Ernie got lots of birthday greetings—-thanks everybody—including a card from Bianca et. al. (Sasha, Dick and Azure). He was most impressed. Sasha, is your daughter wearing a Huey's t-shirt? You townie you.
and then this one….(the boys were most impressed with the Lego)!
I gave Ernie the choice of course for what he wanted to do the evening of his birthday. He voted for going out for a drink and then getting Chinese food to take home—-chicken lo mein is one of his favorite comfort foods. We had a wonderful evening. When we got home (oh my god do we love our babysitter Hayley—-can't we somehow freeze here at this age so she doesn't leave us?) of course the boys were totally caught up in the Indiana Jones Lego playstation
game (o.k. YOU tell me how I could have NOT bought that for them) so
Ernie and I hung out in the living room getting giggly with youtube. A couple of glasses of chardonnay and a few pints it's more fun than ever!
I think Ernie finally relaxed—he was a little wound up yesterday. He and the guys went and got a new drivers' license (well just Ernie—-even though Owen wants one) and then did some shopping at Meijer's. It drives Ernie CRAZY when people rip the husks off corn on the cob. My father got him started on this. So yesterday he actually accosted a man doing this in the vegetable department of Meijer's and asked him "why do you do that?" They talked a few minutes—-Ernie swears he was very polite—-and after they moved on Owen curiously asked him if he knew that man. I sort of wish I'd been there but then again I'm glad I wasn't. Anyway a couple of drinks, some bad David Lee Roth videos and chicken lo mein gave us a nice evening.
Then of course the tornado sirens went off….. the boys practically levitated shouting "WE HAVE TO GO THE BASEMENT" and began gathering things near and dear to their hearts. Leo scurried to the basement muttering, "I hope it's an F1 not an F3….that would be bad." So there we sat in our wet basement (the water had receded to just sloppy wetness) with the boys eyes getting huge with every lightening strike or clap of thunder. I made the mistake of saying that I hoped my mother was o.k. Owen got very upset and wailed "how is grandma going to get to the basement?" I assured him that she would be o.k.—-that she'd go to the bathroom in their house because it's in the middle of the house and doesn't have any windows so that led to a long discussion of course. Listened to Ed Keiser on a crackly radio and Owen slowly fell asleep with his head on a huge stuffed Nipper dog that had been consigned to the basement. Leo didn't want to go back up but once he started to doze off I convinced him it was o.k. Going upstairs woke them up a bit but of course they both wanted to sleep with us so Leo made up a little bed on the floor next to our bed. It was quite nice having everyone so close although I kept worrying about Ernie stepping on Leo's chest if he got up…. We all read books and then turned out the light and watched the lightening…or Leo and I did as Owen was fast asleep. We watched the street begin to flood again and then drifted off to sleep.
Oh the joys of living in central Illinois.
I know exactly how Ernie feels about the corn thing. A TRUE corn aficionado can tell by the size and feel of it if it’s ready. The fact that the silks are intact at the top also tells you that it’s not worm-ridden. But who cares anyway–just cut those parts out.
We buy our corn at the Market from two guys, brothers I think. They consistently have the BEST and usually one or two different varieties to choose from. They are in separate trucks so you don’t have to rip them open to figure out whether you’re getting variegated, white, or yellow either. People are just so inconsiderate. It reminds of a story from my childhood…We usually spent vacations with another family. We would go to inns and resorts all over the Northeast. Most served dinner “family style” in large dining halls. We’d pass around the bowls of veggies, etc. The other family’s Dad consistenly cut the tops off the asparagus and took them all for himself, leaving the rest of the table with nothing but the stalks. He didn’t even “think” about what he was doing. Probably did it home too, but his family never called him out on it.
Happy belated Birthday, Ern!
Happy belated Birthday, Ern!
Parker was also discussing how an F1 would be much better and how he really wouldn’t mind seeing something small picked up by a tornado, but he didn’t want an F5, yadda, yadda, yadda. I hate that I’ve passed on my fear of tornadoes to him. I actually feel so much safer now that we live in a house with a basement and I don’t get that awful pit in my stomach when the sirens go off. I worried about my dad and called him and told him to come over and sleep at our house, but he would rather tough it out without a basement watching the weather with his cat.
Ooh, I just saw this. Can’t wait to show it to Bianca!