Fabulous Fifty

Turned fifty on Sunday - happy birthday to me! We had a multi-birthday dinner out Saturday (my 50th, the Chief's July 60th, and Dad's pending 80th), but Sunday Mom & I fixed dinner. Started out simple - "I'll just slide a chicken into the oven" - but got more & more involved. Not to mention the fact that we trotted out a nice tablecloth, linen napkins, silver, good china, crystal - all the "good stuff" that makes for a fancy, festive table. I made a nice apple cake, too. Mom teased me that having to make my own birthday cake reminded her of my comment once that one of the drawbacks of being a grown-up is having to make your own chicken soup when you're sick. Not in this case, though. I'd been meaning to make this particular cake for a while, especially as our neighbor E, who loves it, had his birthday on the 7th. Sort of a "mutual" birthday cake, I guess you could say. That, at least, is what I told him when I took some over on Monday. :)

Watch this space...

Finally getting a little blog time after the pre-visit cleaning and the visit itself. Trying to pack for this trip (I am going to be missing so many friends' shows while I'm out of town!), but should have time to catch up a bit here before heading to the airport tomorrow.

Is this October or August?

Sheesh - not only are we in the throes of a drought that threatens to set records, but the past week or so has seen August-like heat & humidity. Upper 80s most of last week, 97% humidity on Saturday (no wonder we were so wiped out after walking around the festival all day!), and highs around 90 yesterday and today! Can't wait for the promised cooling front to move in and bring more seasonal temperatures. And rain. A nice, slow, soaking rain would be lovely. Please?

Stages of clean

TW and I managed to get the house to "friend clean" before my friend arrived Friday night. Today I got started on taking things to the next level - "parent clean". Didn't get too far, since I spent most of the day on laundry, iPod feeding and turkey soup, but we did get the guest bed stripped so TW and I will have clean sheets to sleep on when my folks get here. (They'll get our bed, which is larger.)

Harry Homeowner and Susie Homemaker

TW has had a busy weekend! He's spent most of the weekend building new doors for the shed out back. Those things are solid as Gibralter now! They don't look very pretty, but they'll keep the elements out; with luck, they'll keep out most of the local fauna, too.

I spent the first part of the weekend with my visiting friend, but today I've been making up for lost time, running 4 loads of laundry, folding it with frequent breaks to change CDs being fed into iTunes (38 discs!), and fixing turkey soup from the carcass of the bird I roasted for my friend's visit. (My favorite part of the turkey? Leftovers!)

Some good times to balance against the bad news

More bad news last week. My ex forwarded an e-mail from a friend from college. His wife, also a friend from college, was recently hospitalized for other serious problems and the doctors found she was full of cancer - the list seemed to include half her internal organs! When she flippantly asked the doctor whether she had days, weeks or months to live, the doctor reportedly replied sthg like, "well, unless you get hit by a bus, not days." !!! In other words, the prognosis is grim indeed, and the woman's only in her late 40s or early 50s.

Another woman my ex had told me about as being diagnosed w/ stage 4 earlier this year was also hospitalized recently. He said that while no one was saying anything, he got the impression they didn't expect her to go home again. And this one's only in her early 40s.

Then there's my friend who's barely in her 40s and so crippled w/ rheumatoid arthritis (RA) she's routinely faced with the imminent threat of having to retire on disability.

Then there's the good stuff. A friend who moved out of the area 10 years ago (can't believe it's been that long!) is in town this weekend to visit a few of us. I got her first, we visited our friend w/ the RA this afternoon, then I handed her off to yet another friend of hers before she heads back home again. It was lovely getting caught up on each other's news & families and swapping stories, then doing more of the same with our other friend. I think I laughed myself hoarse. Thanks, ladies; I needed that!

Don't have someone else pack your shoes.

TW & I were getting ready to go out to the cabin last weekend and were planning a nice dinner. While I pulled things together in the bedroom, I gave him my outfit & shoes for said dinner and asked him to put them in the suitcase. When we went to get ready for dinner that Saturday, I looked in the suitcase - no shoes. Rummage, rummage, dig, dig - still no shoes. TW had a vague memory of putting them in a plastic bag so as not to get anything else dirty, but into the suitcase? No such luck. I had to make do w/ sthg that didn't look too bad w/ sneakers.

Which is why it's best to pack one's own shoes.