A Weekend of Memories

I've been focusing on some positive things to get me through the weekend (after which I'll be having a very important meeting at Happyboy's school.)

So.  Here are my (mostly) happy thoughts... 

Today is the day (20 years ago) that Roffey proposed. It was my grandparents' wedding anniversary. (BTW, it was the smartest decision I ever made, saying yes even though he didn't have the ring yet.) We aren't celebrating it, but it always serves as a reminder of how long we've been together and what things we've weathered together.

Is it any wonder I said yes? He wore those jeans in the summer.  

Tonight, I get to see my amazing niece Joybabe in concert. Joybabe and Madlove are my oldest brother's daughters, and I have crazy, embarrassing, sloppy old love for them.  The universe has thrown a lot at them lately and through grief, stress, and too much adulting they have taken all the punches and still kicked the universe's ass.  Joybabe is playing the flute tonight, and helping to raise funds to support the arts.  It reminds me that she's growing up, and will be 16 in August, which is both inevitable and unacceptable(!), and that my brother would have been so proud of her for taking up her instrument again.  I'm proud of her, though her sister Madlove, who shares a room, does not have a mad-love of the flute. 

All the whackadoodles together.

And tomorrow, my family will gather together to send up balloons that we write on to my brother Jay, who would have been 46 years old.  It will be 15 years in July since he died of Meningitis, and still not a day goes by that I don't think of him in some way...as Lily says, "Uncle Jason is in the stars with Uncle Charlie and Grampa."  They're having a party up there.  Jay and I used to share our parties when we were kids, because we were exactly 2 years 1 month apart. I think some part of me is always subconsciously unsatisfied on my birthday, not because it wasn't great, but because there's a missing piece.  This year, Coffeeguy loved his birthday so much that he has taken it as a personal challenge to make mine amazing (more on that in another post), and my biggest fear is that I'll have a great time and still feel incomplete. Or, I don't know, maybe that I won't.  My birthday is always tied up in Jay, and our birthdays together, so that missing piece is kind of a reminder that he's still here inside my heart. (Don't worry, Coffeeguy, it's still going to be awesome!)

My brother's and my birthday.  [Side note: I know, today the feathered headband would be known as cultural appropriation--but it was the 70s, and also, we had a super-cool uncle who was a Wompanoag, so at the time it seemed more like we were being "cool like Uncle Ronnie" than anything else.]

So that's my weekend, after which we get to go up to Happyboy's school to address an incident that is too painful to write about right now.  How is your weekend shaping up?

Happy birthday to me! And shoe porn.

     Ok, it's been a few days, but today is a special day.  It's my birthday!  I am now officially "in my 40s."  I am not having a mid-life crisis; in fact I am unusually thrilled.  Despite the numerous things I suck at, I rock at birthdays.  This year was particularly awesome because my mother (oooh, she needs a pseudonym! But for now she'll just be Ma) took me shopping and bought me shoe porn! That's right, I said it.  Shoe porn.  I could spend every day looking at different shoes and have no remorse for wasting the time or that people are starving (ok, I'd regret that people are starving, and my money is definitely more likely to go in a collection basket than to actually BUYING the shoes, but if looking at shoes is my greatest sin, I'll take it.) 

     The thing about shoe porn is that the shoes that are hottest are just like porn stars...they're the ones you're least likely to get.  But my mom...ah, that woman...yesterday she bought me these red shoes that I have no place to wear, and it was glorious.  

With three kids, I drool over the reds and the blues and the violets, but knowing that I will only be able to buy one pair of shoes for the year (or two, or three) I opt for the black or the beige, that I can wear with anything.  More often than not that black has to double as a wedding and funeral shoe, and the beige covers everything else.  But red...every woman should own a pair of red shoes, even if it is only to walk around the house in them feeling pretty.  

     I put those suckers on immediately.  And yes.  I feel damn pretty.