After wrestling to open the box (just about gnawed it open with my teeth, I was so excited! Yes, indeed: You can take the girl out of Africa, but...) I carefully lifted out the contents. Wow! There was a LOT of stuff. I felt the same way that a magician probably feels when pulling an endless stream of coloured hankerchiefs from a hat, because just as I thought that I was done for sure, I uncovered something else!

I can't remember the order in which I found things, but here's the inventory of all the goodies. (Make yourself comfortable with your beverage of choice for this, because the list is loooooooooooong.)

No less than FOUR awesome movie soundtrack CDs: Cruel Intentions, Spider-Man, Dick (and they all rock!) and Random Hearts which is soothing jazz composed by Dave Grusin, whose movie scores I've always, always adored!

Then... TWO t-shirts (one black Spider-Man tee and one in a gorgeous light blue from the film Something's Gotta Give) and TWO stunning hooded Spider-Man sweat-shirts in a gorgeous rusty red.

AND a hard-cover book about the only mouse I've ever liked: Stuart Little. The book is amazing. It contains detailed information about how a handful of super talented folks used highly sophisticated techniques and managed to turn E.B. White's 1945 classic into the very sweet movie that we all fell in love with.

Eve, I don't know which Hollywood studio you robbed of all these lovely things (although I suspect that movie memorabilia is probably available in your line of work), but I just want to say that I ADORE all of it. The music is amazing, the tees and sweats are high quality and all in my favourite colours and I swear I squealed with delight when I saw the book because I've always been interested in animation (in fact, I've been attempting to learn MAYA on my own, but to no avail).

But wait... there's more. Turns out Emily added a personal touch.

So the whole day, as I was listening to all the CDs and dancing around (most exercise I've had in years!), I was wearing... thanks to Emily... my very own,

dazzling,

sparkling,

oh-so-dainty-that-I-could-almost-pass-for-a-lady:

TIARA!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you SOOOO much, Emily and Eve.

Aren't I just too spoiled?!?

(Update: 4 AM and I'm still wearing the tiara. The boy bowed down very deeply when he came home last night and saw me wearing it, so now I'm seriously considering never, ever taking it off again. Ever. I'll just have to figure out ways to sleep sitting up (without compromising any of my comfort, of course) and to wash and condition and style and tame my very wild mane around it.)