Hey Nineteen

Last year I commemorated Frank's 18th birthday here, here and here. And now it's a year later. Funny how a year flies by.

The plans for the day include breakfast with the family (including cousins and grandparents), and dinner out at a Greek restaurant.

The cake? Once again, he said "surprise me." He really shouldn't do that -- it gives me far too much chance for mischief. So his cake this year...shh, don't tell him (I don't think he reads my blog)...isn't going to be a cake at all!

It's going to be PIE!

HB 2 HH

Happy ??TH Birthday to my Handy Husband.

His dad (the Handy Grandpa?) took us out to breakfast on Sunday. The HG quizzed him..."How old are you going to be?" And the HH answered "48?" With a question in his voice. Wrong! Sorry, that was so last year. This year, it's 49. But I told him, "If you really want to start subtracting years I'll go for that." I don't like those 5 - 0 numbers and would gladly go backwards a little bit!

But only for a few years. You don't want to go overboard with the subtraction. My mother was "39" forever, even when it was ludicrous. She covered up her birth year on her driver's license. When you're 59 or 69 or 79 and say you're 39... it just doesn't fly.

Now, my BFF, the opera singer, automatically subtracts a certain number of years off her age because that is what they do in that profession...lying about their age is a given. But it's a consistent number. And she can totally pass as the younger age!

At this point I'm still 48 but I reserve the right to lie about it in the future. Funny how this age thing turned around to be all about me, but as I always say, it's MY blog.

For my husband's birthday: he already got the Blu-ray player (and yes, he was delighted that it was set up for him before he got home).

And tonight, on his birthday, the concert we are taking him to is......

METALLICA!

And everyone else except me is taking the next day off.

...Winding Down

It's 4:20 so technically the party's over, but 2 guests are still here. One's sleeping over and the other one is Ern, so it's cool.

It all went quite smoothly. 9 tweenish boys plus 3 big ones (Frank and friends). The big boys were the most trouble! They decided to play along with Rock Band on their own instruments: bass and banjo. This irritated the birthday boy. Especially because the big ones weren't playing the same song! The tweens ordered them to stop and eventually they left.

The menu was: video games (Rock Band with 4 players, Halo with 8), pizza, soda, chips and cake. I'm not nearly as stressed as I thought I'd be. Sometimes you get high maintenance kids, or whiners, or sore losers, or mortal enemies who glare at each other across the room. This group was evenly matched, because I reviewed the guest list with Ernest and told him if they don't like each other don't invite either of them.

Since they were low-maintenance, I retreated to the den with the laptop, emerging only to provide food and do laundry. Yay, retreat. Boo, laundry.

Delayed on account of.....

The Birthday dinner has been delayed due to Guitar Hero. Yes, you've all heard about Rock Band in our house. Well, be prepared for GH anecdotes.


In the meantime, I'd just like to say: GO POPE! Love the RUBY slippers!

(Pause for a dinner break) We will not be baking cookies because no one is interested.

(Pause for another Guitar Hero interlude) "Soo much star power. Soo easy!" And soo Guitar Hero goes on and on. My first impression is that I like the Rock Band music better but we'll see...