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Birthday and Earth Day and Painting the Basement

April 23, 2012 by 5 Comments

Today is voting day in Alberta and, as luck would have it, my polling station was located at my kids’ school, making it easy to slip in after drop off and vote.  You know you are at the polling station early when you beat the sea of seniors flooding in. 

How was your weekend?  Mine was absolutely fabulous, and I just have to mention the weather – warm, hot even, and sunny.  It was perfect birthday weather!  I am now older than Mrs. Robinson and yet I feel just as saucy.

I look just like this, minus the smoking and the (I think) fur coat.  Honestly, I kind of love her hair.  I would cut mine like this but I am committed to growing it out, because I regret it every single time I cut my hair.  Hoo boy, here’s a hot picture:

I would totally not trust Dustin Hoffman to fasten my bra.  He looks way too befuddled.  Come on, Mrs. Robinson, you’re better than that. 

I do wear a similar amount of makeup though.
So it was my birthday and it was a very happy one, complete with a date night on Friday, new Pandora beads from the boys – including a dog one, from the dog – on Saturday, ice cream cake, and a visit with my grandma, who is in town!  I also treated myself to homemade cosmopolitans which, while delicious, left my Sunday morning yoga practice a bit to be desired.  Well, as Bridget Jones says, if you can’t splash out on your birthday, then when can you?
Our Earth Day celebration took the form of a seeding and raking party with the neighbourhood parents over at the school’s naturalization area (read: area that has been planted with native grasses and plants; an “outdoor learning area”, if you will).  Did I mention it was hot and sunny?  It was a fabulous day; the kids were riding their bikes, playing in the playground, and blowing bubbles while we raked and seeded and chatted.  The day was only slightly marred by my apparent development of allergies to all the grass and dust.  I took some Benadryl for my sore, itchy throat and then slept like the dead.  LIKE THE DEAD.  I woke up, startled, when my alarm went off and it took me a while to shake that groggy feeling.  Who knew that Benadryl was so deadly? 
Speaking of saving the earth and whatnot, we had our basement painted last week.  Well, that really had nothing to do with saving the earth with the exception that we used special non-smelly paint.  But our basement!  It’s now blue!  I’m so happy with it, and will get around to posting pictures soon.  Years back in the dead of winter I wanted to paint our whole house blue – so cheerful!  Who could be sad in a blue house?  But I met with some resistance, and now we have compromised on a blue basement and wow, it’s lovely. 
We had hired a guy to do the painting, and it turned out that he was the type of guy who preferred to work without even the company of the radio, which meant that I completely forgot he was there.  Normally when we have had people working on our house, things have been very noisy and disruptive – i.e., the hardwood – but painting in the basement?  Silence.  Which meant that I would come in from my errands, and walk around the house singing.  Because, you know, I seem to think my life is like a musical theatre, the way I burst into song at any given time of the day.  Remember my impromptu Christmas duet with the old man at the liquor store?  It’s like that.  The problem was that the songs going through my head were twofold: Linger by the Cranberries, and Over My Head by Fleetwood Mac.  So throughout the day I found myself bursting out with “You’ve got me wrapped around your FINGER, do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it LINGER?” or “You can take me to paradise, then again you can be cold as ice, I’m over my head – OVER MY HEAD – but it sure feels NICE.”  Then I would remember, I’m not alone.  I would stop abruptly, and all I would hear is the near-silence of the paint roller.  It was kind of ominous. 
It turned out that the painter’s girlfriend is a mail carrier, and coicindentally she was substitutng for our mail carrier last week!  She brought him a Jugo Juice and the two of them sat on our step for lunch.  Cute!  Young love!  I’m sure he had better things to talk about than the crazy singing lady-client.  Right?
Filed Under: Birthdays, Food, Mind Songs, Playtime, Pop Cult-ure, Weather or not

Comments

  1. Nowheymama says
    April 23, 2012 at 5:07 pm

    Aaand…now I have The Cranberries in my head. 🙂

    Reply
  2. WhisperingWriter says
    April 23, 2012 at 7:52 pm

    Yay for a blue basement!!

    Reply
  3. Bibliomama says
    April 24, 2012 at 4:11 pm

    Sorry sweetie, he was DEFINITELY telling her about the crazy singing lady – of course he was also admiring the fact that you have a great ass for an old chick every time he came upstairs.

    We had a blue family room for a while. It wasn’t quite dark enough, but it was nice – now it’s mocha, which is better. But our downstairs is darkish blue and apple green and I still love it.

    Reply

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