zhie | Event!

They close the mall on Memorial Day. Who'd have thought?

Actually, this is the first year I'd ventured out for Memorial Day, being it normally was set aside for family celebrating, but due to other circumstances I was left to my own devices with Mark yesterday. So, we were going to wander the mall (mall was closed) and shop for books (Half Price Books was open, other stores closed early) and have dinner (Olive Garden, which was open, but almost completely empty... which did mean no waiting, first time that's ever happened).

I got carded at Olive Garden. That was awesome.

This was followed up by the lady at Walmart, where we stopped for packing tape and some movies, questioning my age because of the R-ratedness of the videos we were buying.

So, either the muses scampered on ahead, pulled the waiter and cashier aside and told them to do so as a self esteem boost, or, I'm aging pretty well.

People used to mistake Maggie for being older than me sometimes, and she's six years younger. Then again, people have thought I'm Jake's mom when we go places (I suppose the fact he's obviously younger and we link arms and stroll through the place is more a mom/son thing than a brother/sister thing? but, y'know, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, yo. Gotta stick together on the yellow brick road). So, I guess it depends on who you ask and who you're with and we had some really good wine last night. Still a little sleepy on that. Food was good, too, never made it to dessert. We're going to try to hit the mall today, after I stop into work (I took the day off, but there's an invoice haunting me that I need to take care of, and my students will want their grades posted), and then find belated dessert somewhere.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who offered their well-wishes both on LJ and off in IMs and on yahoo and in phone calls, to Aglarien who was so sweet and kind to gift this journal with a extra year of paid livejournal fun and extra icons *extra huggles and smoochies for Agie* and for the birthday cupcake ^_^, and to whomever helped Ress and Fin with navigating livejournal to send a little birthday wish --- love you guys! *HUGS!*

Dark had mentioned how I usually kinda shy away from the birthdayness, and that's true to an extent. I don't recall if I've ever blogged about it, but the reason for it is that right before my 10th birthday, my grandfather passed away. He died a week before, and the funeral was three days before my birthday. What was supposed to be this awesome 10th birthday was canceled (obviously) and instead of a party, I learned a lot about death, and a lot of things connected to that event -- like gouramis and ham sandwiches and balloons -- I connected with that time in my life, and one of those was my birthday. So when my grandmother, just about ten years later, passed away right before my uncle's birthday, I totally understood why he stopped really caring about birthdays anymore.

I mean, what's to celebrate when the great guy who took you fishing, built you a toy sailboat named 'ThunderCat Express' and taught you how to hammer nails, grow mushrooms, and thought everything was cured by pickle juice suddenly becomes a frail old man lying in a hospital bed with tubes up and in everything dies a week before your tenth birthday -- days after calling you into his room while watching 'MASH' to give you a cassette tape of Polish songs, a projector you played with as a kid, and to will his television to you, because you were the only one who really liked to watch all those reruns of war stuff with him? And then he hands you a savings bond and says, while grandma stands at the door, 'This is for you, because I'm not going to be here for your birthday'.

Grandpa fought in Korea; he went twice. He snuck in the first time, and when they caught that he was too young they sent him back. The second time in he was shot, and captured, and miraculously another group went in pretending to be the enemy and managed to save him and a bunch of other guys. Prisoner transfer, they lied. They flew him back over here, and he recovered and became an engineer, working in those boiler rooms of the public schools. And, he became an alcoholic, and while it's not a particularly noble trait, it happens, and it can be more understood in certain circumstances such as his (he always had Grandma drive him to bars, though, he never drove after drinking).

Man, I know how to kill a party, don't I? Anyhow, if you follow Bunniverse, you know a number of characters get traits pulled from people I know, and a lot of things about Grandpa have gone into Rog's character, and a few things got kicked over to others if they didn't fit. But I think now I'm starting to get back into the spirit over my own birthday, I suppose. Took twenty years, but I'm coming around to it.