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.

.......

.......

.......

Primo and me: HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

In which my mom knows that Primo is the one who took the booze back downstairs after we excavated

"That's my son in law," she said. "The bottles are lined up neatly with the clear liquids on the left and the opaque liquids on the right."

The three bottles bunched up at the far end were placed there my mom, not Primo. Just in case it's not obvious.

In which Primo thought that just because there was no chocolate in my mom's kitchen, there was no chocolate in her house

He didn't know that you just have to go into the basement and into the closet containing the Christmas wreaths, the candles, and the canned goods, and look in every single Tupperware container - beans, flour, sugar, crackers, marshmallows, grains - until you find the one on the very bottom shelf that has chocolate chips.

My mother never has been able to hide chocolate for me. I know how to do a Proper Search.

In which I discover not one but TWO! TWO! empty containers of marshmallow fluff at my mom's house - a product that WAS NOT IN OUR HOUSE WHEN I WAS A KID

In which Primo and I agree that he will run for office again while I wail and gnash my teeth but he gives me a rock-solid argument of 1. we can afford for him not to work for another few months and 2. wouldn't it be nice for him to have just a few months of his life to do something without his parents' drunken breath down his back

And he did inherit some money, albeit against Sly's wishes.

So yeah.

We are back in the political game.

In which Keith's former tenant leaves the keys in the mailbox but it's too late - the lease said she was to turn them in by midnight April 30, which is not the same as midnight May 2

Keith's former tenant refused to leave the keys with him when she moved out on Saturday night April 30. She left them with a note saying she would return them once she got her deposit back, which is not how the lease worked. You don't return the keys when you move out? That's $35 from your deposit.

Because the new tenants were moving in the next day, Keith re-keyed the locks first thing Sunday morning.

On Monday night, the former tenant dropped two of the three keys off in Keith's mailbox, along with a note that she would return the last one when she got the deposit back.

This woman clearly does not understand the concepts of

1. New tenants and
2. A contract.

In which Primo and I go to my (second? third? once removed?) cousin's wedding and the leftovers are fabulous

The cousin I met at my great-uncle's funeral - Amber - got married and she invited Primo and me.

It was fun and fabulous and my great-aunt, who is 94 years old, looked elegant and lovely and she was as sharp as a tack.

We got to meet other cousins. We had a ton of fun.

As we were leaving, I noticed there were untouched pieces of wedding cake on our table. I joked with my dad's cousin Jim (who is Amber's uncle) that I should wrap the cake and take it home - that that is The Way of Our People.

He rushed to get me some paper napkins.

I had been joking, but after he went through all that effort, I had to take the cake.

I did!

I wrapped it and brought it home and put something on facebook about how My People Do Not Waste.

To which my cousin, Amber, replied, "Hey! WE HAD TO-GO CONTAINERS FOR THE CAKE!"

I. Love. My. People.

In which Keith and I clean his duplex and discover that even though a place might look clean on the surface at 9:30 p.m., in the light of day and with a bottle of 409 in my hand for a Seek and Destroy mission, a place is actually filthy

On Sunday, I spent a few hours helping Keith, who had been cleaning since 3 a.m., clean. The place had looked OK the night before, but in the light of day, it was clear that it needed work. The stove was nasty; the spills in the cupboard had not been wiped out; the windows were smeary; there was hair - waist-long hair in the drain in the kitchen sink; the walls near the switchplates were filthy; there was sticky stuff on the wood floor; etc, etc.

If you rent, please follow this advice:

1. If you do not own the window, do not put stickers on it
2. Just because you don't own the stove is not a reason to leave a thick layer of dirty grease on it
3. It doesn't count as vacuuming the carpet if you leave corn kernels under the radiator in the living room, bedroom, and kitchen
4. If you do not own the property, do not let your toddler eat in the living room or the bedroom or have crayons without supervision.

Honestly. Tacky.


Things my friends have added to the list:

• My mom could add, do not paint the bedroom black and keep fighting chickens in it.
• Do not ignore the leaking roof until the floor delaminates.

In which Betsy moves out without leaving the keys and so what? Keith and I say - it just gets charged against her deposit

I just talked to Keith. Betsy left last night in a rage. She did not leave the keys, as required by the lease. Instead, she left a note saying, "I return the keys when I get the deposit."

The lease clearly states that the keys must be returned upon moveout or there is a $35 charge against the deposit.

"I couldn't sleep," Keith said. "So at 3 a.m., I rekeyed the lock. She won't be able to get back in."

"So it doesn't matter if she returns the key. And you can charge her for it."

"Yep. And I've been cleaning since then."

"There's not seven hours worth of cleaning!" I said.

He groaned. "I was cleaning the sinks and the tub and the drains are all backed up with their hair."

"Oh gross," I said.

Oh - and she did not leave a new mailing address. Just a phone number.

In which my friend's tenant screams and calls 911 because my friend and I are documenting the state of the duplex that she is moving out of and I understand why my landlords never raised my rent

You guys, I am wiped out. I got to bed late last night and then I couldn't sleep because I was full of eels.

Of adrenaline.

I was helping our neighbor manage the moveout of his upstairs tenant (it was April 30 yesterday) and she - we will call her Betsy - was so, so ugly.

Background: Our neighbor is in his 50s. He has no education beyond high school and has not worked much since high school because he was diagnosed with MS back then. He lives on disability and on the income he gets from renting the upper unit of the house he inherited when his parents died. He is not financially or legally sophisticated and doesn't really have anyone in his life to help him with that sort of thing, so Primo and I do what we can. He is our friend.

This tenant moved in two years ago. Keith rented to her against my advice - she had been evicted from her previous apartment and had filed for bankruptcy, but he was desperate: the tenant before this Betsy, moved out with only one month's notice instead of the two required by the lease.

Keith did not have as much time to find a replacement, so he panicked. He also refunded the tenant's full deposit, which, by law, he had no need to do, as she had broken the terms of the lease. But the tenant and her mother screamed at Keith and he got stressed and gave it back to them on the spot as she was moving out of the place that she had left dirty.

I found out about it and told Keith that if he wanted, I would stand next to him when he had to deal with his tenant and be the bad guy.

Now we are here, with Betsy. She gave notice two months ago. I helped Keith show the duplex to the couple who will be renting it starting today. When we looked at it six weeks ago, it was filthy. Betsy has three children, including a toddler whom the teenage daughter is apparently in charge of caring for. I understand that Betsy must be exhausted from going to work and taking care of three kids with no help, but the place was a pigsty: mildew in the bathtub, dirty sink, filthy walls, stained, ripped carpet (that Keith had installed just four years ago), filthy windows, dirty stovetop.

Dirty.

A dirty, dirty house.

It would take hours to clean and it would be gross and what to do about the carpet?

I told Keith I would help him. I also said, "Let's do a walkthrough with Betsy when she moves out so she understands what you will be fixing and charging against her deposit."

Yesterday during the day, he tried to talk to her to set a time for a walkthrough. She refused to talk to him.

He and I agreed that fine, we would do one without her at 11:00 today, Sunday.

He called me at 9:000 last night.

"Can you come over?" he asked. "She is screaming at me, asking why the f* you have to be involved in the walkthrough."

I put on my shoes and my coat and walked over. I introduced myself to Betsy, who was fuming as she stood next to the wall.

"The purpose of this walkthrough," I explained, "is to document the condition of the duplex. It is not to make a decision about the deposit."

"Yeah well he never did a walkthrough when I moved in!" she said.

"I know," I said. "That's why we're doing one now. He is improving how he does things."

"The place was a mess when I moved in," she said.

"Did you document that?" I asked.

I had tried that argument with my landlady years ago when she told me, during our walkthrough, that I needed to clean the windows.

"They were dirty when I moved in," I replied.

She shrugged and said, "They need to be clean when you move out."

I started making notes on the moveout form Keith had found online while he took photos.

Betsy was yelling. "It was a mess when I moved in!"

I shrugged. First, I didn't believe her, because I have the photos Keith took of the duplex two years ago when the former renter was still in the property. I had posted an ad for him on craigslist and had used those photos. The place was fine. It was clean.

Keith and I looked at the bedroom. "It's a lot cleaner than it was six weeks ago," I said, "but these walls still need to be cleaned and the windows are still dirty."

"IT WAS LIKE THAT WHEN I MOVED IN!" she yelled. "I'm going to call the police!"

I shrugged. "Go ahead."

Honestly. THE POLICE?

I should have asked her, "Have you ever considered using the strategy of being nice to people to get what you want instead of being hostile? You might get better results."

I heard her talking: "My landlord is trying to screw me out of my deposit!"

I rolled my eyes and kept making notes. It was like Betsy had gone to the Ted Drunk School of Negotiation.

The good news was that the place really was a lot better. She had even cleaned the carpet, which is not something she had to do and is something that a landlord in this state cannot charge against a deposit.

She waited about ten minutes, grudgingly agreeing with me when I asked, "Would you agree that this switchplate is dirty? But that the toilet and the sink are clean?"

"I forgot to clean that," she said.

"This oven hood is dirty," I said, "and so are the drip pans."

"Yeah well you should have seen them when I moved in," she snapped.

I shrugged. "We are documenting the current state."

When the police didn't show up - I KNOW I AM SHOCKED, she stomped out.

Keith and I finished in peace. We completed the form. He signed and made copies. I thought I was going to get out of seeing Betsy again, but she returned, her truck empty.

I handed her the forms and explained the major findings.

"I'm not signing this!" she said. "I don't agree with it! You have to show me the photos!"

I shrugged again. Seriously. I am used to dealing with Ted. Even one degree removed, dealing with Ted inoculates you against idiocy.

"Suit yourself," I said. "And you of course are welcome to take your own photos. May I suggest when you move into your new place that you document the move-in state."

She threw the papers to the floor in disgust. Keith shrugged. I shrugged.

What. Ever.

I came home and did more research on tenant law in the state.

She doesn't have a leg to stand on. The burden of proof is on her.

UPDATE
I just read this for the first time since writing it on May 1 and realized I sure shrug a lot.