the back of my neck wasn’t right for a week.

there was a nifty entry about how all the cats are driving us crazy. not all of them, really, but one in particular. matty, ephelba’s cat. she will not accept the presence of my cats, kato in particular. she screams like something is pulling her legs off when she has to look at kato. and he is sick of it. at first he was tolerant, but now, he just goes and tries to beat her up every time she yells at him like that. which makes her scream more, et cetera, et cetera, and so on. anybody want a cat?

then there was the spinach pie episode. i like spinach pie, spanokapita, with the filo dough and the feta cheese, and i can make it well. so i’m going on about how i’m going to whip up a batch when ephelba says she don’t like it. ‘it tastes like butt’ she says. ‘whose butt’ i ask, but she only makes a face at me. so i get all the ingredients to put together a good batch of the stuff, and ephelba looks at me glumly and says she will try it for me, [she really is the greatest] but she really doesn’t like it. i said that i wasn’t making it for anybody but me, and i planned on taking it in my lunch. relief floods over my ephelba like a tidal wave. so we’re watching ‘alias,’ and the spanokapita is baking away. before long, its done and out of the oven cooling, and ephelba is hovering. when ephelba is trying to decide if she wants to eat something, she often ‘tastes’ the air around her this weird reptilian fashion while thinking about it. so she’s flicking her tongue, and i’m cutting it into squares for lunch, and ephelba asks ‘do you have anything i can lick?’ i had just served myself a piece to eat during ‘alias,’ so i handed her the spatula. ephelba licks it, tastes the air again, and then wants a piece of my square. i can see where this is going. i give her a bit, and then she goes and gets herself a whole square of her own. we eat in silence, watching our show. after ephelba finishes hers, she licks her plate. really. then i say ‘so you liked the spinach pie.’ ephelba says, ‘this isn’t spinach pie.’ ‘could have sworn it was, says i. but because i liked it, its not says ephelba.

we had christmas in there somewhere. i gave ephelba a hitachi magic wand. it can give her an orgasm right through her pants. we saw some of my family. we saw some of her family. we had a great time.

i finally met ephelba’s mom, who was not the crazy lady i had been warned about. well. she was a little crazy, but very sweet and on her best behavior.

we had a car crash on the way back from visiting ephelba’s aunt. ephelba’s car is wrecked, but all of us came away unharmed.

we took a family portrait. several, in fact. one with all the critters in the shot. that was an adventure. four squalling pissed off cats in near proximity. boi got scratched as matty fought her way to freedom. there were tears. it wasn't happy. but some chocolate soothed it all.