IT'S MY BIRTHDAY AND I'LL BLOG IF I WANT TO

I have been trying to blog for lo these many days, but everything has conspired against me. Mainly that silly job of mine. But today is my 52nd birthday so I get to do anything I want, and oddly enough, what I want to do is blog. So here I am.

And it’s been quite a day so far, not only because I had to contend with all the usual birthday issues, but also because tonight is the big PROM. And we all know the agony and ecstasy associated with that glorious event. I love all the hoopla, but I could do without the panicky moments. Like that time the hairdresser ran late. Or that time the big sequins kept dropping off Emily’s dress faster than I could sew them back on. And of course, we’ll never forget the nail fiasco of ‘08.

But the whole thing is a little like child birth...you know how once you’re holding that sweet little thing in your arms, you somehow forget all the pain, or at least some of it. So when I beheld those sweet young things in their big frothy dresses, with their up-dos, and their freshly french-tipped nails, I just somehow forgot all the pain of the preparations...and all that Lamaze (sp?) breathing I’ve had to do, or at least some of it.

Of course this year we did have everything pretty much on track. The dresses, shoes, jewelry, hair, nails, flowers, limo, and last, but not least, THE DATES. All of the elements were aligned and ready for a perfect night, just like so many stars in a constellation on a clear summer night. And yes, you read right. Emily finally got her date. I never could get her to ask someone...she just wanted to be asked. And her patience paid off because a truly nice senior finally asked her...only a little last minute...and she was only a tiny bit pathetic in her eagerness to say yes.

But I can’t finish my Prom saga right now, or even tell you all my birthday news...because I’m on my way to the after prom party where Dave and I are working the money-blower machine until 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. That’s where I get to spend the rest of my birthday and there’s no where else I’d rather be, except maybe home in bed where all 52-year-old mothers belong in the wee hours of the morning. But the consolation prize is that I get to watch those kids having fun. And there are usually some pretty good snacks.

So I’ll try to get back to some regular blogging this coming week. Oh, and I had two bierocks for lunch today. My friend Angela brought me two bags of them for my birthday, and I wasn’t kidding when I told her that it was one of the best birthday present I’ve ever received! I really am sorry I harassed her so much about them last summer. But look how it paid off!!

SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE

I think Rachel is feeling a bit overlooked these days, with Emily’s graduation looming and us talking about college, college, college. It’s classic middle-child syndrome, and I am quite familiar with it since I was the THIRD GIRL in our family. I used to call myself the "also ran" and the "necessary evil" in my parents’ determined plan to have a boy. Someday I will regale you with the many slights and injustices I suffered (or thought I suffered) as a middle child, and I know you’ll look forward to that. But for right now, suffice it to say that I sent my parents on enough guilt trips by dredging up the past to understand where Rachel is coming from.

Please understand that I mostly teased my parents about stuff just to be funny and not for any nefarious purpose. Because bottom line is I felt truly loved...and sometimes that middle position is a nice, cushiony place to be. The truth is my parents made most of their parenting mistakes on my older sisters, and didn’t start spoiling anyone until my brothers came along. So pretty much I’m the most well-adjusted of the lot. And the smartest according to my mom. But none of that’s important.

What is important is that when Rachel tells me that I will do NOTHING but talk on the phone next year to Emily and NEVER pay attention to her, and when she says Emily will take ALL of their shared clothes with her to college, leaving Rachel with NOTHING decent to wear, I take it in stride. I understand. And I empathize. And someday I’ll get around to reassuring her, but first I have to get Emily’s graduation invitations ordered.

Anyway, I wanted to give you an update on Rachel since my last two posts were about...you guessed it...my OTHER children! I think that might be ironic? As fanatical as I can be about grammar, I’ve never been too clear on my English concepts. True confession.

So I haven’t had lunch yet today, but I will probably have leftover chicken rigatoni and some more blueberry yogurt.

YOU KNOW WE'LL HAVE A GOOD TIME THEN...

Earlier this week, I went upstairs to tell David goodnight, and since I hadn’t seen him much that day I stayed for a little chat, just like June Cleaver would. And this particular night he was MR. CHATTY. And for awhile he was quite diverting, but at some point the conversation veered away from his social life and that’s where he always seems to lose me. So I started inching towards the door (I’m done being June Cleaver)...and I thought I was being so surreptitious...but then he says to me, "You’re not a very good listener, Mom." Busted. And I can’t argue with him, because he’s right.

So then I spent the rest of the night feeling bad, and humming that "Cats in the Cradle" song under my breath. You know, the one by Harry Chapin where the dad is too busy for the son and after the son is grown up, he is too busy for the dad. I don’t want that to happen to me so I going to try to do better by David and listen intently to his detailed accounts of the funny shows and You Tube videos that he watches. From now on. And I’m blogging about it so I won’t forget.

Incidentally, I once saw Harry Chapin in concert and I don’t know too many people who can say that. My brother-in-law Dave took me, which is neither here nor there, but I mention it because Dave reads my blog faithfully and deserves a shout-out occasionally. And that reminds me that I got this brochure in the mail today from a law firm and in large letters on the front, they MISSPELLED the word "occasionally" and I can’t decide if I should drop them a note pointing that out. What would you do?

Okay, I’m rambling I know. And I need to get home.

Once again, a lady in my office offered me some of her lunch...chicken fried rice this time...and I couldn’t refuse. And it was delicious. I also had some blueberry yogurt.

ALL ABOUT EMILY

Emily can’t seem to get ready for school these days without mishap. Yesterday she burned herself with the straightener, and this morning she gagged herself with her toothbrush and actually threw up. Poor thing. If things don’t improve, I’m not sure how I can send her off to college.

I would blame her distraction on the stress of going dateless to prom but she keeps insisting that it doesn’t bother her. When I told her last night that I’d blogged about it and about how PATHETIC her prom pictures will be, she told me she has this diabolical plan to sneak into ALL of Koy and Rachel’s prom pictures. Which I’m sorry to admit actually appeals to me because it will make such a great Facebook album. The dateless girl in the background of every shot. Haha. I can’t wait. But don’t tell Rachel.

Anyway, Emily also told me last night that one guy actually told her he was GOING to ask her to prom but decided to ask someone else instead. Which makes this guy sound totally cruel, but I’m choosing to believe he’s just totally clueless. I think he thought the knowledge that someone at least THOUGHT about asking her would be a comfort to her. Silly, silly boys. I’m making a list of do’s and don’ts for David for when he enters the dating arena, and it is getting longer by the minute.

But the real reason I am babbling about Emily today, is because it leads me into the half-apology I need to offer to my nephew Ben. Because I kind of called him ignorant in yesterday’s post, and I hope he knows I was just kidding around. The bottom line is Ben is one of the smartest people I know, as evidenced this weekend when he told Emily in no uncertain terms, to quit giving the time of day to guys who haven’t been good to her in the past. Which is such a spot-on prescription for what ails her, that I am assured that IF an answer to my hive-condition exists, Ben will no doubt find it.

So I have some fun stuff about Rachel and David too, but it will have to wait.

I had a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats for lunch, and two Peeps for dessert.

LIVE LIKE PIGS, MOVE LIKE PIGS

I generally keep my Bible on the corner of my bed, because our king sized bed can accommodate such a thing and I find the handier that Bible is, the more likely I am to read it. Again, it’s all about being lazy, and I freely admit it. But anyway, last night I discovered that my Bible had slipped through that space between our mattress and our headboard. So I had to get my bulky self down on the ground and try to work my way under the bed as far as I could go, but I couldn’t reach the thing. So I went to Dave’s side of the bed and tried, but the Bible was just a tad out of my reach.

The good news is I was able to reach A LOT of other stuff that had migrated under the bed, including several other books, a pillowcase, some missing socks, a bottle of lotion, and an unbelievable quantity of dust. It reminded me of that time we were moving and my brother-in-law Phil was helping us pack. And at some point in the chaos he coined the now oft-repeated phrase "live like pigs, move like pigs." Since Phil is normally an exceptionally kind man with nothing bad to say about anyone, you can just imagine what provoked this brutally honest verbal assessment of our living conditions.

But anyway, back to my Bible problem. Dave came in the room at some point and offered his assistance. What I really needed was that cane of my mom’s called the "Golden Retriever" that had a grabby thing on the end, but I think my sister Sally got that in the inheritance. So I asked for a broom instead, but Dave could only come up with a hanger, and that did the trick. My Bible was retrieved, I read a bit in Colossians, and then went to sleep...effectively putting off worrying about the stuff under my bed until my Bible drops down there again.

So I promised a report on the kids this time:

Emily still doesn’t have a date to the prom, but she says she’s okay with going by herself. I asked her how she will feel when I post the pictures on Facebook and she is standing there in her fancy dress and shoes with her hair all done up, and beside her is...NO ONE. And she says she won’t mind. So my real question is, when a girl goes dateless, do the parents have to buy her a corsage? I mean I love her independence, but I’m looking off into the future now and getting a bit worried that no guy will EVER take her off our hands, and we will be paying for her cell phone and car insurance for who knows how long.

In other Emily news, she continues to be quite diligent in working on her scholarship applications. I help her sometimes, and I’m wondering if it’s a bad sign that we are always trying to figure out how to make her "look good" on paper. I mean, she’s surely a worthy candidate based on her various activities and her good grades. But it still seems to come down to a matter of marketing. So when the Kansas Grain and Feed organization asked her if she had any connection to the grain industry, we tried to think of some tie-in, but the only think I could think of was that she sometime eats whole-grain breads. So we had to say she had no connection. And I’m sure that’s not good.

Rachel played her violin for the American Legion last night and this was the first time she’d performed alone. She was pretty nervous even though I assured her that most of the people in this audience would be older and probably have some hearing loss...like her father. Which turned out to be true, and the bottom line is she did well and I think she enjoyed it. But the real bonus of the evening was that we all got to put our names in for door prizes, and so we went home with a can of honey roasted peanuts, a bag of peanut butter candies, and a Hot Wheels car.

Rachel is also busy preparing for her upcoming cheerleader tryouts and dance recital. She likes to move our furniture around and practice her routines, and then she forces us to watch her. One time I made the mistake of thinking she might like some "tips" on how to make her routines better. But I soon discovered it was best just to smile and nod while watching. Occasionally, it is okay to say "that looks good", but it’s NEVER okay to say "maybe you should change that jump to a kick." That kind of talk will get you in serious trouble.

David is still in recovery mode from his surgery. Like any smart kid, he’s figured out how to use this to his advantage, always getting out of chores but never missing out on anything fun. Makes a mother proud. So yesterday he asked me if we’re going to be in town this weekend, and I told him we might run down to Dallas for a few days since it’s spring break. And he got mad because Luis Sanchez had invited him to go to the movies on Friday night. And I know he just always prefers to stay home, but I still tried to send him on a guilt trip by saying, "Seriously? You’d rather stay here and hang out with Luis than go to Dallas with your family?" And he said yes. And I had to admire his honesty and his nerve. But then I sweetened the trip-to-Dallas-pot with the mention of a day at Six Flags, and was happy to see the scales tipping more towards family-time.

So I also promised a juicy story on Dave, but I can’t really think of any. Unless you count the day he told me about comparing butterfly times with somebody at the pool, and how I could tell by the little smile on his face that his times were better. Or the fact that he returned his parka to American Eagle because it had a broken zipper and the good news is he got a full refund, but the bad news is it wasn’t much money because he’d got the coat on the clearance rack. But the really good news is that the rest of us were glad to see that coat go, because it looked like something you’d wear on a trip to Antarctica, but he would wear it around here even when the temps were mild, and so it was starting to get embarrassing.

As for me, my health continues to decline. The hives have returned and seem to be getting worse. While in Oklahoma City this weekend, I was able to show my nephew Ben (who’s a second-year med student) a particularly large hive on my calf. This was after church on Sunday and I think he is finally appreciating the fact that I am something of a medical anomaly. Anyway, he seemed very concerned about my condition, but I could tell he was basically still ignorant when it comes to diagnosing people with hives. So now I’m wondering if med school is all it’s cracked up to be. But I’m not giving up on him. So basically my plan now is to hope he gets into some hive-diagnosing type classes soon.

Meanwhile, the trip to OKC was not a total loss. I got to see some of my favorite people dancing and singing in strange costumes. And I got to spend time with my nieces (and soon to be niece-in-law) recently home from Zambia, along with a host of other family. And I learned some interesting ways to act out "Sandra Bullock" and "David Letterman" in the game Celebrity. Furthermore, on Sunday, I got to eat at TED’S, LUSHBERRIES and SHLOTZKY’S. The whole day was thus....a dream sequence!!!

Finally, I cannot close without mentioning the newest addition to our family...my great nephew Deacon Price, who is ours by adoption. I hope to meet him soon along with my other nephew’s new baby...due any day. We are so blessed!

And I opened another can of that outdated chicken noodle soup for lunch today, but then one of our secretaries offered me some of her homemade hamburger stew and of course I couldn’t say no to that. And it was a good decision, because it was a GREAT stew! But it made me miss my mom a little bit.

THE RENAISSANCE

Sometime back in the summer of ‘98 (or thereabouts), Dave and I cancelled our cable television. This was not a ploy to force our children to get creative, play with each other, or explore the great outdoors. Instead, it was the decision of the ultimate in lazy moms. I simply did not want to monitor what the kids were watching. Thus began what I refer to as the DARK AGES of the Kurt family. Because the next 11 years were characterized by intellectual stagnation and widespread ignorance within our family. This is what happens when people are deprived of shows like Project Runway, American Idol and The Bachelor.

But after every Dark Age, there comes a RENAISSANCE or new birth, of course. And just as a glorious butterfly emerges from its dark cocoon, so we as a family have now emerged from our cave of ignorance. How could this have happened, you might well ask? Well, it all began on Black Friday of 2009. That’s when Dave popped out of bed at 4:30 a.m., and made his way to Target where he stood in line with a bunch of other crazed lunatics, just so he could buy a giant flat screen TV for an amazingly low, low price. And then we couldn’t very well have this giant TV with no cable, and besides my family was coming for Christmas and some of them feel very unsettled without ESPN on hand. And so the cable was ordered and installed...and the Kurt family had its NEW BIRTH. Yes, we can now converse with complete ease (and with complete strangers) about why that bachelor guy would pick Vienna over Tinley, or whether House will ever get with that hospital administrator. More importantly, we know all the ins and outs of curling and ice dancing, and could recognize Shaun White if we ran into him on the ski slopes. This knowledge is so liberating and make me feel at one with the world.

The only real down-side to our family’s renaissance is that I don’t have much to blog about now, since pretty much all we do is watch television. Bottom line is once we uncorked the dam, the flood was inevitable...and I am just as bad as my kids. I have completely lost control, and we all know it but we don’t talk about it openly. It’s not that I don’t have a lucid moment, now and again, and at times threaten to cancel the cable. But I see the mockery in their eyes. They know I am too weak to pull the plug.

So that’s about all I have for you today. Next time I promise some juicy stories about my dear children. Even if I have to make some up. In any event, I’m sure I’ll have something to report about Dave because he is the only one of us that hasn’t been swept into the television vortex at our house. He’s so strong, and it makes me a little bit sick. But that’s a whole different story.

And I had a bowl of Cheerios for lunch. I would have enjoyed it more if I’d had a nice banana to go with it. But someone has eaten all our bananas.