It’s the mourning after my birthday.
I got hot fried eggs and hot green tea (w/lemon: brandname: Heath&Heather) this morning since I wasn’t allowed to be lazy anymore and sleep in until 8:30. Brian brings my breakfast to our room nearly each morning that he’s home (after I get the 2 out of the 5 kids off for school who go.) Maybe it sounds like I’m spoiled but he gets a handsome return on any breakfast-bringing deposit he makes. Don’t feel sorry for him. You would be wasting your feelings of ‘sorryness.’ The relationship is mutual.
This is my first morning of officially being #$@ years old. Dude.
But I’m not sure if I really am #$@ years old because it’s still morning here in Africa and it’s still night in America. (On my birthday.) So in America - I’m still #$! years old but here I am #$@ years old.
I don’t know if I should still be celebrating.
Or mourning the ugly reminder of another year of less supple skin.
I tipped a guy at the hoteli (that’s African for a place to sit, wait an hour & a half, eat bland food, pay little & leave) a ton the other day. I had gone there with my 17 yr-old, Bryanne. And he was quick to mention that he couldn’t tell which one of us was the mother. (good boy, good boy.)
“One of you is surely not the mother,” he said.
“You must be sisters.”
I tipped him enough for a month.
The drink guy came over to the table when he saw what was going on (to get in on the take.) He was doing good for awhile - I’ll give him that, but then he made the fatal mistake:
“They look like the same age. But (short pause) I know how to tell which one is the older. It is that one (he pointed at ME - ah, the horror!). I can tell because you can see that the skin . . . is somehow . . . getting tired.”
I skipped without paying my bill. That’ll teach him. [okay, okay - so I paid my bill. But he didn’t get a very good tip.]
Friday, November 17, 2006
Game Winners
Yahtzee Bryanne
MasterMind Bryanne
Egg Race Brian
Water Balloon Toss Brian
Hot Potato Heather
Musical Chairs Jordan
Battleship Tayte
Jenga Jordan
BDAYcards
I got some more homemade b-day cards this year. My favorite kind. I have a box-full of them in our garage in TX. Collected them over the
years.
I like them.
Tayte says that’s what I should expect to get when I live in Africa and all of the cards here come with big, plastic flowers on them saying ‘sympathy’ or “Good Luck on Your Exams.”
I did get a Hallmark card, though. Got it in the mail.
The day before my bigday. Purple envelope. Said Hallmark on the back. I cringed as I opened it fearing the disappointment of doing so only to find out that the person just used the envelope and sent me something else instead. But it was true. A real one. So crisp. And with no typos. One of these days I’ll post some of the most common typos found on Kenyan cards.
Katerisha got a bday card yesterday as well. She is my 5-year-old daughter who has a bday in June. The card was from a company in the States who must have inputted our bdates wrong.
I better get a card on
her birthday.
My brother sent me an email on my birthday. It said,
“Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday to you.
You know the rest.”
Then he signed his name.
Tissue?
