I've never particularly thought that Ridley looked anything like her father. I always pictured her features to come from her mother. However, today I found a picture of Tyler taken in second grade. Coincidentally, Ridley just completed second grade. Look at those eyes! Look at those eyebrows! I may have to change my opinion.

And a Good Day Was Had By All . . .

Here's the postscript on birthday celebration #61:

I picked up Boston and Ridley at 9:00. Nobody in their house remembered it was my birthday. (Lesson One: Learn to be less subtle.) We headed to the Cleveland Zoo, stopping first at the Panera on Richmond in Warrensville Heights for morning pastries to tide us over. I splurged for the calories on a chocolate pastry, my absolute fave.

When we got to the zoo, the parking lot was packed. Who knew it was safety day and tons of day camp and day care kids would be there?! The good part was that there were lots of giveaways for the kids, which they proudly showed to the Jazzman and their parents when we got home.

Although rain was predicted, it turned out to be a lovely day, alternating between overcast and sunny. No sunburns—yea! The kids loved every animal they saw, especially the chipmunks running along the sidewalks and every songbird that wasn't in a cage and would land nearby! We even saw two wild deer eating 15 feet away from the sidewalk. They fed fish to the sea lions and nectar to the tropical birds. Boston looked at the zebra, standing about eight feet away and said, "They look so random." Where do these kids come up with their vocabulary?!

A trip through the gift shop on our way out yielded stuffed toys: a meerkat for Boston and a wolf for Ridley.

We stopped at Mavis Winkle's in Twinsburg for lunch at 3:00, then followed that with a quick trip into Dairy Queen.

We stopped by my house, where they showed the Jazzman all their treasures and we picked up the "Phantom of the Opera" DVD for them to watch at home. I ran them home, then headed back to my house.

The phone rang—my older son calling to wish me Happy Birthday. While talking to him, I prepared a pants pattern to be cut out today. Then I went upstairs to shower and change for dinner. My phone rang again and showed my NC cousin's caller ID. When I answered, it was my mother, calling to wish me a Happy Birthday! As she is in a nursing home/rehab facility right now, it's very difficult to get ahold of her. I told her I'd be down Monday afternoon to visit her, and she immediately turned to my cousin and repeated this news. Nice.

The Jazzman and I went to Lowe's to look at ceiling fans for the bedroom and the family room, then to Caffe Capri, where we like to sit at the bar and enjoy great Italian food. For me - a big salad and a glass of Pinot Grigio.

And all day long, as I walked through each activity, my phone would ping every fifteen minutes with at least three new birthday greetings. This is one of the things I love about Facebook, the way friends old and new, near and far, can keep in touch with each other's lives.

I had a fabulous day, thank you very much.

Secrets and Confessions

May I tell you a secret? I hate birthdays! No, it's more than that. I hate my birthdays. I hate expectations. If I could wipe out expectations, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Those expectations always lead to disappointment.

I pride myself on being a good gifter, as I've written about before. Unfortunately, that makes me expect others to give accordingly.

I've been in financial chaos for a long time. It's been months since I felt I could justify a manicure and pedicure. My last massage was a gift a year ago. Nothing would make me happier than a gift card for a manicure or pedicure or massage. Or a few skeins of Noro Kureyon #149. My needs are simple!

In fact, I placed that on my Amazon wish list so smart gifters would know my needs.

Actually, a really good gift arrived in the mail from PianoLady. A book about music and a book of music. Some Bach I've never played before. Now there's a person who knows me well.

I do love the greetings that come in on Facebook. There are no expectations attached, and it makes one feel cared for.

But the gifts? Oh, well. I'm practicing my gracious responses.

Boys in high school told me I was spoiled. I guess I am.

And I guess I am 61. Oh, well.

Ultimate Compliments

The Jazzman paid me a compliment recently, and it was one of the best (and most insightful) compliments I believe I've ever received.

We were talking about my oldest brother, who has a severely diseased heart. He is a transplant candidate, and lives now with the aid of an internal defibrillator and pacemaker. Tyler was asking how his uncle's heart got so bad. I replied, "He got Daddy's heart."

The Jazzman quickly chimed in, "No, you got your daddy's heart. Jerry only got his heart malady."

I was touched beyond words and will never forget those kind words.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, and buckets of gratitude to my Daddy. Your DNA isn't in me, but your heart is!

But It's MY Perception!

I perceive my beloved Daddy as having been unconditionally loving, accepting, and nurturing. I perceive my not-so-beloved Mother as having been critical, rigid, and never satisfied. That's my worldview, my Weltanschauung. I've lived with it for 61 years (next week), and you haven't.

I've carried around my baggage of being unloved and unlovable. You haven't. I've developed habit patterns to try to jump through the appropriate hoops and behave in a way that would make me more capable-of-being-loved. You haven't.

<Tangent On>
My first marriage lasted for ten years. Ten miserable (my perception) years. I knew two weeks into the marriage that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I begged my husband for us to go to therapy. "No, we don't talk about our private problems." Three-quarters of the way through the ten years, I suggested/begged that we go to a Marriage Encounter weekend. He refused. Finally, after ten years, and after I told him I wanted a divorce, he acquiesced and said we could go to Marriage Encounter.

The best thing I took away from the weekend was this statement: "Your feelings are not right or wrong. They just are."
<Tangent Off>

I've just spent three-and-a-half days with my sister-in-law. We have known each other for 44 years. She is four years older than I. She's smart, talented, accomplished. She's been the general manager of several software companies. She's skilled at project management and knows how to get things done. She's sat on numerous boards and is highly respected in her community. She's neither afraid nor hesitant to tell you what she thinks, whether you want to know or not.

I don't feel love for my mother, who will probably die within the next six months. I respect that she sacrificed a lot for me. I appreciate being adopted into a family that was able to recognize my musical talent and financially afford all the music lessons, the purchase of the accordion and clarinet and oboe and organ and piano. I appreciate all the schlepping to piano lessons and sewing lessons and so on. I try to treat Mother with respect, as I feel she deserves that. But I don't feel love for her.

To tell you the truth, there are times I question my ability to feel love for anything or anybody. It's almost as if it were bred out of me by her critical and demeaning words and actions. Thank [YourDeityOfChoice] for my children, my grandchildren, my Good Husband, the Jazzman, and certain special friends, thoughts of whom remind me that I can, actually, feel love.

What's my point? "It is what it is." I don't feel Mother loved me. My sister-in-law talks about how much Mother loves me and cares about me and looks forward to my visits. Whatever. For me, that's a fiction. It is not reality. In any event, it is not my reality.

You're welcome to say, "I'm sorry you feel that way." "I'm sorry you never felt loved by your mother." "I'm sorry you had to struggle your whole life."

You're not welcome to say, "That's just wrong." "You're wrong."

I'm not wrong in my perception. It's my goddamned perception. I may not like it any more than you do, but that doesn't and cannot negate it.

It's neither right nor wrong. It just is.

Life Cycle

Molly and I sit across the room from each other. Mother's bed lies between us such that we can't see each other. She reads a bridge guide, expanding her knowledge of the game. The playlist Jim loaded on her iPod Shuffle plays in her ear, and she occasionally sings along. A novel about a knitting group plays in mine, as I work on a cotton and silk summer scarf. Mother lies between us. She is completely "out of it", in a deep sleep. I cannot rouse her. This woman who loves food more than air will not wake herself enough to eat. If I get a straw into her mouth to try to hydrate her, she locks her teeth around it. If I drop some water into her mouth, she will not swallow.

Maybe it's the trauma of the surgery. Maybe it's the Percoset before this morning's physical therapy. Whatever has caused this coma-like state just results in her not being able to focus her eyes when she opens them, in her not being aware of her surroundings or willing [able?] to exert any effort.

The doctors have told us to expect her death in the next six months. Broken hips at an advanced age are the great predictor of oncoming death.

But she's lived a long and full life. She has held positions of leadership in her church. She drove her car up into the mountains to her beloved cottage until she was 95. She has sat on the floor and played "Tammy's Store" with her grandsons. She has a sweet disposition and everyone who knows her, loves her And she's NINETY-EIGHT years old.

I hope she knows that when she's had enough, she can go ahead and leave.

---

Sweet story: When Scott began talking, instead of "Grandpa", he seemed to reverse the syllables so it came out PA-gram, which became "Pakum". "Grandma" came out "Tammy". Their grandpa loved his name, but "Tammy" - Not so much.

Her reaction was, "I'm not Tammy, I'm Grandmother." Harumph! But when she played Store with Scott and Tyler, it was "Tammy's Store" that Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith would visit.

Customer Service

When Molly and I arrived yesterday morning, Mother immediately volunteered, "I had the meanest nurse!" We wanted to know what the nurse had done that Mother had perceived as mean.

"She walked in here, said, 'Are you alright?', and left."

We asked her what she had answered. Had she said she was okay? "Yes", she answered.

Okay, so what was she expecting? I guess she was expecting someone to hang around and entertain her. And the lack of meeting that expectation equaled poor customer service.

Yesterday was a very long day. Having originally been told surgery was scheduled for 3:00 and that she would be taken down to the OR suite around 1:30, because of the difficulty of the previous surgery, she slid to 6:00. But she slid about 15 minutes at a time. Visibly anxious, Molly and I had to resort to songs and old stories to keep her mind off the delay.

The meds she was being given caused hallucinations, which included thinking my cousin would remember our greatgrandmother, who died decades before our births, and asking if we had gotten the axe out of the attic of the house she owned three houses ago!

By the time she was ready to go into surgery, the one mean nurse had multiplied—now there had been two mean nurses!

The moral of the story? If you're nice and go a few steps further than required, you'll make a good impression on your client/patient/friend.

Today's pictures? At the top, you can see her death-grip on the PCA pump. She's not letting that thing out of her hand. She says she has no pain so long as she's lying still. The physical therapy techs will be here in a few minutes, and we expect to hear some screaming as they attempt to get her to sit on the edge of the bed.

Picture two is the X-ray showing the fracture.

Picture three is one of the four images showing the hardware she now will carry with her for the rest of her life.

She is alert and awake this morning (although dozing as I write), and her sense of humor is active. We are very lucky—I wasn't sure I would see her today!!