Monday, November 14, 2011

Hello, my name is Stephanie and...

Art by Black Apple; frame from Hobby Lobby
...I am a sentence finisher. This has become a thing in my house. Okay, let's do a recent inventory. My almost-93-year-old father-in-law who can't hear anything (not great for conversing)-check; my husband who needs hours to tell a short story (well, so do I but that's because I tell so many details) because minutes go by painfully between word-check; my boomerang 25-year-old son who, although quite delightful, is not really chatty-check; then my 14-year-old son who is-well-a teenager-monosylabic-check. And me? I've always been a talker. And I hang out with other women of a certain age who often need help remember rarely used words such as "bread" and "parking space". It drives the guys crazy. Trying to interact with them drives me crazy. I told Matt (14) the other day that one of his friend's fathers is sooooo good looking. "Oh, Mom, you need a woman to talk to!". Ya think. Thankfully, most women I hang out with me know my situation so they patiently allow me to talk too much. Thanks girlfriends-you save me.

Twin Sister Birthday

We knew each other a few months and I know I adored her the minute I met her. Who couldn't? Then I found out she was from Oklahoma and HAD LIVED IN TEXAS MANY YEARS. Hello. Janine called me one day a few (many, as I recall now) years ago and asked if I could work for her on her next scheduled shift at our coop at Oella Mill. I looked at the calendar and said that I would do it any other day but I really didn't want to do it that day. She pushed, ever so little, more and I finally said I didn't want to work because it was my birthday that day. She asked me if I was kidding. Do I ever kid? Okay, she asked me a reasonable question. I said I was indeed not kidding; it was my birthday. She said something like, "Holy crap-that's my birthday too!!!". Okay, so not only did we adore each other, we were now twins-sistas from another motha. We have celebrated our birthday in one form or another ever since.
Not to make any other birthday sound trivial but we had, I believe, our best a few years ago. We were doing a show at The DC Big Flea. We did it as a group; Karen, Mellie, Janine, and me. We all shared a hotel room and this trip was no different. Our birthday was on Saturday; we had set up the day before but hadn't worked the weekend yet. When we all woke up, Karen and Mellie made Janine and me stay in bed and brought gifts to us and Janine and I exchanged gifts. In our jammies and in bed!!!!! Just what my family did when I was growing up. We were all giggles and giddy; SO MUCH FUN. Like getting to live out one of your best childhood moments as an adult. Amazing.
This year our birthday was on Saturday again but Janine was all booked up. Most years we do work around our families. So birthday on Saturday, November 5th we had our birthdays with our families and it was great. We could only get together by Tuesday. We'd gone to Cafe' Hon in Hampden (Balto) a couple of years ago, loved it, and wanted to do that again this year. Well, really long story (I'll spare you this once), Cafe' Hon wasn't open that day so we started walking around. We went into one shop-great one 'cause I got...umm...something that holds me together when otherwise I would have gotten it online and paid shipping. The woman there told us there was a great restaurant a couple of doors down so we checked out the menu on the board outside. Very nice place, reasonable prices, and...wait for it...THE BEST MONTE CRISTO IN THE WORLD. I have a bit of experience with Monte Cristos so I know a little of what I speak. Unlike the usual which are battered and deep fried, this was dusted on the outside with powdered sugar with a little lemon in it and cooked like French toast. Okay, enough-I'm a foodie, not everyone is. It was good.
I guess we had mentioned to our waitress that we were celebrating our birthday but we were so full after lunch that instead of bringing us more food, she brought us Sprite with a huge blackberry in it. Wonderful. We toasted and drank, and ate that Sprite soaked berry-yum.
Clink.
And before we left the area, we saw these last remnants of time before winter.
I love you birthday twin.