Birthday Ramp-Up Friday Round-Up

My birthday is Monday so I’m trying to get in a good mood about it in advance. I’d say it was a big number but they’re all big numbers now. My inclination was to dummy up about it, wave it away, do a good old gosh-darn never mind. But then I thought no – it’s weird to be this old but it isn’t bad. It’s actually good.

The substitute dentist today was my age and had come out of retirement because she missed patients. Her gray hair was gathered up in a messy bun and she talked a mile a minute. I loved her immediately. She apologized when she recommended against my having the procedure that I’d come in for and then made sure I wasn’t charged for the visit. I worried that she felt sorry for me after I joked I’d need time for a fundraiser before coming back.

Swirl and Punch are having relationship problems. These center on who occupies which dog bed at night. We try to sort that out, ordering each to their designated bed but there is a complex weave to their relationship that we can’t see and will never understand. Like my mom used to say about couples having problems – “no one knows what’s in a marriage but the people in it.” Same with dogs, I guess.

The fool’s errand that is my annual spring gardening spurt is about to commence. I can feel the little seeds of hope elbowing each other and chortling under the surface at the idea that this year I will get it together and keep it together for an entire growing season. As if. I’m tempted to buy vast quantities of artificial flowers and plant them in coffee cans all over the yard – if I can’t be a gardener, I can at least have personality.

It’s Passover and we haven’t made a plan yet. I do have a box of matzo which is sort of the core premise of the whole operation. If I can score a jar of gefilte fish, I could manage everything else out of the fridge, I think. We even have a lamb shank bone in the freezer, it’s become a family heirloom. I’ll have to circle the Seder idea for a few days and then maybe come up with a plan. I asked my husband if it mattered that our Seder wasn’t on the first night of Passover and he said, “we’ll have it when we have it.”

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash