Four The surface of the blog is crystalline and unmoving. Not a wind or breeze breaks the undisturbed, mirror-like level of the disconcertingly white Blogger template. For over a month the quiet has reigned, icy and deathlike. From behind you, you think you hear a sound. But it is nothing. You eat a cheese puff. And suddenly, without notice, without notifying you in writing two to four weeks beforehand and asking you to please send an RSVP and maybe bring that nice ambrosia you always make, with the colored marshmallows that all the kids like so much, and that was held in evidence once on suspicion of having killed a man, though it was later acquitted when it turned out that the guy was not in the best shape, certainly not in any shape to be eating ambrosia anyway, and maybe had kind of a deathwish when you really think about it, I mean really, suddenly it is !My Life as an American Gladiator's Fourth Birthday Spectacular! Perhaps, I hear you say, kind of snottily if you don't mind my saying so, it's a little less spectacular when Mr. Gladiator Blog Writer Guy hasn't been exactly blazing away on the updates for the last year. Well, OK. You have a point. But, undaunted, I press on, continuing the fine tradition of listing my favorite posts of the year. Since there were only about seven posts all year, this should be cake. So, without further ado, the painfully self-aware favorite posts list for our birthday: Bees in the walls! (incidentally, here is an update on the bees in the walls situation: They came back. I heard from my tenants that they were being bothered by thousands of bees pouring out of the walls. Having experienced that myself, I can tell you that it is a little worrisome. It turned out the little darlings had indeed come back and had built a four foot beehive in the wall. Yay for fun!) Expert-ese The Squeegee Incident