So, How’s it going then. . . ?

. . .well, my summer driving with the window down because I have no air conditioning, combined with constantly being inside during the daylight hours, has my own hands, when clenched, reminding me of a 70s era racial harmony poster. My left hand is becoming much more “melanin active” than my right from the two hours a day hanging out the open window in an attempt to cool myself from the summer heat baking inside my car as I drive.

…I am now, as of last Thursday, a home owner. This translates to me being taken a bit off guard on the morning of the 14th as I arrived home from the closing and every plaster crack and chip of paint in the abode where I have dwelt for the last 7 years was suddenly wringing it’s hands and fiendishly laughing at me like a James Bond villain in my over active mind. I just hope that their monologue about how they intend to do me in goes on as long as it did for Bond, so I can find a way to save myself from being undone by them. On the upside, in true 007 fashion, I do believe that I’ll need to acquire a few new gadgets to overcome these foes. Bonus.

…A good friend from college came out to visit her brother this weekend, and as she usually does when she is able to visit, she spent a night with us so we could catch up with each other. She is a single deputy D.A. for a county in California, but she is still down to earth enough to be able to hang out with the likes of us and have a good time. She has impressed me to no end with a role she adopted soon after college of being a surrogate aunt to our children. Over the past 14 years she has sent us unsolicited (and unfortunately unreciprocated) packages and cards for all the kid’s birthdays and some major holidays. All done faithfully even thought we, my wife and I, suffer from being correspondence challenged.

She always calls on the birthdays of my wife and I. Calls which are immensely enjoyed but also elicits no small degree of guilt.

You see, we struggle, for some unfathomable reason, to even remember what day her birthday is. If it was just me it would be understandable. I have decided I have some sort of mental cross wiring akin to dyslexia that has the effect of making it nearly impossible to remember a birthday in the “teens” of any month, especially if it’s in the summer. My daughter’s birthday, no problem in early October. My wife’s thankfully, or perhaps by benevolent design, falls in the good part of the month and year so I’ve never missed it. My middle boys suffer from both being in the summer and falling on a day numbered between 10 and 20. I have to check my income tax forms every year to be entirely sure when I need to play their parties. My parents, woefully, also suffer from the unfortunate birth date criteria.

But my wife is brilliant! She not only remembers all our kid’s and parent’s birthdays, a power she uses for the good of keeping me out of the dog house, but she remembers all her brother’s and sister’s birthdays, and my brother’s birthday, and all their spouse’s birthdays, and the birthdays of people we just know as friends and acquaintances. But still, amazingly, this college friend’s birthday is kryptonite to her other worldly ability.

We had a good time together with our out of town guest on Saturday night. We were in conversation in our living room until late in the night, and then the next morning, Sunday, we awoke and quietly slipped into our day. My wife was scheduled for duty in the nursery at church as was my daughter, so the boys (Robo and Lemur) and I would drive our friend to her brother’s place about an hour away.

When we arrived at her brother’s place and walked up the steps of her brother’s house, I was walking behind her porting her luggage as my good nature is want to do. Her sister-in-law answered the door and let us into their living room still filled with the hush of the morning. Her sister-in-law’s hair was still wet from her shower and this side of the house was still cool in the morning shade, and the family seemed to still be asleep so we helloed in hushed voices. Suddenly, her brother, his numerous children and our friend’s mother (in from Florida) leapt of from behind furniture and shouted a phrase that turned me to dismay-----surprise, happy birthday.

She was in our house, in our home, in our bosom, and still we failed. We were so happy to be in her presence, but it was not enough to jog our memory and finally recognize this most important individual commemoration on the very day it was occuring, and applaud the anniversary of this valued person’s inception into existence.

We are bad friends. I have no idea why she still likes us. I’m just glad she does.

. . .my mother replaced her computer a few weeks ago, as you might remember me mentioning. In accordance with this purchase offer, she received several pieces of accompanying hardware for “free” from the online store where we purchased the new addition. In this case, Free is a relative term with respect to the final purchase price after the mail in rebates for said items. Rebates. Rebate being the operative word which in secret handshake, pinky-swear marketing language translates to “being able to use the word FREE to lure the consumer, but then placing the burden of that promise on the said consumer who is commonly too stupid and/or lazy to fulfill their end of the bargain meaning that in the end, after their failure, we don’t have to give them anything and feel no obligation for remorse and there is nothing anyone can do about it”.

After the month of trying to get a house bought and a play produced, I realized Sunday night as I sat down to finally send in these rebates that I had become a statistic reinforcing that image.

. . .Last night was the first meeting of the group planning MY 20 year high school reunion. It’ll be next July. There were 7 people there, all of whom I knew but mostly hadn’t seen since high school. As we assembled in the back of a Mexican pizza place in town, I looked around and realized that in high school I don’t believe I ever served on an organizing body with anyone who showed up to help with the planning, but I did seem to remember that pretty much everyone there was fairly instrumental in heading up some school event or the other. This intimidated me a bit at first but by the end of the evening I really glad that I was participating in the planning of this.

I’m going to be the one heading up the organizational efforts on the web. Surprise,surprise.