I Made Him Have a Happy Birthday

Toby doesn’t really care about birthdays. It’s just a lot of social obligation and hassle according to him. His birthday wish would be to be left completely alone in front of his computer all day.

This year I said no. I’m just not granting that wish. It’s no fun. We need more fun in our life. So in my passive aggressive manner I managed to pull off a half way decent birthday. I also probably will cause half of his clients to call up tomorrow morning steaming mad because he won’t get all his work done in time for their deadlines tomorrow. But you know what? Toby works EVERY DAY! It’s all about work all the time and if it weren’t for me and Net-flicks I don’t think he could hold a decent conversation any more. I am his life-line to the real world. And I think birthdays are important.

So I woke him up at the crack of noon (he works all night so he gets up late) and made him open his presents. I seriously had to bribe him with a cup of coffee first. I wanted him to open them yesterday but he refused. He didn’t even think he needed presents. What could I possibly get him that he wanted? Well, I was tricky and I got him four things that he actually found interesting. In fact, he stayed in bed for an hour or so looking at them. I got him the two Jason Bourne movies on dvd, a Kruder Dorfmeister cd AND a book of early California graphics. You know, orange crate art and stuff like that. He really liked the book.

Then I made some awful pancakes and we ate those. I let him work for a while after breakfast, because I’m not completely cruel (and because I had an hour and a half long conference call with the group I’m going to Paris with. Wooo! But I’ll tell you about that later). In the afternoon I picked his mom up and brought her over to our house.

I haven’t really been updating you on Toby’s mom but she is doing good. I’m visiting with her every other day and last week I actually took her to the beach. It’s a long slow process but I think we are both being very honest with each other and things are good. Anyway… I knew it would mean a lot to her to be with Toby on his birthday. It wasn’t exactly Toby’s wish to be with his mom but once she was here he was glad she was. Things are tough between Toby and his mom.

She couldn’t afford a present of course, so her gift to him was to tell him how he was born. Up until today Toby knew very little about his birth. In fact he didn’t even know what hospital he was born in. It was very nice to have some of the blanks filled in. While they sat around in the living room trying to be like a normal family doing normal things like talking, I clanged around in the kitchen and made a Fabulous Dinner… just like on my nifty new list (a link I stole fromwee). Actually it was just a run of the mill dinner but at least it wasn’t a flop like last night. Last night’s dinner gave us both nightmares. Too much sodium I think.

After dinner we even had a cake! A pretty gelato cake that I bought from the gelato store. But Toby loves gelato so it was perfect. It even had a dendrobium orchid on top made completely out of sugar. Too bad I didn’t take a picture. Toby loves orchids. He used to have a whole greenhouse of them before he became a successful photographer and had to work all the damn time. (I’m beginning to see a theme here.)

His mom and I sang Happy Birthday in our wimpy girly voices and Toby blew out the candles. I made him make a wish. Somebody’s got to keep these traditions going! I think he liked his little birthday party. He smiled and seemed happy but I know he was stressed because he has so much work to be done before Monday morning.

It makes me sad sometimes that his life is flying by him and it’s all because some real estate agent needs a picture of a house at xyz time so that pqr magazine can run an ad and sell a house. I know it’s their job and somebody has to do it… but sometimes when I answer the phone in the morning and they are screaming at me wondering where their pictures are, I want to scream “Give me my husband back!” I know it’s his battle and he has to figure out how to fight it himself. But sometimes…sometimes I just wanna ring me some real estate agent neck.

I’ve been sitting here in my towel for 47 minutes wishing Toby would wake up and become my knight in shining armor and get rid of the cricket in the tub. I don’t hate bugs, I just don’t like them in my shower, especially when I’m supposed to be in the shower. I know if I climb in there with him, he will jump on me with his hairy cricket legs. Ew! I tried everything. I even put the cats in the tub and chanted our old kitten mantra “get-tha-bug! get-tha-bug!” but they just looked at me like they were way too old for this crap, and hopped right out of the tub.

So I sat and I sat, watching the minutes tick by. Then I illustrated (or mouse clicked badly) the cricket image above and wrote the first part of this post. And guess what? When I was done I went and looked in the tub and there was Pounce, eating the cricket for me.

Who’s my knight in shining armor now!!!

Illustration Friday: Fragile

I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this one. I’m not sure I even understand it myself. I thought about illustrating some delicate breakable figurines or some super ornate glass knick knacks… but it just seemed like too much work. I’m a lazy illustrator.

The other interpretation that came quickly to mind is my fragile ego. I’ve thought about this a lot (cause it’s all about me all the time here at SAJ) and I’m not sure how to broach this subject.

All my life people have been nice to me. Oh the Pain! Just kidding.

I’m not sure why though. It’s puzzling. Do I have invisible writing all over my face that says “I can’t take it”? I really don’t want to complain because I think I’d run crying to the hills if anybody started now. But it’s a strange thing. I’ve rarely gotten made fun of or been the target of someone bullying me. Sure there were a couple of times in middle school when the boys made fun of my homemade jumpers and my hopelessly un-cool saddle shoes but I was never really picked on. I don’t remember ever really getting teased by my family either. It’s almost like everybody just knows not to. I think the worst nick name my brother ever called me was “thunder thighs” and he only called me that because it was the meanest thing he could think of in response to me calling him “cupcake”. Sure I’ve always been self conscious about being pear shaped and having thighs of a speed skater but nobody ever calls me a lard ass or fat cow or even makes any comments about maybe I shouldn’t be having that whipped cream on top of my mocha.

I think the reason I’ve never been the butt of jokes is that people just know I can’t take it. Even in this blog I’m blown away by how nice everyone is in the comments. You go to any other blog and people really dish it out. Is it because I’m not the sarcastic type? Is it because I don’t use the f-word? Does that make me a sissy? I don’t know the answer and I don’t know if I could handle the answer if it was given to me. But it does make me think sometimes. I’m thankful that I’ve been protected from the cruelty of the world. I just wonder why I’m so lucky?

So anyway, don’t everybody start insulting me now. But maybe a few zingers now and then I could take.