Happy Birthday, Papa!

Good morning! It is a beautiful day! It is currently 49° with 68% humidity. It always amazes me how differently  49° can be at different times of the year. In the winter, it feels positively hot. In the summer, it feels rather chilly. Right now, it feels just right. Actually, I hadn’t really considered 49° before but I have 50° and there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two.

Today is Papa’s birthday. It was always fun when Alisha was little to watch them interact. Because Alisha’s birthday is May 31, Papa would always tell her that he was only ten days older than her. She would get big eyes and say, “Really?” And she was so proud of the fact that Papa was only ten days older than her. I’m not sure how old she was when she realized that he was sixty years and ten days older. Really, what a nice birthday present for him: his oldest great-grandchild born only ten days after his birthday.

Yesterday I got some things done but not everything. I got the floors finished (and of course a dog pooped and peed in the library during the night or this morning) and the dining room slightly rearranged. I took Seth to get his glasses in the morning and then to school. He’s happy to be able to see again. I did not get the crate out for the kids. I did not pick up Amena’s papers and drop off the other one she needed, but Joanna did. I called the pharmacy so that we can get a new inhaler for Amena.

Joseph said, “Please pass the milk.”

I had a bite of cereal and typed a few words and gave him the milk: “Here’s the milk!”

“I asked for it ten years ago.”

I looked at him and said, “So you’re 17 now?”

“No, I’m eight.” He won’t really be eight until August but then he said, “How old is Daniel?”

“Daniel would be 17 now.”

“So I’m older than him because I’m 18.”

Hmmmmmmm. Okay.

Conversations tend to be somewhat interesting around here most of the time.

Since Laura dedicated Nightfall to Daniel, Cedric thought that she should dedicate one to him. So yesterday afternoon Laura said that Cedric, Seth and Joseph are in the book she’s working on right now. Cedric wanted to know if they have their names and Joseph thinks it’s pretty cool. Laura said, “Nah, they don’t have their actual names. Cedric’s person already had a name, so I gave him two younger brothers and I just wrote the first part with them in it.”

So of course Cedric wanted to know what his name is. It is Eneko.

And hold old he is and if he acts like him. Well, about the same age and he doesn’t always act like Cedric.

I think Cedric’s cool with it all. I think he really likes the idea of being a character in a book. Not everyone gets to be, after all.

Today I have much laundry to fold. Other than the stuff all over the floor in the boys’ room, laundry is all washed and dried. I will probably go get some of what’s on the floor and get it done today but probably not all of it. I also need to get that crate out. And call the pharmacy back to see if there is an inhaler for Amena to pick up. She’s going to New York City tomorrow for school and it would be nice for her to have an inhaler if she needs it.

Yesterday afternoon I went out to get rhubarb from the garden and when I brought it in, Joanna asked if I was going to make strawberry rhubarb pie. Well, I hadn’t been planning on it because I didn’t have any strawberries but Joanna had gotten some at the store so I said I could. I used up all her strawberries and about seven cups of rhubarb and made a 9x13 inch pan size ‘pie’. It turned out pretty well but not until too late for the sister missionaries to have any before they had to leave.

For dinner we had macaroni salad, bread, and sausage. I cooked some sweet Italian and some hot. Paul wasn’t thrilled because there were no peppers and onions to go with it. Not having grown up with much of the food to which he is accustomed, I still do not know everything that he likes to have with certain things. There is almost a ton of bratwurst in the freezer and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it. He loves it but the couple of times that we’ve had it, I wasn’t thrilled. I don’t remember what the children thought of it. Never when I was growing up did we have sweet Italian or hot sausages so there is no way that we had them with peppers and onions. I’m not sure how crazy I am about the idea of having sausage like that anyway—it just seems like it ought to be cooked up like hamburger with beans or spaghetti. Anyway, such is life.

Other than the other things I need to do today, I would like to get the book finished that I wanted to finish whenever it was I wanted to get it finished by. It’s a short book and I think I’m at least half done so it shouldn’t take long. And if today is a good day to pick up a rototiller from the Armstrong’s, I’d like to do that as well. Plus I need to pick Amena up from a friend’s house in Barre this afternoon and take her to the triplets. She is staying the night because they have to leave from the school at some ridiculous hour like 4:30 in the morning and it just made sense to do that. I’ll pick them all up when they get back at around 10:30 tomorrow night.

And I think that’s about it for today. Have a wonderful one!