I have not had a good day. It started last night when I was in absolute agony. Knee pain. On Sunday night, when Amanda’s grandparents were here my left knee was bothering me a little bit. I figured it was because I’d been on the elliptical trainer quite a bit but it went away later. Last night though, it felt like someone was sliding a knife under my kneecap and between the muscles around my knee. I kept tossing and turning, rubbing my knee, trying to put pressure on it, everything. Around 3:30 I finally took some Aleve, but going up and down the steps was rough. I think I finally fell asleep for good around 5:00, just in time to wake up and take Bruce outside to pee.

I got up around 8:00 and sent my boss, Scott Hendrix, an e-mail explaining the situation. I saw later that he wrote back saying, “Okay old man.” I went back to bed for just a little while and got up. The car was due for an inspection last month, which I overlooked since I don’t drive around too much and I took it in for an inspection. Fortuantely, it wasn’t very busy and I didn’t have to wait long.

When I got back though, I was having the internet trouble again, where I’ve barely got a signal. I could hardly load any pages, but e-mail was sometimes coming through. It was so frustrating. Fortunately, today was the day the Time Warner people were coming out to look at the problem. The guy got here around 2 or 2:30 and finished up around 3:00. He ran a bunch of tests, but he ended up just swapping out the unit. That put me pretty far behind with work.

For dinner Amanda picked up the usual Buffalo Wild Wings. The newer Willy Wonka movie, actually, it is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the old one is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, came on at 8:00. The names should be switched, since the newer one had more focus on Willy Wonka. Anyway, we hadn’t seen it yet so we watched it. I liked the original better. Depp’s Wonka is just a little too odd I think, but he does a good job of portraying someone who has detached themselves from the outside world.

Amanda stopped by PetSmart, too, and picked up a scratching pad. The post she’d gotten a few weeks back had gone mostly ignored by Cobb, so we thought something we could lay down where he likes to scratch the wood at the top of the steps might be better. It had catnip that went with it, so both Mr. Cobblepott and Moo were interested in it. Cobb was lying on it, but Moo was actually scratching it. Unfortunately, she’s still trying to scratch the couch, and I made an appointment to get her declawed. They’re coming out next Tuesday.

Amanda also picked up two small balls for the cats to play with, but initially at least, Bruce was more interested than the cats were.

Brian Gibson stopped by to pick up some mail that hadn’t been forwarded. Most of it was junk though. He’d been out and about since 5:00 (the same time I was letting Bruce out to pee while suffering through my knee pains) and was finally heading home.

I’m watchig Beetlejuice now. I saw while flipping around after Willy Wonka that it was coming on, and I do enjoy a Tim Burton double feature. He has such an obvious style (Planet of the Apes notwithstanding), as does Danny Elfman with the music in Tim Burton movies.

I’ve started giving Bruce treats when we take him out to pee. For some reason lately, despite all the cleaning we’ve done on the carpets and the couches, the pee smell is, at times, embarassingly prevalent. We’re not sure what to do about it aside from better training for Bruce. What’s done so far is done, we just want to fix what’s already happened.