In which we go out to celebrate Primo's birthday and I wonder if people who regularly stay out late know how crappy they feel but I can do it once a year for Primo

It was Primo's birthday yesterday. I made him a cake - chocolate with chocolate frosting.

Primo doesn't think it's dessert if it's not chocolate.

I - and I never thought I would ever say this - get a little tired of chocolate and sometimes want something different.

However, this overweening desire for chocolate chez nous is mostly good, as it means Primo doesn't buy ice cream in non-chocolate flavors. If he would buy salted caramel ice cream or rum raisin, I would eat a lot of it and Primo would eat none of it and I would have to own what I eat, which I hate doing, as I have been on a diet my entire life.

Enough about dieting - I try not to talk about that stuff because it is boring to other people. But after a few days with my mom, it's on my mind. She is 73 years old and still talks about dieting and losing weight and it makes me sad. First, she is not at an unhealthy weight. She is very healthy and she looks like what she is - a 73 year old woman who is not starving to death - and there is nothing wrong with that. I hope - and I am trying - that when I am her age and even before that the main focus of my life is not what I weigh.

I made a chocolate cake for Primo and I bought him some taro chips from the Hawaiian place. I didn't get him a card because there were no new cards with kittens and if the card doesn't have a kitten on it, there's no point, plus Primo and I both agree that four dollars is a little much to pay for a greeting card and we would rather use the money on cinnamon rolls from the good bakery by our house.

But what Primo really wanted was for me to go out with him.

You guys, I hate going out.

I. Hate. It.

I am an introvert. I don't like being in crowds. I don't like being in noisy crowds.

Also.

I do not like to stay up late. I treasure my sleep. I never get enough of it. Primo is always asking me to wait to go to bed with him - he's a night owl - and I tell him I will stay up for him if he will get up, get out of bed, and stay up at 6 a.m. when I have to get up for work.

That usually shuts down the conversation.

Also.

I do not drink. Not for moral or health reasons but just because I do not like the way alcohol tastes. If I am going to imbibe recreational calories, I would rather have butter.

But I went out with him because it was his birthday and he wanted to.

We went to Bar 1 to see his friend's band playing. But it was really loud and nobody else he knew was there. At 10:30, Primo suggested we leave and I got all happy and excited because I thought we were going home.

We were not.

We were going to Bar 2.

"I promised we would be home by around midnight, right?" he asked, which was indeed the case but I had gotten my hopes up about being home by 11.

We got to Bar 2 and it was also loud, but this was karaoke and not a band and I really like the guy who runs the karaoke show - he is the one who helped me set up Primo's Christmas present years ago - an afternoon in a recording studio making a CD. Jon has a friend who has a recording studio in his basement and Jon, Primo, and the guy made a CD! It sounds great and I made this fun CD cover, which you can see above.

Primo asked me what he should sing and I told him "Suspicious Minds," because he does that really well, but he sang, after telling everyone in the bar, "This is my wife! I really do have one! She came out with me because it's my birthday!", "Can't Help Falling in Love With You," which was nice because he was singing about how much he loves me in a public place, but was a little weird because I don't really like that song and what are you supposed to do while your husband is singing about how much he loves you and you don't even have a beer in your hands?

So that was strange but still nice and I am not sure how to handle that kind of thing because I prefer to be controlling events when I am in the spotlight.

Then we went home and it took me days to catch up on my sleep. Maybe next year I can just buy him some kind of cat thing instead of going out with him.

In which Ted sends an email to Primo wishing him happy birthday and thanking him for sending some money and I roll my eyes because I KNOW IT'S ALL PART OF THE PLAN

It's Primo's birthday.

I have known Primo for over ten years.

Each year, we have celebrated his birthday.

Each year since my mother has met Primo, she has sent him a card. Once we married, she started sending him $100, which I have asked her not to do as I want her to spend her money on herself, not on Primo and me. But my mom maintains that I am not the boss of her and if she wants to send Primo a birthday check, she can I cannot stop her. So we accept it and go out for a nice dinner and tell her what we had and everything is lovely.

I can't remember what Sly and Doris did for Primo's birthday. Oh! Yes I can! Remember the year of Doris adopting endangered species on Primo's behalf!

I re-read the comments and the consensus was that at least the money went to charity, WHICH I DO NOT CARE ABOUT - I CHOOSE MY OWN CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS - but the better point was, "It's not like they are ever going to send you guys what you want anyhow and this doesn't have to be dusted."

So. You guys are right and I was wrong.

My sister and my brother always send Primo a facebook message on his birthday. Stephanie sends him a note. Primo's two stepdaughters send him a note.

This is what has been going on for the past ten years.

Never, not once, I don't think, in the time that I have known Primo, has Ted ever sent Primo a happy birthday note.

Which is fine. Honestly. It's not required. It doesn't make someone a bad person if he does not acknowledge your birthday.

However.

When someone, who, in this case, is Ted, acknowledges your birthday for the first time in ten years and the email is one of a series of emails asking for money, it does give one pause, doesn't it?

In which I consider carefully the thoughtful comments you all left and decide not to say "Hey!" to the high school boyfriend who ditched me right before the prom

Because really, what's to be gained? We were never friends - we were the kissing version of f*** buddies.

[I know. I am sort of a prude. I am still halfway worried that my mom will read this blog and shake her head in disappointment.]

But Ken and I kissed and kissed and kissed and it was very very good kissing.

But we didn't talk much, probably because we didn't have much to talk about.

Which is OK when you are 14. I would rather have been kissing than talking.

We were never friends. There is no friendship to be regained.

It's unlike with Keith, my other high school boyfriend, the one with whom I didn't spend time necking. We kissed only once.

Why? you ask.

Because it turned out that Keith is gay and there is only so much faking a person can do, even when he is not quite sure of things.

We didn't kiss but we talked and we were friends and he hung out at my house and talked to my mom so when I saw him on facebook, I did not hesitate to say hi! and now we are friends and when he has come through town (he is a commercial airline pilot), we have gone out to eat and when we were in Austin, we went out to eat with him.

So - the rules for contacting old boyfriends:

1. They actually have to have been friends
2. They cannot have been jerks.
3. I cannot have been a jerk to them.

Number two rules out the guy from grad school who turned out to be a jerk. Yes, I have googlestalked him, but only because I have this morbid curiosity. I don't ever want to see him again or talk to him again. I do not want him in my life. Shudder.

However. I would be pretty happy, I think, to have my college boyfriend back in my life. I just don't think he would want me in his. I was not kind to him when we broke up. Was I a jerk to him? I don't think I was. I hope I wasn't. I don't know. How do you break up kindly with someone? I didn't want to be mean, but I didn't want to marry him after all. It was not comfortable and he called me for months afterwards, late, late at night, upset, wanting to talk because who else do you talk to about heartbreak except your best friend, which is what we were.

And then I took that from him - and from myself.

He has never come to a college reunion. He married one of my roommates but I haven't kept in touch with her, either.

I have seen him on facebook. I hope he's happy. He has kids. I have looked at his children's photos and youtube postings and wondered if we would have had kids like that. They look nice. They look sweet and happy and they clearly love their dad. I wonder what I missed with him.

I did notice that he looked at my LinkedIn profile a few weeks ago. I have to admit that made me really happy - that maybe he hasn't forgotten about me and maybe doesn't hate me. I don't want him to hate me. I just want him to have a good life.

In which the hospital sends Primo another bill for his mom's care, even though she has been dead for FIFTY ONE WEEKS

Yes. That happened. Primo got a bill for something with his mom.

Not an overdue bill. Not a second or third or fourth request.

A first-time bill.

Doris died almost exactly 51 weeks ago.

Do you think the hospital could have gotten their crap together by now? Or Medicare? Maybe the hospital sent the claim to Medicare and it took Medicare this long to make a decision.

People. We have an estate to settle. WE WANT TO BE DONE.

Primo cannot close the estate until the bills are paid. Honestly.

Thank you again Sly for giving Primo the honor of being the executor of this estate.

Readers, heed this. Primo did not think it would be this much work to settle the estate. He is super conscientious and responsible (hello adult children of alcoholics! super responsible people who will take care of everyone around them so they make fabulous customer service employees for a business with angry, hostile customers) and did not want lawyer fees to eat up the estate, even though none of it went to him.

It is a ton of work. If you are an executor, make sure

1. that you can be paid the fee
2. that you dump it off on a lawyer if possible because do you really want to spend hundreds of hours dealing with crap that your parents should have dealt with?

Primo and I were at my mom's last week and we talked about all of this stuff with her. My mom, who is a very healthy 73 years old and who has a good 20 years in her yet (I hope), has already written a financial POA for me, a medical POA for my sister, and has been throwing out old stuff in her house, things like sewing patterns from the 1970s that she is not going to use again. She even finally gave away my dad's clothes - he died 18 years ago.

We talked about what she wanted when she can't take care of herself anymore. She didn't get angry or insulted. She didn't refuse to talk about it.

I hope you guys have parents like my mom, who are rational, and who care about minimizing the mess they might leave behind, and not parents like Sly and Doris, who clearly did not give a sh@t about how much work they were causing for Primo.

In which the guy who dumped me right before the prom comments on the facebook post of an apparently mutual friend and I wonder what to do

as I have not spoken to Ken since high school.

I have stalked him, but not spoken to him. Or written to him. Or seen anything written by him.

But it appears he is also a friend of my friend Slim from high school and I commented on something Slim posted this morning and then Ken did and I got the alert that someone else had posted and I wondered what should I do?

Y'all - this is a real-time post. I am writing this on August 23. Should I say, "Hey!" to Ken? "Hey! How you doing? Do you remember that you dumped me right before the prom?"

Asking.

PS Please tell me I am not the only one who googles old boyfriends. I just want to know how the story ends!

In which my mom, my aunt, and my uncle are mean to Primo

Hahaha! NOT REALLY!

Primo and I went to visit my mother for Mothers Day. We were there for five days? Something like that. He. Was. Amazing.

Seriously.

Primo is so, so sweet to my mother. He listens to her - she is worse than I am about adding extraneous details to a story. He washes the dishes her way. He stops using the Hand Towel for dishes and switches to the Dish Towel without argument when she points out his error.

He grilled vegetables for her. He grilled salmon for her. He made her omelettes. He is the sweetest man in the world to my mother.

He was also very kind to my aunt and uncle and listened to my uncle's many, many stories about escaping from the Russians in WWII. (My uncle was born in Prussia and his dad was in WWII on the Other Side.) Of course, my uncle's stories are fascinating, but they might not be as interesting to Primo as they are to someone who has known her uncle since she was nine.

Me: You are so wonderful to my mom. Thank you.

Primo: It's easy. Your family is always really nice to me.

Me: My family loves you.

Primo: My parents always treated you so well.

.......

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Primo and me: HAHAHAHAHA!!!!