Dear Diary – Week 18, 2024 | jennsmidlifecrisis

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birthday, dear diary, family, flowers, food, humour, pets, roses

Dear Diary – I celebrated my birthday this week, and I am thankful I do not have as many wrinkles as Angus!

Angus’ bath continues to be part of our nightly ritual, as well as giving him his antibiotics. He enjoys the bath, or at least tolerates it once he stops “air swimming” to get there. He still sneaks drinks when he thinks I’m not looking. I can’t imagine elderflower & lemon Epsom salt tastes very good. And relieves himself with a wicked smile on his lips.

Sometimes we have intimate conversations.

As for the antibiotics, he continues to evade me like a tiresome toddler. Unfortunately, while his “turtle behaviour” has increased and his appetite has not decreased, I’m not sure they are doing much to heal the problem. Time will tell!

After having overdone it the weekend before, moving Youngest Son home from college, my chiropractor was able to set me on the road to healing. I needed more rest but there’s “no rest for the wicked”. Or is the weary? With guests coming to help me celebrate, I needed to vacuum up the chip crumbs and exorcise the dust bunnies, even the ones under my bed.

Eldest Son and his girlfriend arrived Friday evening and I stayed up way past my bedtime. They were up and out of the house before me, to have breakfast with a friend. The original plan was for them to make me waffles for breakfast. I even laid out everything they would need to do so. Since they had eaten out, it was mid-afternoon before we dined on homemade waffles with strawberries and homemade apple sauce (which I made to save time). While they cooked, I also folded laundry. “No rest”, remember…

We played part of a game of Airport before they “flew” home. D&D Night waits for no man…or kobold.

I needed a quiet evening and good night’s sleep anyway. I had to be at church early.

While I didn’t get a lot of “rest”, I did take some time for fun. On Friday, my girlfriend and I slipped away to get our nails done. I picked pink nail polish because I planned to wear pink on Sunday.

It’s my third manicure and I felt just as awkward as the first time. I sat next to a woman with 1″ nails. Her plastic nails were already secured when I arrived, and it took the whole hour I was there, to shape them and flatten the ends. While the manicurist filed away beside me, the manicurist on the other side was grinding off perfectly shaped and painted purple nails on the woman next to me. I can only imagine how much plastic dust I inhaled while I was there.

I have often envied women with perfect locks and nifty nails, but never felt I could invest so much time and money into my own appearance. Or course, there were times when I didn’t even have the money to invest! I’m not judging these ladies. I just think I’d rather paint the town and enjoy a beautiful day outside a salon.

I’d be lucky to keep perfect nails this nice for longer than 24 5 hours.

While these ladies stared at their phones in the salon, my friend and I went to our favourite place for tea and conversation.

Monday birthdays kind of suck. Maybe because Monday is often such a blah day. The whole week stretches before you, filled with possibilities…like having to work late. Which Hubby has had to do lately. It’s also too early to get excited about the upcoming weekend. Monday is just not really a “party” kind of day.

So we started the party on Sunday. Just in case Hubby was stuck at work (and since I did not feel like driving an hour to pick up my own dinner), I suggested we pick up lunch after church. The bonus wasn’t just amazing food that I didn’t have to cook…the portions are large enough that I can eat the second half the next day. No cooking on my birthday! I enjoyed cheese cappelletti and garden salad…twice!

I started the day with a surprise from Eldest Son. He Ubered me a strawberry and cream crepe, and hot tea for breakfast. I meant to share it with Youngest Son, honestly. But it was so good…

My folks were part of the party as well, driving up (with cookies) for a few precious hours to take me to lunch. Oh, and Youngest Son too! We went to Cora’s, where I enjoyed a savoury crepe with egg and bacon.

Who says you can’t have crepes twice?

Hubby did not want to be outdone, so he brought home a decadent chocolate cake and beautiful roses. I feel like I ate my way through this birthday but what a smorgasbord of delights with which to do it.

But not the roses. I didn’t eat the roses!

It’s been a relatively quiet week otherwise, dear diary. Youngest Son is job hunting and for anyone who has ever looked for a summer job, you know that’s a full-time job. The news may be reporting a high rate of job vacancies and the lack of bodies to fill them, but I don’t where they’re looking.

The days of pounding the pavement with resumes tucked into envelopes is behind us. Everything is online. And very impersonal. AIs now filter applications so the rejection arrives within minutes. Or never arrive at all. Just starting out, Youngest Son lacks many of the qualifications sought, even if he’s more than competent to do the job. Without any personal contact, there’s no way to explain that.

Student Youth Centers seem to no longer exist. That’s how I got the stellar job of delivering tickets for the travelling wrestling match. I had to work out of a hotel room with a guy who looked like Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons. The lady from church who lived across from the hotel saw me coming and going at different times and must have thought I had joined the world’s oldest profession. It probably wasn’t the worst job I ever had, but it certainly feels like the weirdest.

We’ll keep pounding the keys on the ‘Net!

I have a tooth that’s bothering me so I reluctantly saw the dentist yesterday. He’s ~~torturing me~~ dealing with the problem this afternoon.

I should probably be worrying about shedding all the birthday treats but instead, I’m taking some time to stop and smell the roses.