I submit that there's nothing that can make you feel like more of a jerk than forgetting your mother's birthday. I actually forgot it twice too. I realized I forgot a day after the fact, but then once again forgot when I saw her in real life and prattled on until she brought it up. I remembered Julia Child's birthday for goodness sake's, and she's long dead, but forgot my own mother's birthday.
Apparently, the only one who remembered was Rain the dog, and my brother. That came out of left field. Go Danny. My dad forgot too. At the end of the day, he reached into the cabinet to get the dog a treat, and my mom said, "Do you know what day this is?" Dad froze, hand outstretched into the Pup-Peroni container. The gears in his brain turned. He knew he had done something wrong, but what?
So we all screwed up except Dan. Hopefully a family togetherness trip to our lake cabin in upstate New York made up for it. Joe drove six hours to visit too, that was so sweet of him.
This is one of my favorite places in the world. It's very modest, but so peaceful. There's nothing to do here except watch my cousin's children and the next door neighbor girls play with our puppy.
I read a few books, watched a documentary about Finnish sauna culture (few channels here), and went swimming too. I'm brave about lake swimming, but there was a humongous spider on the dock, and of course, she lived right on the ladder to get into the water. I chose to jump off the possibly broken diving board instead. Warning, crazy big dock spider pictured below, I'll hide it behind the jump for sensitive souls.
