A Blog Worthy Birthday

I'm not one to draw a lot of attention to my birthday, but today is worth recording here for a variety of reasons. 

It really started last night when we celebrated my birthday with dinner, present, and cake (YUM) because Jeremy had to work today.  Present was awesome!!  Dinner and drinks were yummy despite our waitress' listening difficulties and lack of follow through in the blue cheese department.  The cake was fabulous.  Red velvet with chocolate creme.  Did I already say YUM?  I was able to scarf it down despite Jeremy's claims that he can't "fit like a million candles on here so I just put 4."  Gee, thanks honey. 

Early to bed with a plan of early to rise.  Jeremy was up and out by 5:30 and we were fortunate enough today to not have issues with Saydie, our recently bowel and bladder challenged miniature pincher.....earlier this week Justin came up stairs carrying a piece of poop from the hallway.  Well good morning! 

So, thus far the birthday was going well.  It was only 5:30 am.  I had really, really, really good intentions of getting up and working out.  I figure I'm 34 and I probably ought to start developing a real game plan against flab.  But I didn't.  I went back to sleep.

At 6:15 am Leo came running up the stairs proclaiming in one run-on sentence after another "Thorry, Mom I peed my pants that's otay I need to wake up and tell you I need to go pee-pee thorry mom it's otay."  I always appreciate the efficiency of my 2 year old who can hold both sides of our conversation himself by reporting the accident, comforting himself, reminding himself of how to improve next time, and then comforting himself again. 

Fortunately he wasn't soaked so we headed to the bathroom where he INSISTED that I feel his underwear to prove he had peed in his underwear.  "Check it, mom.  CHECK IT!"  SUPER.  It's 6:15 on my birthday and I would just love to touch your urine soaked undies, Leo.  But of course I oblige his request, confirm the accident, hear a repeat of the "thorry mom, it's otay......" and off we go to the other bathroom to wash up, get clothes and strip the bed.

In my half-sleep half-hurried state I rip the sheets off and the corner of the mattress pad that is already torn gets stuck under the bed.  As I obliviously continue to pull it off the bed, I pretty much just rip it all along the whole seam thus rendering it completely unusable.  Good, I definitely wanted to buy a new mattress pad today. 

Justin wakes up during this process and we take a family trip to the basement to start laundry.  Oh what?  What is this?  I am out of laundry detergent.  That's about right.  Fortunately it's home made so I just have to scoop some out, funnel it into the jug, add some water, shake, and I'm back on track.  I feel obligated to fold the laundry in the dryer so finish up that quick chore and head upstairs.  The boys are requesting (I'll call it that) a movie so I grab "Griffin" which is a Scooby Doo about a large pterodactyl type thing that's named Griffin.  It's Leo's go-to movie.  Oh what now?  It doesn't work.  It won't play.  So I tried Toy Story 3.  Nope, won't work either.  So now our DVD player is broke since last night???  SUPER.

Thank goodness for DVR.  We head to the living room, find a recorded Batman and I head for the shower.  It's now 6:30 am.

Before I hop in the shower I decide to quickly weigh myself to reinforce that, in fact, I really should have gotten up early and exercised.  My scale shows and error message.  Seriously?  It refused to weigh me.  That's gotta be a sign.  I hear ya, Mr. Scale.  Reading your message loud and clear.  I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down.  I could feel its silent judgement for my lack of willpower.  Screw the scale.  I never liked the damn things anyway. 

I start my shower by grabbing the conditioner instead of the shampoo.  Really? At this point I start to get the giggles and I start making a mental tally of these things for what I now know is going to be a very blog-worthy day.   I figure it best not to push my luck at this point so I skip shaving my legs.  I want to live to see 35. 

Morning progresses.  I get my teeth brushed without incident, but when it comes time for make-up I hit another small snag.  I pull out my $3 clearance eye shadow pallet with about 40 colors and decide on light pink.  For some reason half-way though my mind wanders and I switch to a dark blue.  By the time I come to my senses my eyes are semi-striped in pink and blue and I'm sporting a bad 14 year old's make-up look.  I repeat the eye-makeup application and finished the morning without further incident. 

Work was work.  I was greeted with about 10 mini-balloons on my desk (thank you, Mary).  We had a meeting to review our compliance with federal and state mandates which we passed with flying colors.  Thanks for the vote of confidence, Cari.....not that a lack of confidence has ever really been a problem for me! I desperately wish I could blog about work, but HIPAA and the feds generally frown upon me sharing that info.  Party-poopers, that's what I always say. 

I really, really, really wanted to leave early for some "me time" but alas it was not to be.  On the upside, I won $15 on the random lottery ticket I purchased this morning while getting gas and I got a call from my world traveling (and living!) baby sis which really brightened me up in the mid-afternoon.  My super wonderful staff also got me an ice-cream cake which made the last hour or so of the day bearable!  Thanks girls! 

And by the way, did I mention it's freaking hot out today?  I mean, I don't find it to be unusually hot.  It's hot every single year on my birthday.  It is the end of July after all.  Every day the weatherman has to go on and on about the record breaking heat.  If we are breaking a record every single day shouldn't it be like 256 degrees by now?  What record are we breaking exactly?  That it's 100 degrees on a Thursday on an odd numbered year in the middle of a moon cycle? It's freaking July!  It's hot.  Just call it what it is.  Oh.....I have  digressed unusually far and for that I apologize.  It's been a long day.

I will simply wrap up the birthday story with 3 short events:

1. as we left the house tonight for Bitty Basketball my garage door broke (oops, I forgot to tell you that honey.  It's on your to-do list tomorrow along with buying a matress pad and fixing the DVD player).  I thought it was going to come crashing down on us because it made this huge noise.  So what did I do?  I yelled "Oh shit!"  And what happened?  I think you know.  Justin says "Oh shit."  I'm going to come in last or second to last in this year's Mother of the Year contest!  I'm fairly certain I can beat out the mom I met today at work.  She was special to say the least.
2.  I got a nice surprise by seeing an old friend at the Y tonight during basketball.  Brought a smile to my face....as did the Bitty Basketball events which tonight included two boys (thankfully neither were mine) kissing under the basketball goal during the game.
3.  For the last 30 minute of their night, the boys pretended to be Batdogs.  All communication was via dramatic panting and head nodding with the occasional break in character to ask for treats.  Some things never change.

And with that, I believe I will end my birthday at just a little after 9 pm.  Good night folks. I'm sure 34 will bring many, many blog-worthy events!

Cancer Benefit

Two weeks ago my wonderful husband, Jeremy, told me that we were invited to a Cancer Benefit.  Or at least I THOUGHT that is what he said.  It was $50 a couple.  Ever the perfectly organized wife, I wrote Cancer Benefit on the calendar and arranged a withdrawal of $50 from our monthly budget.  I then asked him where the money is going and he said to the food and alcohol.  Of course what I meant was to which charity was it being donated, but we got sidetracked and never finished the conversation. 

This past Monday on the way to my parents house, I asked him about the cancer benefit again and he said "why do you keep calling it that?  It is a cancer party.....like a party for the people born in June and July with the zodiac sign of cancer!!!!!"  We got a pretty good chuckle out of our miscommunication.  We later regaled my family with our funny little story.  Ha, ha, ha! 

Fast forward to Friday night. We are on our way to the cancer benefit....because I insist on still calling it that!  My sister called me and said she just heard a commercial on Hot 103 JAMZ for the Zodiac Cancer Party at 18th and Main in downtown KC.  First of all, I have no idea why Mandi was listening to Hot 103.  Let's just say it is most likely not her type of music, but really who I am to judge?  So I assumed she was playing a joke on me but she insisted that it was true and there was a possibility that the cancer benefit we were going to was being hosted by Hot 103 JAMZ.  And to make matters worse, the commercial said there is a strict dress code.  Great.  Jeremy was in shorts and a t-shirt.  I, on the other hand, was rocking my skinny jeans (thanks for the vote of confidence, Higgins) and a silk animal print shirt.  That's right, I am a brainiac and decided to wear jeans and silk shirt when it is 100 degrees outside. (wonder why my great-grandma always said Mandi was the smart one??)


So I was feeling pretty good about myself.  Feeling hot (no pun intended) in my cute outfit.  Winkin' at myself in the mirror.  Just kidding, I don't do that...my husband does though.   
 
We arrived at the benefit.  It is not the Hot 103 JAMZ party.  No, no it's not.  Instead it is a party in an art gallery in what appears to be a rundown area of downtown Kansas City.  It probably has a cute little name for that area of town but I live in the suburbs....and I pretty much stay there so I wouldn't know. 

Ohhhh, art gallery you might be saying to yourself.  Fun.  Fancy.  Wrong and Wrong.  It was a warehouse type building with no windows.  The door and the garage door were shut and there was NO......wait for it....freaking air conditioning!  That's right.  It's 100 degrees outside and a whopping 120 inside (said my internal thermometer).  And I am in jeans and a silk shirt.  Jeremy, while in shorts and a t-shirt, has a built in sweater of hair.  He is sweating through his shirt within seconds of entering the building.  I never sweat much at all due to my general lack of hydration related to my heart problems.  But I was moments away from sweat dripping down the crack of my ass.  You are welcome for the mental picture.

Jeremy heads straight for the keg.  I ask for water and am told.....wait for it...they don't have any water.  BUT I was generously offered a plastic cup of ice from the keg cooler (gag) and some water from the bathroom sink (double gag).  

We positioned ourselves in front of one of the 8-10 fans stationed throughout the "gallery" that are blowing the already hot air around the room.  Correction, Jeremy planted himself in front of one and myself and another couple tried to stand near him to see if we could catch any of it from around the sides of him.  Thanks honey.  After about 3 minutes I am ready to leave.  Jeremy on the other hand is ok to stay and chat with his friends.  I get that.  It's cool.  Ok, bad choice of words.  Rather, it's ok. 

No worries.  I'll just look at the boobs.  What,  you say?  That's right.  A large portion of the art on display are drawings of naked women.  Don't get me wrong, they were mostly tasteful and some of the non-boob art was actually really good, but if I wanted to look at boobs all  night I would have stayed home and looked in the mirror.  And winked at myself. 

And then there were the mannequins.  Naked female mannequins strewn throughout the gallery with the occasional purple crepe streamer wrapped around various body parts.  I am clearly not an artsy fartsy kind of person.  I'm plain jane.  I like normal food, bottled water, and air conditioning.  I like family pictures up on the wall.  I prefer boobs tucked safely into well-fitted bras.  So sue me.

So this plane jane told her husband that it was time to go.  Blame the bitchy wife.  I don't care.  I can own that role.  I play it well.  He obliged and we donated our $50 to Cheesecake Factory instead.

As Mandi put it:  "I have always hated cancer."