Sad at not being there for this special day, I called to wish a happy birthday and got a rowdy group of revelers.

My legs in the stirrups for 18 hours, Google map-like legs of varicose veins,  a ton of baby weight to lose (that I am still working on), specially decorated cakes in the shape of Hello Kitty, Sesame Street animals or some round comic book Japanese creature over the last 22 years and I am history. Suddenly I longed for the days of reserving McDonald’s for a party, which I did after hosting one party at my home for 16 six-year-olds that I regretted 15 minutes into the 2 hour-long ( eternity) gig.

So she did have a happy birthday, which is what I was calling to wish her. And I am glad she had a good day with friends and some family. I just wish I could have been there too. I really need a piece of cake.

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“Believing hear, what you deserve to hear:
Your birthday as my own to me is dear…
But yours gives most; for mine did only lend
Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.”
~Martial

I have moved two kids around in two weeks and I will be doing it again at the end of June and then once more at the end of August. I don’t think I can milk this back injury for a long enough time period to get out of either moving experience. I am a good actress but that’s Oscar material.

Between trips to the chiropractor, I have enjoyed having my son back home. He is quite good at walking the dog, carting in groceries and eats the leftovers.

Something strange happened since he went to college. He is doing a lot of laundry. This is the boy who asked for 15 pairs of underwear for Christmas so that he’d only have to do laundry once a  month. And he made an important discovery. If you wrap your smelly gym clothes in a garbage bag, they won’t stink up your room – the light bulb went on. Now I know how proud Mrs. Edison must have felt.

I don’t know what his grades are but I already consider his college experience a successful one.

——

“If at first you don’t succeed, do it like your mother told you.”

See this photo? It’s a lie. First of all, the box is clean and neat – and sealed. Secondly, she is carrying it and not acting all “I can’t do this”. Thirdly, she is smiling and a real co-ed would be yelling at her family at how they are not careful with her stuff while keeping one eye open in case she has to change her tune in the event a cute guy is in the vicinity who might overhear her and think she is PMS-ing. What is accurate is that she is in full makeup and has her hair perfect.

The only redeeming quality of the dreaded ritual is that I might actually get some exercise. And after we usually go out to eat. That’s when the calories I may have burned off during the move out get redeemed.

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“College isn’t the place to go for ideas.“  ~ Helen Keller

This menopause weight gaining thing is for the birds and before I go all red and purple hat lady, I would like to have a few more years in regular clothes without existing  solely on salads.  My daughter’s cat, the nasty and ungrateful one we are watching for the next two weeks, is salivating all over the new bluebirds that have taken residence in our backyard. She had better not stain up my freshly cleaned rug with her wishful thinking and if she doesn’t stop hissing at me soon, she might be on a diet.

I have to text a photo of the cat to my daughter as she doesn’t trust me to take care of her. Lame. I would protest loudly but I will wait until she gets back and all is well because with my luck I would make a big deal about it and then some freakish and impossible catastrophe would happen with this cat, and I would lose all credibility, weak though it is at present.

Here’s to two weeks of no carbs and a bratty cat and hoping that those are the bluebirds of weight loss outside my window.

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“By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect “Hungry” ~ Gary Larson

I mistakenly thought I was very close to my son. We talked about everything over the past 18 or so years. Then he went to college and…nothing. I mean nothing. I thought maybe it was first semester adjustment. Apparently not. Not a peep out of him.

That means an overload of Peeps in his Easter basket, and he hates Peeps. Not to worry because I found this video that shows tons of things one can do with Peeps. That and I expect a large dump of this semester’s news punctuated by a bunch of “I thought I told you that” phrases answered with my “No. You didn’t” delivered tersely, whereby he will remind me of how sad it is to go to his mailbox and find nothing. Text me a river.

Should have bought him something at Maple Weekend and sent it. Now I might have to bake or send some Peeps early. I did see this nasty thing – a bowl made from bull testicles. (Don’t ask how.)

Indian bowl made from bull testicles

Kind of takes your thirst away.

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”  ~ Chinese Proverb

It was an even better day than I could have imagined it would be. Sunshine, family, friends, fruit of the vine, food and lots of this type of picture…

I decided it would be fun to snap a few photos at each place to remember things later on. Well, if looking at strangers behinds does the trick, I was successful. (Note to self: Don’t taste every wine ever made in Niagara County when you want to take memorable photos.)

As you can guess, as the day went on, things got very warm and fuzzy and I have a case of assorted wine in the basement that I can’t remember what tasted like what, a collection of the worst photos I have ever taken, some lost items, great memories and a nice little bonus for me.

The bonus is that kids have wonderful friends who, even though are young and could be embarrassed hanging around with you, seem to enjoy your company anyway. (And that was even before we had our first stop on the wine tour.)

Plus, I didn’t cry. My daughter thought that I’d get all sentimental about  my kids being all grown up and she is the one who ended up blubbering. Picture that!

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“We’ve had bad luck with our kids – they’ve all grown up.”  ~ Christopher Morley