I am exactly halfway through the year to my birthday. Today is my half-birthday or UN-birthday if you would. Start saving now for that lavish gift. It's all downhill from here to being 37.
Can that be possible already? 37. I shake my head in wonder and disbelief. What the hell happened? I was just 25 and having a baby. I was just 30 and having a baby. Hell, I was just 19 and making out in the laundry room at college and getting in wicked trouble from the hall director. How can I possibly be almost 37?
I feel like Sally in "When Harry Met Sally," I can sit on my bed and cry "I'm gonna be 40!" And you can say, "When?" and I can say "In three years..."
It's the kids' fault, you know.
Once you have children, time moves at lightning speed. You realize how much a child changes in six months, and you realize how many more grey hair follicles you're sprouting. They make you work harder, your recreation time changes from going to clubs to going camping or to the candlepin bowling alley's bumper lane on a rainy day.
They change you and they push you faster toward your shedding of the mortal coil by their sheer energy and force of life.
And to be honest, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Well. Sometimes. I'd trade it for being able to go to the movies twice a week instead of twice a year when I can scrounge up a sitter. But for the most part I would rather rent movies and watch them at home, because my bladder (it is aged, very aged) cannot sit through a 2 hour movie.
There isn't much to report today. We didn't get garden plants on Saturday like I said we would. Doug kindly reminded me that we were under a "frost advisory" for that night and the next, so while I was mightily irritated and quite miffed, I'm glad he stood by his decision and prevented me from going... we did indeed get frost Not bad. But I'd hate to spend what little money we could on beautifying the yard only to have it shrivel up and freeze.
Looking at a year ago from right now, we had snow... and it could easily happen again. New England. Pfth!
Seeing as there isn't much to talk about, I mostly wanted to just sit and share some pictures of this weekend.
To me, this is the most beautiful picture ever.
Jack's wounds are healed and he hit the water at the quarry where we geocached on Saturday with wild abandon. For someone who was squished by a truck a few weeks back, I'm happy he's walking at all, not to mention the level of enthusiasm for swimming he showed.
He was in his element -- running like a total maniac, jumping into the water, retrieving, retrieving, retrieving... he had a horrid limp when we got home, but I expected that and gave him some medicine. He and Kinger both love swimming, and they slept very very well.
And thank you God for healing his little body so well. He's a trooper, that Crunchy Dog!
One geocache that we did was in the Boxford Town/State Forest. We had no idea this quarry was there, but I'll tell you what -- I'll be back. It was so nice and quiet, and the dogs were just so happy to swim. I'm not a big fan of quarry swimming, but I'd probably go in this one. Just not too far from the shore, and there is an actual shore (the dogs easily accessed it). It was about like the pond on MDI where we went swimming with A&M this summer. A little ledge and then a deep drop off. I would never jump off the sides (anyone who would is insane in my book) and I would probably make the kids wear PFDs in the quarry for swimming. Especially... the boy.
We did another geocache in the Harold Parker State Forest, right around the corner. The sunset was lovely.
I'm not a big fan of schmaltzy inspirational photos, but that second one is pure gold, baby. Pure gold...
And we saw the craziest conversion van detail job in the history of detail jobs. This dude loves America more than you or I ever will!!! That's for damn sure:
I wonder how much this paintjob costs, and how many hungry people could have had a few meals. It's pretty and all, but is it necessary? We half expected to meet this individual in the woods while hiking through the park, and I was wondering what I'd say. Fortunately, I couldn't think of anything and we didn't meet him anyway... My clever by half comments were not coming to fruition.
On Saturday, I went the whole day without a monkey reference. I went to bed that night convinced that the streak was over at six in a row. And I was sorely disappointed. I fell asleep early, and had a dream.
In my dream, my friend Clayton (I'll use his name instead of identifying him as the very sad "My friend who died last year." He has an identity and I'm ready to speak his name here) was sitting on the couch. He was laughing and laughing... having just told me his favorite joke:
Q: "Why do gorillas have such big nostrils?"
A: "Because they have such big fingers."
Clay thought that was funny. It always got a chuckle out of me, but never hysterics. The first time he told us this joke, it was in the evening on a Friday night. We laughed, it was funny... end of conversation, life moves on past the joke.
Our Friday night ritual together was to watch "Homicide: Life on the Streets." So we're there watching, and Yaphet Kotto, who played the big boss Giordello on the show, is on screen, and he's mad. He's angry. Nostrils. Flaring.
And Clay started laughing. I mean, hysterically, uncontrollably, tears rolling down his face laughing. I thought he was going to pass out. I thought he might just piss his pants and boy I was getting nervous. Doug and I were encouraging him to breathe. We thought he was going to die.
Finally, after about 15 minutes of this, he's able to eek out the phrase:
Yaphet Kotto has big nostrils!
And we get it. He (a black man mind you) had just told us a gorilla joke, and then he sees Yaphet and thinks "gorilla nostrils." They are quite large, indeed. And he starts laughing again.
So I dreamed that. I dreamed Clayton told me the gorilla joke. I woke up from that on Saturday, and it was 11:30pm. It wasn't Sunday yet. And I started giggling. I could still hear Clayton giggling. I got my monkey reference just under the wire. And from a great source. Funny how weird things like that can sometimes happen.
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