Mea Culpa

Ok family, don’t feel too free to jump in and toss me under the bus, but I have a way with birthdays; mostly a way of forgetting them. Remembering birthdays is the most broken New Year’s resolution that I make, other than the whole losing 10 pounds thing. Sometimes, I look at magazines to store up good ideas for parties and vow that this is it! This is the year that I will make cakes of fondant and layers, that I will adorn our house with streamers and serve organic breakfast pancakes to the birthday child or spouse. That I will have cards on hand and lovely gift wrap ready to bedeck the thoughtful gifts that I purchased way, way ahead of time. So far, that year has not arrived. I have a sister-in-law who went to the “Martha Stewart School of Making Me Look Bad” who does all the fancy cakes and streamers and beautiful celebrations and I envy her talent and forethought.  (did I mention that she makes me look bad?) My mother is a wizard at parties and celebrations and you can count on her birthday cards to show up at least three days prior. But me, I am more of a text on the birthday of kinda gal. I’ll just say that this is my only major shortcoming in life and if you’ll agree, that would be great.

This year, I blew it worse than ever with my hubs. It started with the fact that he had to perform a wedding on his birthday, and our kids not being with us for the day, and me thinking that I would have time to shop on the way to the wedding, (I know, I know, call me crazy) and then me leaving his birthday cards on the dining room table as we rushed out the door. Then we stayed overnight, so I couldn’t make the cake until the next day, (homemade cheesecake, though) and then he had to work and I still didn’t have a gift, so I thought to myself, “I’ll stop on the way home from work to buy one.” Except then I forgot to stop and he never got a gift. I mentioned a few weeks later that I needed to get him something and he testily told me that I had passed the statute of limitations. What a jerk I am and so insensitive. I’m still getting him something; I just haven’t figured out what yet. Laters.

Sunday Drive

Did I ever tell about the time mom was hot-rodding our obese green van and we had a wreck?

As I recall, it was a Sunday morning and we were running late to church and as the pastor’s wife and kids, it was generally frowned upon for us to arrive after the singing started. I can’t really blame mom though for our tardiness as she had about a dozen kids (no joke) to get ready. So we all hopped in the green machine for our mad dash into town for service, flying down the Oklahoma thoroughfare with red dirt pluming behind and gravel spitting. Just after the bridge, mom lost control; we skittered and veered, did a slow and easy tip, landed on the side of the van and slid ever so neatly past a cattle guard and into a barbed wire fence. With a fence post punching through the side window, mere inches from mom’s head, we came to rest, suspended half on the road and half hanging off in a ditch, shaken but not stirred.

After a chorus of “are you ok’s?” mom started dropping kids out the window and we all climbed our way up the ditch to the side of the road to wait for a car to pass so we could get help. I can’t remember who picked us up, but I’m sure that he got more than he bargained for with all us kids crammed into his pickup. We made it to church only minimally late and any brownie points that were deducted due to our lateness were promptly restored when all the good saints heard about our harrowing experience. Oh, and by the way, did I mention when we dropped into the ditch, that it was rife with poison ivy? And that I was wearing a dress? And that all the flora and fauna came in close contact with my inner thighs and abdomen? (and arms, and legs, and hands and feet) And that I spent the next few weeks of my summer with the worst case of poison ivy known to man? In all the most tender spots. Laters.