Teri's Birthday, Easter and Our Anniversary, April 1st, April fools day!!

Talk about the end of days, wow when all three of these come back to back to back strange things like total eclipses (April 8th) are happening.

Teri didn’t want me to invite any of her friends over for her birthday. She didn’t want me to invite them to go out to dinner either. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to celebrate her birthday.

About a month ago she talked about how she’d like to have a stone bath mat in the bathroom. So after years of not knowing what to get her for any holiday, I took it as a direct hint that I should get her one. I found it on Amazon and got her one of I hoped average size. A few weeks later she talked about how she loves Roy Kent on Ted Lasso and the T-shirts that have whistle printed on them. To the Bat-azon, Robin, Yes I cleverly paraphrased an original Batman series saying and paired it with Amazon which is where I went and found two different T-Shirts I liked for her. One with the outline of a face, another with just whistle on it. One came in on time, the other a day late, two points for best effort.

A few hours before we went to dinner Teri had second thoughts about spending so much money. Maggiano’s family style dinners are now up to $41.00 a person and the variety has been reduced. I’m leaning against the door jam between the dining room and the family room, Teri is in the chair off to my left. I look down at her and say, “I’m going to tell you what some of your birthday presents are going to be. Everyone has purchased a gift certificate for dinner tonight, plus the two we have in the china closet should come close to covering dinner. No one will order alcohol and that will keep the bill to its barest minimum. She agreed to go. Dinner for six was reserved. Amanda didn’t want to go because KJ might have gotten cranky and ruined the night. It was Teri, Me, Nancy, Nastia, Elena and Sean. We ate family style and when we ran low on a dish they bought us more. I tried to make sure we left with a large amount of the Chicken Picatta. We left with enough food for leftovers for two meals. I guess $41.00 a person wasn’t that bad. To top of the evening after the gift cards were taken off, the balance was $52.00 or so. Nastia, that crazy spendthrift kid paid for the balance. Nancy gave me cash for her meal and it was enough to cover an okay tip. So the night only cost birthday present money I spent.

Teri’s birthday was on Monday. Easter was the next Sunday and Teri and my anniversary was the first. Easter was the same crew as Teri’s birthday. We had Hama nd a very tasty pineapple casserole.

Sean woke up early on Sunday. Drove to his mom’s house in Orange County, had dinner there, drove back to Rockland to pick up Nastia and then drove three hours to the Poconos to an indoor water park. Teri and I used to go to the Poconos to the hotels with the heart shaped pools and saunas to go see acts like George Carlin and have a good time. That was BC, you know before children. They had a great time. They ate one night at an Italian food buffet. They left in the early evening on Tuesday and were home before it was too late that night, around 9-10 PM.It was good Sean and Nastia got home when they did, Cassie came to sleep with Teri and I and assumed Athena’s position up against Teri to the point I had three quarters of the bed.

On Monday to celebrate our anniversary, Elena was cranky to her mom. I’ve talked about her moods often and my response to her bad moods has transformed from anger to indifference to being overly affectionate. When she is a bitch and mouthy to her mother I will calmly ask her to do what her mother asked her to do and God help me I don’t know why she listens to me. I do get angry when she refused to feed the dogs for a week. I told Teri, “This can’t continue.” I march off to her room and tell her in a calm voice that she needs to feed the dogs. I was prepared that if she didn’t come feed the dogs to be at a complete loss as to what to do from there. At dinner for Teri’s birthday, she sat next to me and I thought there is meaning to that. A big factor in all of this might be that I’ve let her work on the Mustang without constraint.