Floppies for Mommy

When I was a little kid, I would go out and see "flowers" -- dandelions and other flowering weeds, or stop by the side of the road to pick wild flowers -- orange poppies and purple lupin and clutch a bouquet tightly in a chubby hand to bring home to my mother, proudly announcing that I had picked "floppies for Mommy" (presumably I didn't continue to call them "floppies" as I got older!)

So whenever I get flowers from the kids, I always think about them sending "floppies for Mommy," and today they outdid themselves.

The first to come was a beautiful huge bouquet of virtual yellow roses from Jeri. But then late in the morning came a beautiful bouquet of real yellow roses, with a lovely note from Ned. Ned doesn't usually send flowers and I was very touched.

Walt went out running errands this afternoon. The dogs barked several times but I never heard the bell ring, so Walt was surprised to find a florist attempted delivery hanging on the door when he came home. He drove out to the florist's and picked the flowers up for me and it was a lovely mixed bouquet from Tom, Laurel and Bri.

So Mommy has been "floppied" but good and it's nice to feel loved.

As birthdays go, this one has been quiet, but oh so enjoyable. For one thing, when you join Facebook, you get literally hundreds of people greeting you on your birthday, which is a very nice way to wake up in the morning! Ned also sent a recording of the traditional family happy birthday song, Jeri sent the recording of the version of the standard happy birthday song that she arranged and recorded a couple of days ago. She and Phil also serenaded my cell phone -- twice (once in a video and once as a message, when I wasn't able to take their call while I was during a meeting).

At noon, I met a friend for lunch. Not planned for my birthday, but it just happened to be my birthday.

We had run into each other accidentally a week or so ago and she once again apologized for not calling me and suggested that we get together for lunch. We compared our mutual calendars and chose today, February 17, which coincidentally happened to be my birthday. She suggested we meet at a Thai Cafe.

It was the perfect place to meet. I love Thai food (when it's not so spicy hot), and this was one of the places in Davis I had not tried. What's more, it overlooks the performing area that in this family we call "Paul Plaza" (though in reality it's known as "The E-Street Plaza," but there is the area which has a memorial plaque and special bricks that were dedicated to Paul--and some to David).

We sat and got caught up on our families, she brought pictures of all her grandchildren. I had taken my iPod out of my purse earlier in the day, so I didn't have any recent photos of Bri to show her, but I talked about her a lot.

We compared notes about who we know who has died or is sick or...worst of all...gave money to support Prop 8 (I've crossed another local business off of my list!) When we finished, we promised to have lunch more often than once every 5 years or so!

In the early evening I had a meeting to go to and then Walt and I had planned to go out to dinner, but he told me I couldn't leave the house yet because Tom was going to call on Skype just as soon as Brianna got out of the bathtub. What a fun treat! We got to see Brianna walk, she was in a fairly good mood so giggled a lot and we stayed on the phone a long time. Tom had hooked his computer up to his big screen HDTV and so we were coming in on the big screen. The video of the day isn't all that great, quality wise, but I thought it was fun to make the video.

When the video call ended, we went off to dinner. I laughed at the fact that we chose Strings because it was close to Petco and we needed dog food. But as it turned out, the linguini with crab was absolutely delicious, so it was a good restaurant choice, not just because it gave us the chance to buy dog food!

When we got home, Walt gave me my birthday present, which is "The Complete Directory of Prime Time, Network and Cable TV shows" (perfect for a TV addict). But even better was the card. This was the front of it:

Inside it reads, "Older..but when does wiser kick in?"

The perfect end to the perfect day!