The Cake is not a Lie

My middle child has her birthday today so of course making the cake was a key honor and duty I had today. Triple chocolate with purple frosting. It seems to have come out alright. There will be ice cream and, I believe, Chinese food tonight after I get home from work. Happy Birthday, my sweet girl.

Of course I have also been cleaning. Laundry and dishes are caught up, our bed is made, cat boxes are clean, extraneous sensitive papers are shredded. I’m getting somewhere. Still busily decluttering and organizing. Today I cleaned off the heater in our bedroom and made a start at the disaster by my side of the bed. I’m a nester everything I use frequently ends up in a pile, or several piles, where I can reach it.

I’m working on getting us on an even keel again. It’s finally working because I am only shopping for really specific things that we have thought about deliberately and decided we truly want or need. It’s nice. Retail therapy is not a good thing. That little boost only lasts such a short time and the money is gone forever and there we are drowning in STUFF. I am really enjoying making our house, ever so slowly, into a soothing, serene home.

But I have to get ready and go to work! It really is very odd loving my job but hating leaving home to go do it. I’d much rather stay here and work on the house. It doesn’t help that work is So Weird with no patrons in the library. I can’t wait till tomorrow when we have our trial run of outdoor browsing. I’m not sure how we’ll enforce distancing and all that but hopefully it will go well. It would be nice to see people again. Oh, and I got a late b-day present from my husband. He forgot he’d pre-ordered it so it was a surprize for both of us. I can’t wait to read it!

Birthday in Quarantine

Today our youngest turns 18. Wow. We’re here. This is where we are. We’ll have cake, ice cream, root beer, and pizza brought from far away since it must be Special Pizza. My husband will drive about 90 minutes round trip to have a Chicago Fire pizza popped in the trunk for our lad. We have a handful of small presents, a sweatshirt, a couple of books, and some expansions for a card game he has. The plan is to game tonight with our one virtual guest, a friend to all the kids who we include in our family games. I feel really bad that he won’t get any of the cake and pizza and such. That just seems monumentally lame.

We’ll be running Pathfinder Age of Ashes and I think we’re finishing the second module tonight, with any luck. It’ll be fun but it’s a weird birthday with no one coming over. I’m sure my mother will be upset that she can’t come, it’s one of the things she does, she shows up to important events with food and gifts. Normally, this kid would invite a few friends from school and they would play games and goof around. This year, and such a big year, he’s stuck with an immediate family party. I want so much more for him. But this is what we have.

He chuckled when I said I was afraid his birthday might be a bit lackluster. He said something like; “Gee, I don’t know why you can’t get me everything I could want in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. It’ll be fine! ” I might have previously had moments where I was afraid we might have spoiled the lad, not anymore, he’s so incredibly kind. Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet son. I wish for you a happy, healthy, wonderful life in a peaceful, healing world.

Thursday Thoughts

My son’s birthday is coming up. He’ll be turning 18 in quarantine. I’m doing what I can, got him a few presents and they arrived and are hidden. They aren’t much but they are what I can do under the circumstances. A few books, a sweatshirt, and I got him a special quarantine birthday banner and cake topper which should get here in time. Kind of an insane indulgence really, but he’s turning 18, I want to decorate and make it as special as possible. I’ll be making a cake and hoping to be able to get some ice cream too. He wants a certain kind of pizza and getting that will just depend on whether they do curbside pick up or not. We will be playing an RPG that day as per my son’s request. I will do whatever I can to make sure the snacks are epic. I really want to try to get the lad some Virgil’s Root Beer, it’s his favorite. We’ll see if I can manage it.

We’re having warm days and cool nights lately and we’re keeping a lot of windows open. That means the cats are now obsessed with bird watching. All winter they ignored the birds, pretty much, but the birds are more active now and the cats can hear them better and smell them. So now they are glued to the windows chattering at the birds. The dog is even more vigilant about defending our borders now too. She doesn’t like people walking down the sidewalk across the street, or being out in their yards, or other dogs existing. She pretty much hates all living things, really, so she barks out the window now whenever she sees dogs or people. At least she’s started ignoring the rabbits and squirrels for the most part.

Work is starting to ramp up for me as we scramble to try and pull together some kind of activities for summer reading. I’m doing ok, it’s just weird trying to plan to do a bunch of stuff with no in person programming. I’m trying to set up virtual book clubs, take home craft activities, and put together materials for those who want to take part in the fairy tale and ghost story writing contest I’m hoping will actually happen. I’m supposed to come up with prizes somehow too. EEEEEEEK. That’s definitely a tricky bit. I think I need to go hide in a video game for a bit.