Mein Geburtstag...
Nov. 19th, 2003 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
senoritafish(Rewind a week...)
I guess forty wasn't so difficult. We'll see how the rest of the decade goes. Thanks again to everyone for the birthday wishes.
The day was fairly quiet. Angus went to spend the afternoon and evening with Grandma and G.G.ma (John's grandmother), around noon. John's grandma sold her house in Texas, and will now be spending the winters with John's mom. She's been here for several weeks, but we hadn't had a chance to get to together yet. She was sick first, then we were all sick.
I spent a calm morning with Avalon and Gareth - it's funny how if one brother is absent, the other will play with his sister, but if they're both home, sister is icky. So she hangs on the outskirts, and finds ways to needle the boys if they're occupied with each other. While I was farting around with my email, John, Gareth and Avalon came in to give me presents; the kids, a refrigerator magnet that says "Garden Girl," and John gave me a little 128 mb Cruzer mini USB drive you can wear around your neck like a necklace. It's so cute; I'm thinking I should decorate it somehow so it'll look like jewelry. ;) John is so funny; since he was a butcher, he wraps any presents he gives like packages of meat. It saves tape, he claims - he only has to use one piece.
For dinner, John and I figured we could use a coupon from our Entertainment book to have dinner at Oggie's, a sports/pizza place within walking distance. Dad agreed to watch Avalon and Gareth, for the price of us buying him a sandwich. The food is good at this place, but all the television sets are kind of distracting when you're trying to talk to someone. But it was very nice just walking there and back together, by ourselves, something we don't get to do very often any more.
The next day, we went over to John's mom's house, ostensibly to pick up Angus, but also so John could put together a dresser for his Grandma. Avalon actually wore a dress - gasp! girl clothes! The kids and I went for a walk before dinner. Connie lives in a senior mobile home park in Long Beach. One edge of it situated on an extension of Alamitos Bay; there's a channel that leads over toward the San Gabriel River (but I don't think it actually connect with it, unless it does within that Edison power plant complex). The bank overlooking channel has been very nicely gardened, with paths leading through it and places to sit here and there. While the view isn't totally wonderful - the oil field across the channel isn't particularly picturesque, nor is the Best Buy and Ralph's grocery store across PCH - it is a good place to look at the sky, if we are actually having weather, and there are often water birds. I took some more kid pics, of course.
We meandered back through the park - some of those coaches have interesting decorations - and back to Connie's house, where she served a meal that would given any Atkins dieter the shivers: lasagna, potato salad and garlic bread. Then she pulled out a gigantic cake from Costco, and more birthday presents. Gareth got a set of fake McDonald's food, so he can pretend he's working the drive-thru (his brother picked that one out)- and some plastic bowling pins, and she gave me a bright red purse and matching wallet, with a scene of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger embossed into the fake leather trim, and more fake leather lacing up the sides, which she gave me with the remark"well, I thought you'd like these because I know you like Pooh." Not that I'm ungrateful; I could use the new wallet, since our neighbors dog Bentley chewed the corners off mine when I dropped it in the alley a few months ago. But wherever did she get that idea I some big Pooh fan? I have one T-shirt with a tiny Pooh embroidered on it - which, now that I think of it, she gave me. Angus had quite a few Pooh things when he was a baby, but they were all given to us. Well, next time we go to Dismalland or some other crowded place, I'll take it so I can wave it around if someone gets lost. "Hey, over here!"
She sent the rest of the cake home with us, but it was still too much, so I took it to work and left it in the breakroom the next day. Phew, so much frosting! To tell the truth, I haven't been a huge fan of frosting since I took a cake decorating class when I was in sixth or seventh grade. I wound up licking so much off my fingers, I ODed on it. I think that's why I always preferred rhubarb pie to cake on my birthday.
I guess forty wasn't so difficult. We'll see how the rest of the decade goes. Thanks again to everyone for the birthday wishes.
The day was fairly quiet. Angus went to spend the afternoon and evening with Grandma and G.G.ma (John's grandmother), around noon. John's grandma sold her house in Texas, and will now be spending the winters with John's mom. She's been here for several weeks, but we hadn't had a chance to get to together yet. She was sick first, then we were all sick.
I spent a calm morning with Avalon and Gareth - it's funny how if one brother is absent, the other will play with his sister, but if they're both home, sister is icky. So she hangs on the outskirts, and finds ways to needle the boys if they're occupied with each other. While I was farting around with my email, John, Gareth and Avalon came in to give me presents; the kids, a refrigerator magnet that says "Garden Girl," and John gave me a little 128 mb Cruzer mini USB drive you can wear around your neck like a necklace. It's so cute; I'm thinking I should decorate it somehow so it'll look like jewelry. ;) John is so funny; since he was a butcher, he wraps any presents he gives like packages of meat. It saves tape, he claims - he only has to use one piece.
For dinner, John and I figured we could use a coupon from our Entertainment book to have dinner at Oggie's, a sports/pizza place within walking distance. Dad agreed to watch Avalon and Gareth, for the price of us buying him a sandwich. The food is good at this place, but all the television sets are kind of distracting when you're trying to talk to someone. But it was very nice just walking there and back together, by ourselves, something we don't get to do very often any more.
The next day, we went over to John's mom's house, ostensibly to pick up Angus, but also so John could put together a dresser for his Grandma. Avalon actually wore a dress - gasp! girl clothes! The kids and I went for a walk before dinner. Connie lives in a senior mobile home park in Long Beach. One edge of it situated on an extension of Alamitos Bay; there's a channel that leads over toward the San Gabriel River (but I don't think it actually connect with it, unless it does within that Edison power plant complex). The bank overlooking channel has been very nicely gardened, with paths leading through it and places to sit here and there. While the view isn't totally wonderful - the oil field across the channel isn't particularly picturesque, nor is the Best Buy and Ralph's grocery store across PCH - it is a good place to look at the sky, if we are actually having weather, and there are often water birds. I took some more kid pics, of course.
We meandered back through the park - some of those coaches have interesting decorations - and back to Connie's house, where she served a meal that would given any Atkins dieter the shivers: lasagna, potato salad and garlic bread. Then she pulled out a gigantic cake from Costco, and more birthday presents. Gareth got a set of fake McDonald's food, so he can pretend he's working the drive-thru (his brother picked that one out)- and some plastic bowling pins, and she gave me a bright red purse and matching wallet, with a scene of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger embossed into the fake leather trim, and more fake leather lacing up the sides, which she gave me with the remark"well, I thought you'd like these because I know you like Pooh." Not that I'm ungrateful; I could use the new wallet, since our neighbors dog Bentley chewed the corners off mine when I dropped it in the alley a few months ago. But wherever did she get that idea I some big Pooh fan? I have one T-shirt with a tiny Pooh embroidered on it - which, now that I think of it, she gave me. Angus had quite a few Pooh things when he was a baby, but they were all given to us. Well, next time we go to Dismalland or some other crowded place, I'll take it so I can wave it around if someone gets lost. "Hey, over here!"
She sent the rest of the cake home with us, but it was still too much, so I took it to work and left it in the breakroom the next day. Phew, so much frosting! To tell the truth, I haven't been a huge fan of frosting since I took a cake decorating class when I was in sixth or seventh grade. I wound up licking so much off my fingers, I ODed on it. I think that's why I always preferred rhubarb pie to cake on my birthday.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-19 04:20 pm (UTC)...and now you won't come to Texas any more!? I didn't even know you ever made it down here.
I'm glad you had a good birthday :)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-19 06:43 pm (UTC)The last time I got to Texas was in 1986, I think. We drove across country to clean out my grandmother's house after she passed away. We stopped in Amarillo at a restaurant with a giant steer out front, where it you could eat a 5 lb. steak they'd give it to you for free.
Have you tried growing rhubarb? I don't think it's too hard; I might try it myself this year. And it's a perrenial, so you plant it once and that's it.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-19 07:40 pm (UTC)We find the Mrs. Smith's cherry pie with natural juices to be perfect for the occasion and we don't even have to make it! The crust is a little salty, which balances out the sweetness of the cherries and tartness just adds an extra zing.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-19 08:21 pm (UTC)