Author: Karen

Another reminder that life is passing by … and accelerating with each passing year.

Why do these things keep happening so fast?

I swear, I just had a birthday like two weeks ago.

I’m 47. That’s three years from 50. I don’t know why that number freaks me out so much but wow … 50. What, exactly, do I have to show for it?

Save for the awesome husband, the wonderful children and a box full of vacation photos?

Anyway …

I woke up Friday morning to a new Virgin Mobile HTC EVO 4 cell phone. I’ve been fighting getting a “fancy” phone for years – mainly because – nobody ever calls me. I rarely use my phone for the phone function, why would I ever use it for anything else?

(Pst – I just received this hard cover for it yesterday – LOVE).

But Kevin has been pretty determined to “upgrade” me for quite some time now, so yeah, I’ve entered the 21st century, ya’ll.

Me + a camera phone = trouble.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do anything but admire the box – I had to go to work. (I know. I was surprised that the clinic didn’t shut down for my birthday, too, meanies).

When I turned the corner and saw my desk. I laughed. I had a feeling the girls had something up their sleeves and crap, they figured out it was my birthday. My desk was decorated and they had brought food.

I blushed. “I knew it!” I said and they all started laughing. That was precisely what one gal said I would say.

I guess I’m not as original as I think I was.

It was a great day. We didn’t have any doctors in and that meant we could all relax a bit. We all still had a lot of catch up work to do, but at least we weren’t being interrupted every five minutes with a patient in our faces.

The girls and I already made arrangments to have drinks and appetizers after work, so at 3:30, we all changed our clothes and clocked out at 4:00 to make the happy hour at a local restaurant. The weather was beautiful and we opted to sit outside on the patio.

I had two Flirtini’s. Which was a martini with raspberry juice, lemon juice, champagne and other stuff that escapes me. I’ve never had a martini, of any sort, before in my life and since I’m not exactly a veteran drinker (seriously, I’m such a liquor virgin), I had no idea what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t as bitter as I thought it would be and I had quite a buzz after drinking just one. We ordered appetizers – I had some sort of medallion meat dish with fried spinach – seriously – FRIED FRESH SPINACH – and it was DELICIOUS. That pretty much killed my buzz and after my second drink, I was so relaxed and mellow … why haven’t I been doing this all along?!?

I’m totally going to talk Kevin into meeting me for happy hour after work periodically.

The restaurant was NICE. Like FANCY NICE. I’d love to go back and have dinner there sometime, but I’m not sure I would be able to allow myself to pay their dinner prices. The happy hour prices were expensive enough, I think I might have a heart attack if I saw their dinner menu.

I was home by 6:00. The guys had already eaten and though they saved a bit of Chinese food for me, I didn’t eat anything. I was pleasantly full and feeling no pain.

*smile*

Supposedly, the girls had no idea it was my birthday when we planned the night out, but it was perfect timing and it was really fun to get away from the stresses of work and let our hair down a bit. These girls are pretty awesome and I’m grateful that I like the people I spend most of my days with – day in and day out.

I was pooped. I went to bed around 8ish because I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. I don’t know if that was because I was so relaxed after two martinis or what, but I honestly couldn’t focus or form a coherent sentence.

I crashed. I’m such an old lady.

Saturday, we met my parents at Whole Hog Cafe for lunch. (One our favorite places to eat – their pulled pork sandwiches are SO YUMMY). It was a really nice lunch. I hadn’t seen my parents in quite a few months (and get this, we live in the same city – how sad is that?!? That’s a sure sign that you’re too busy with life).

We had lunch to actually celebrate all three of our birthdays: mine, Kevin’s and Dude’s. In fact, Kevin and Dude’s birthdays are TOMORROW. And I have NOTHING done yet.

Which means, I need to get my butt in gear and get busy.

Have a productive Saturday, ya’ll.

When our boys got close to driver’s permit age, I told Kevin, “I’d like to buy them a nice, slightly-banged up car to drive.”

The reason I wanted to do this was so that they wouldn’t learn how to drive in my car. I like my car. I like that my car has very little dings in it. And I knew, if they learned to drive in my car, I’d be a nervous wreck and would likely make them nervous while learning thereby increasing the odds they would hit something … or someone.

So. We shopped around and bought two used cars for them. (Actually, the cars are ours – they’re allowed to drive them and if/when they get jobs, they can either buy the cars from us, or buy their own cars).

Dude drives a ’99 Chevy Cavalier and Jazz drives an ’04 Mazda Protege. They’re decent cars and they both look pretty good (though they’re parked outside and are starting to fade – boo).

The boys share a driveway we built at the back of our yard. Kevin was out mowing one day and I was getting ready to leave for … some reason, I forget, and Kevin calls me over.

“Hey Karen, come look at this.”

He was standing by Jazz’s car and my stomach dropped. I had a feeling what was coming.

“Notice anything different?” He nodded toward the back panel of Jazz’s car.

I saw it immediately.

“Wow. That’s quite a scrape.”

Jazz obviously hit something and the scrape stretched from the back door to the trunk.

“What do you think he hit?”

Kevin looked over at Dude’s car, which was parked next to Jazz’s and nodded again.

“I think I know,” he replied.

Though the damage wasn’t as bad on Dude’s car, it was there.

Now the question was, who hit whom?

I was strangely calm. A few year ago, I would have gone ballistic but I seem to be mellowing in my old age and besides, what good would it do to be upset at this point? What was done was done.

And this was PRECISELY why we bought slightly-banged up cars.

We questioned Jazz later that night.

“You’re not in trouble,” Kevin began, “but how did you get that scrape on your car?”

Jazz said he was coming home from a football game (he doesn’t play football – my boys hate sports – he was playing in the band) and he misjudged the distance. (They both back into the driveway, I don’t know why, really, other than the fact that it’s easier to pull out into the street as opposed to backing out into the street)

Plus. It was dark. Because it was at night. In case you were nodding off and missed that part.

“Did you hear that sickening scraping sound when it happened?” I asked. I hate that sound. It ranks right up there with fingernails down a chalkboard for me.

He cringed. “Yeah. And I sort of freaked out.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kevin asked.

He shrugged. “I figured, why? We couldn’t do anything about it at this point.”

A chip off the ole block, don’t ya think?

Thank goodness for used cars.