I STILL Refuse To Come Back As A Bug Or As A Rabbit, And I'm STILL A Real Up Person.

All morning long I've been listening to 80s music on Youtube. Some of you will be wondering "why is that?" Others of you will be wondering "why do we even pay you anymore?" Those others will mostly be my boss. I keep him from wondering that too often by wearing a tie as frequently as possible. If you wear a tie, you're obviously working hard. Even more so if you loosen the tie just a little and roll up your sleeves, indicating that you are working so hard that your forearms are getting sweaty. Do those things and you can get away with just about anything in the office.

The reason for my 80s' fixation today is because I spent part of Friday night chauffeuring Oldest around to celebrate her 21st birthday. 21st.

Twenty-one years ago Friday was May 2, 1987. Remember 1987? I don't, really. Not because I was such a partier in those days or anything cool like that, but merely because that was a long time ago. The older I get, and the more I stuff my head with quotes from "Wedding Crashers" to use in a pinch when I'm parking our SUV at the grocery store so that Mr F and I can run in and pick up some Lemon Poppyseed muffins for Sweetie and maybe score some free samples while we're at it -- which, not to brag, but we did score some free samples, of french bread and a turkey roll; try not to be too jealous of me-- the more I do those things (get older and remember Wedding Crashers quotes) -- the less I remember of actual events in my, or anyone else's, life.

Certain things stick in my brain, though, like the quote that forms the headline to this entry, which is a quote that is spoken midway through the video for the song "Bizarre Love Triangle," a video they used to play when I was younger and would go to clubs and would dance, sometimes with a girl (you're even more jealous now, aren't you?), and which is cemented in my head because when it comes on in the video, the song stops cold and everyone stands there for a second wondering what they're supposed to do while these people are talking.



We were driving Oldest around on Friday night because 21 is the legal drinking age now, a law that's clearly being strenuously enforced, given that that at dinner we were giving Oldest some advice on how to make sure she didn't drink too much and what to do about a hangover, and she said:

"Mom, this won't be the first time I've been drunk."

Kids say the darndest things, don't they?

We were also driving Oldest around because Sweetie promised Oldest that she and Oldest would go out for a drink together before Oldest went out with her friends to officially celebrate her ability to drink alcohol legally, and I promised that I would be their designated driver.

That's how I ended up pushing Mr F and Mr Bunches around the "Rich Mall" -- that's the mall that has stores like "Sharper Image" and That One Store That Sells Dried Flowers and Is Like Pottery Barn But More Expensive, the mall we never shop at because you have to be rich to shop there -- in their stroller while Oldest and Sweetie had pomegranate margaritas in TGI Friday's, and that's how Sweetie and I then ended up strolling around a college campus for 15 minutes with Mr F and Mr Bunches, while Oldest waited for her friends to arrive so she could end hanging around with the old people and Babies! and begin having fun, although I say that she doesn't know what "fun" is until she's pushed two Babies! in a stroller through "World Market," a store that's filled with costly, breakable items all put enticeingly at eye-and-hand reach for a toddler in a stroller. You think hitting a curveball is a test of hand-eye coordination, but you don't know until you've walked that 100 yards in my shoes.

We were also driving Oldest around on her birthday because I had promised Oldest that I would drive her around as much as necessary on her 21st birthday, if she wanted, to avoid her having to worry about drinking and driving, and also because she's earned it.

As with the other two kids, Middle and The Boy, I have some fun telling about Oldest's exploits, but she deserves some nice things said about her, too, because like the other kids, I'm very proud of her and love her, too, and I try to show that in more ways than just by once a year writing nice stuff about Oldest on here, nice stuff like: she has a very very demanding job in health care as a CNA which requires that she lift up old people and give them a bath and I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it for even a day, and nice stuff like: she has a great sense of humor and can make anyone laugh.

I wouldn't have to limit my compliments to those things, either. I could point out the amazing things that Oldest has done, like the time she spent the summer learning geometry on her own so that she could move ahead in math and be in a more advanced class when school started, or how she lost a ton of weight when she was 16 and really got herself into shape, both very impressive feats.

But I don't limit showing her that we love and appreciate her to writing nice stuff about her. I try also to do things she'll really appreciate, like volunteer to be her designated driver if need be, telling her that I would drive her and her friends around if she wanted and would be ready to come pick her up at bar time and drop off her and her friends, if she needed, and promising her that I wouldn't even be mad if she called really late and was really drunk, that I would even try not to lecture her if she called, which is a huge concession on my part -- things I try to do for her because she is a good person who's grown up well and who makes me and Sweetie proud-- and I can tell she appreciated it, because she said to me:

"It's just kind of weird to be drunk in front of you."

You can hear the respect and admiration and appreciation in that sentence, can't you? Oldest knows just what to say to me. She was the one who years ago, managed to singlehandedly make me begin noticing the gray hairs on my head when we were sitting in the car, and "Road To Nowhere" by Talking Heads came on, and I turned it up, and Oldest said "Aww, I don't want to listen to oldies!" I made her listen to it anyway, because I like that song and because it makes me think of the movie Reality Bites, which makes me think how I still relate more to Ben Stiller's character than to stupid Ethan Hawke's character, since Ethan Hawke was a jerk and moron in that movie and Ben Stiller was just a guy who wanted to save the world but also wanted a nice car.

So this is Oldest's salute for her birthday, written today instead of her actual birthday on Friday because, as I said, I was too busy letting her and Sweetie drink things made of fruits that nobody really wants to eat, even in a margarita,

and then too busy waiting for her to go drink other things, things that I'm not even sure what they are -- she announced that she was going to a bar to get a "fishbowl," a drink she couldn't even describe to me -- to actually sit down and write anything about her.

Then I was too tired on Saturday and Sunday to do anything, either, because dropping her off kept me and Sweetie and the Babies! out in the car until 9:15 -- which is a terribly late night for us; most of our Fridays end by about 9 p.m. these days-- and being out so late partying made me tired the rest of the weekend, plus I had a lot of looking up of 80s songs to do, and I couldn't put all of that off until today.

With that, wish a big Happy Birthday to Oldest, who I'm sure had a great time (she called Saturday to report that she was alive but gave no further details) on her birthday, and who in addition to her many other talents would no doubt know exactly what to do when the song she's dancing to suddenly stops cold to play a clip from a movie.

Hatbaby Will Not Be Denied
by

brianefp

Get this custom shirt
at Zazzle

Babies! Babies! Pets! Pets! wants you to submit photos of... Babies! and Pets!. Check out the photos there, and send your own to win a t-shirt!