How I spent the last day of my thirties..

1. I took care of smallish children and animals, keeping them fed and alive.

Literally. Like Tallulah walked out the front door and I heard it with my mom ears from the other side of the house. And then for reasons unknown to anyone but herself, I saw Annabelle in the backyard, in her swimsuit with bungee cords belted around her waist and then stretched to the door of the chicken coop. She was trying to move the coop like she was an ox and damn near tore the door off. Meanwhile, the chicken eating dog is standing next to the coop salivating. Sometimes it is hard for me not to say "what in the hell are you doing???" So I just opted for the tried and true "stop that this instant you're going to hurt yourself and the dog is going to eat all those chickens."

2. Talked to my parents on the phone and heard how my dad didn't put the car in park "ay I don't know what I am going to do with him, and I say Keen, what are you doing, you are going to kill us, but does he listen? no'mbre. I mean my illness was physical, but this? How do I fix this?" Later on when I got out of my car, I couldn't turn it off because I forgot to put it in park, and when I told her this " ay, see? You get it from him and you are not even old. Pay attention mija you have my grandchildren in that car."

3. I bullied people perhaps unnecessarily. The city is replacing a sewer line and in doing so had to take down a section of my very nice fence that we bought and had installed by a fence professional. The guy was getting out the claw end of his hammer when I stopped him in garbled Spanish, asked to talk to his boss and then proceeded to tell his boss something like this, " let me tell you something, you may think in your life you have seen pissed off, but let me assure you, you have never seen pissed off until you have seen me pissed off" etc. I am not exactly proud of that, but it was the city and they were about to destroy my fence, and now I have become they reigning crazy neighborhood fence lady, protector of the fence, a title previously held by a Miss Rita Hartman, my back neighbor, but one that I now wear with honor and understand because fences are expensive.

4. I waited until the last minute to do my cles and heard something that sounded like this:" and basically puts the onus on the parties whereby that particular issue subject to the board.... That recommendation becomes prima facie evidence..." God I wish I had a Busch lite and a car full of hungover people heading to the Guadalupe instead.

5. I hung out with my college friend. We went to Lubys for lunch.

6. Then I made my own birthday cake 'cause lord knows h wasn't going to do it and while I was at it I decided to make him some egg salad since we have about a million eggs and he was been working really late lately.

But oddly enough, he had been craving it made himself some at work....weird...

I think it all pretty much sums up the decade.

Sigh...

Annabelle is going to be six in a week and a few days and today I found myself thinking of something that hadn't really crossed my mind in these past 6 years, until today.

When we brought her home, we went through all the typical new parent stuff, but one thing we didn't realize was how much stuff we were going to get. I am not talking about hospital freebies-- I am talking about gift baskets and flowers. We probably brought home 5 baskets from the hospital and then they just kept arriving. Almost every day for about two weeks the doorbell would ring and there was something. Lou malnati's pizza from Chicago from one of Hyphens co workers, flowers from his office, flowers for my mom, a huge gift basket with food from his meat supplier, another basket from his boss's old partner, it went on and on and it was a wonderful outpouring of love--for Hyphen.

My coworkers came to see me, which is more personal and brought me food, which was wonderful and very appreciated. But as public servants, we didn't really do flowers.

Then one day the doorbell rang and there were some flowers for me. A bouquet that was in a ceramic baby bootie. It looked exactly like the one my mom got when I was born, that she had kept all these years and had given to Annabelle at the hospital, filled with flowers, and we both commented on it. "Now you have one so your next baby can have one too and then they will each have one to give to their little girls." My mom--always thinking ahead. I was just thrilled, because I really do love flowers.

The sender?

Judge Fred Edwards.

I am not sure if I ever wrote him a thank you note.

Thank you, judge. The next one's on me.