Friday Randomness

What’s new, Pussycat? Anything exciting going on? Interesting stuff on the internet? Stupid politicians doing stupid things, another mass shooting to piss us off and bring us further down into despair. Maybe Prince George got another tooth or Kimye said something arrogant.  I’m going to stick my head in the sand and ignore it all for the moment.

Ted and I celebrated 21 years together last week. Wait, no…it was our 21st wedding anniversary. We were clearly together prior to our marriage. He worked, I worked, and we went out for a lovely dinner in the evening. It was really nice, though the restaurant wasn’t firing on all cylinders this time. But it’s always nice to get dressed up and go out for a fancy meal, and spend time together.

Maya and I chopped off a bunch of hair.  I had 6 or 7 inches cut off, she had maybe 10 cut.  I think mine is perhaps an inch shorter than I would have liked, but rest assured, it will be an inch longer relatively soon.  Looking at their records, it appears I am so lazy that I only get my hair cut every 6 months.  Not good for the whole idea of shape and style, is it? Maya’s looks gorgeous.  She had a lot of split ends, and they’re all gone.  Her ombre is gone.  She looks more mature, less like a high school student, more like a college student.  That’s a good thing.

We celebrated the 4th with a small family bbq. I made a really good lamb kefta dog, for which I will provide the recipe soonly. SO GOOD. Maya went out to see fireworks with friends, Ted and I stayed home and watched fireworks on TV. We’re kind of late bloomers, as a family, to the whole ‘kid staying out late with her friends’ thing. I think part of that is because of the driving requirements in California. Minors have to have their license for a year before they can drive with other minors in the car. It seems as though a lot of kids these days aren’t in any rush to get their license, which pushes it back further. Maya got her license in August of last year, when she was almost 17 1/2. She can now drive with other kids in her car, because she turned 18 in March. So anyway, now that school has gotten out, and the stress of all of that is behind them, they seem to have plans almost every day. I think another part of it is that many kids are going away to college, so they are feeling poignant towards each other, feeling like they are going to disperse into the wind in their many different directions. And of course, they are. Thankfully, quite a few of Maya’s good friends are going to Berkeley, so they will be close.

Cramping her style and social schedule, but padding the pocketbook, today is Maya’s first day at her new job. She’s working in retail, which was her first choice. She’s hoping to keep the job once she starts college, though very part time. I agree with that. I think she’s starting to see what you can do if you have a little cash in your bank account, and that a job will take her further than the piddly allowance she gets from us.

Sitting on the sidelines of all of these changes is interesting. Probably not interesting for you, my poor readers, but it is for me. It’s strange to have my child come home hours after I’ve gone to bed. It’s strange to know that she and her friends are hours away hiking in the Santa Cruz mountains, and there was no need for parent involvement at all. It’s liberating for all of us.

We have some good friends, Paul and Marilee, who had tickets to see New Order in concert tonight, but now cannot use them. They gave us the tickets, so Ted and I will be going to SF for the concert. I seem to remember that we saw New Order in concert once before, many many years ago, and that they were kind of boring. Hopefully they will be good tonight…I like a lot of their music, and I remember being really into them in the mid to late 80s. Guessing the crowd will be mostly our age, which will probably make me feel kind of old. I was in my early 20s when I first got into New Order, and here I am, creeping up towards 50. Inconceivable. (I do not think that word means what you think it means.)

Reading has been hit or miss lately. I’ve had 4 library books, 2 of which I tore through in a day each, and the other 2 I couldn’t get into at all and gave up. Both by authors whose work I have really enjoyed in the past, so it’s a little disappointing.  Maybe I’ll write about those soon…nice to have some blog fodder, right?

LinkedIn suggested to me that perhaps I might know my mother, and that I should email her and ask her to connect with me there.  Wouldn’t that be cool?  To link up with our dearly departed through the ether of the internet, and keep in touch that way?  So much of my relationship with my mom was online anyway, with her living in Alaska and me in California.  We did talk on the phone, but emails and blogs were less expensive and provided different conversations.  I reported to LinkedIn that she has passed away, and they told me that at some point I had uploaded an address book, which I do not remember doing, and the email they had for her was not one that I had ever seen before (it was for a job she had, and I never contacted her there).  Anyway, I accepted.  I’ll let you know if she replies, thus ending the whole “is there life after death” debate once and for all.