March 23rd

83/365: 

Profuse layers of opaque clouds obscured sunup…

but mom and I quite enjoyed it—this grey morning—with each other…

hiking neighboring streets together…

wispy overhead clouds yielding themselves to us like an immense blanket—eagerly trapping in the earth’s warmth…  

walks with mom… :) good times

The afternoon left me smiling… as it was curious to watch, for the very first time in my life, dad on a shopping spree…

Indeed!  He bought himself 2 pairs of shoes! Plus 3 for mom!  All at the same time!  All on the same trip!!! 

Unheard of. 

Not that he bought a pair of sneakers on sale, for that is familiar, but that he purchased for himself 2 pairs—that, my friends, I have never seen him do before...  A shopping spree I tell you! 

We’re not quite sure what is happening to him in his old age… ???  

I must also add, that over the next three days, he must’ve asked me on three different occasions if I liked his new shoes. 

So yes, this is me taking a picture of his shoes… or at least of one pair of his new shoes ;) because he did, in fact, purchase for himself, an unprecedented 2 new pairs of tennies. 

later that evening, back at the house,

with dinner muchly underway…

I sat, as sister began to work her mad-awesome stylist skills on my tresses…

our dinner party tonight was a go;

we were all-set…

ready to celebrate Chris’s birthday, together with friends…

fiesta soup and shredded chicken tacos on the menu.

& then…

on a whim…

we determined that we had made an over-abundance of chicken for the tacos…

& that we should, perhaps, add some shredded chicken to the soup….

and so, mom poured a couple cups of chicken into the soup…

I haphazardly supervised from our make-shift salon chair…

then, unable to decide

if she should add a bit more chicken to the soup…

or leave it as is; not wanting to run out of chicken for the tacos…

mom requested some input on this very important chicken decision…

and so…

with me unable to move, & sister coloring my hair…

with the best of intentions, mom carefully walks crockpot over to me…

but…

before I can even look down…

before I ever see how much chicken is still contained in the crock-pot…

the crockpot slipped her grasp and crashed down into a thousand pieces…

in exactly twenty minutes, 11 hungry people would be here for Chris’s birthday dinner…

 so there I sat, with hundreds of foils in my hair…

contemplating that I was still very much in need of a shower…

& a “clean-up on aisle four” that must be started/finished before dinner…

 acutely aware that my 20 minute countdown had already begun...

& with dinner in a crumble on the floor…

me, seven years ago, would have freaked the freak out…

(if you didn’t know me then, consider yourself fortunate…

if you did, give Matt a big hug)…

slip… bam… crack… crumble…

silence hung in the air…

neither Megan nor mom moved.

not

one

millimeter.

no, they very much froze.

a long five seconds of utter and complete silence hung in the air…

I’ve mellowed out a lot my friends…

A lot.

But, would this be it? Would Danielle break down & revert to rampage…

…

pppssshhh… details people, details…

my feeble laughter broke the silence…

followed by an epidemic of laughter from all three of us…

mom, sister & I staring after dinner…

now a jumbled pile of chicken and glass on the floor…

I did consider trying to save it…

wash the chicken & strain the glass out perhaps?

& if it weren’t for that pesky younger sister...

divulging horror stories about glass ripping esophagus’s…

I just may have succeeded…

but she was right…

(eeerrrmmm…yes, I did just admit she was right…)

we sent the boys back to the store…

they brought back 9lbs of ground beef… ?!?

best part?  unknownst to me, Chris prefers ground beef…

yes, just like I planned ;)

It was a lively Happy Birthday dinner around the table, to be sure.

& Jean’s delicious German chocolate cake to follow...

& candles and presents

& smiles and laughter