My mother's 90th birthday is tomorrow, January 1. I'm having 50 or more people here 4:30-7:30 (senior-friendly hours). My mother said that all she wanted for her birthday was a kleyzmer band. I booked the band about 18 months ago. I'm okay, maybe even happy, with the distribution of labour among the siblings. My younger brother said he'd order the catering. My older brother said he'd pay for it. My younger brother and his wife said they'd look after flowers. They ordered 91 white long-stem roses! omg. My older brother said he'd bring six bottles of champagne, but at the last minute changed it to wine. His daughter is bringing 50 plastic champagne flutes. I made the invitation with the help of mivasairski, but my older sister handled all the RSVPs, and got herself here from Nelson, BC, in the Kootneys. My daughter got the Prime Minister, our MP, and the Governor General of Canada to send letters of congratulations. The Queen only sends a letter when you turn 100. (Both the Queen and my mother are turning 100 in ten years. Will the Queen send herself a letter?) My daughter got all the letters framed and will read them aloud. She will also read greetings sent by remote cousins and others. I'm paying for the band and providing the venue which is my house. flagamuffin has stayed here. My mother will pay for the wait staff to do the cleaning. My step-sister will make a giant cake. It's a great joy for me to have a relationship with my mom who has known me my entire life and actually made me. My mom has been supportive, loving, and consistent. She has buried two husbands: each one amazing, interesting, kind, and together with my mom, engaged in creating more goodness in the world. So that will be my New Year's Day.
man that is one hell of a way to ring in the new year. happy birthday to your mother! all the older siblings in my family have splintered into entertaining but destructive mutual dislike; it's kinda cool to read about you all coming together and contributing.
I'm taking my mom to a Kwanzaa celebration at the Apollo in Harlem. Why? Cause fuck the Nutcracker, that's why. My mother and I are the only family together in the U.S., which lends a nice amount of freedom to tag along with other people on big days like NYE. If all goes according to plan I'll be properly blazitzed in a few hours. I hope everyone puts 2017 in a submission hold and makes it your bitch! Happy new year.
I would not have chosen to end the year with a family-wide, brutal flu but upon reflection it seems inevitable. In theory we have a childbirth ed class at the birth center on Thursday. our first. In practice we don't think they have any sign-ups yet. The difference between "theory" and "practice" is installing the 5.1 receiver, subwoofer amp and 50" 4k LCD sitting behind me at the moment. Which is the sort of thing I should normally be all over but today is the first day in 4 days I've had the strength to make coffee. Or type in paragraphs. There's something heartbreaking about a four-year-old that can't stop coughing. The coffee smells good, which is promising. yesterday I had four slices of bread. The day before I had a granola bar. The day before that I lost my 450-day logging streak on MyFitnessPal by not eating anything. No that was the day before. If you're curious as to which is better for weight loss, four days of flu kicks the ever-loving shit out of 3,000 miles on a bicycle.
Not as bad as a family flu, but I'm on lunch and I literally just bit a huge chunk out of my lower lip just now. 2016 is out to get every last bit of blood it can before it's done.I would not have chosen to end the year with a family-wide, brutal flu but upon reflection it seems inevitable.
My theme-word of the year for 2016 was 'connection'. Coming back to my home-town to continue my education highlighted what a home-town really is to me. It used to be where I was growing up, now it's were I grew up and who I grew up with. I distinctly remember my senior year, last semester of high school a teacher of mine recited some stat of whom you'll never seen again once you'll leave for college. All year long I've been running into, meeting, and reminded of friends from elementary school, my b'nai mitzvah class, and - so many times over - high school. Despite my own image of myself as a hermit for the past few years, it's nice to have a connection to a town to call home as well as a physical living space. Here's to 2017. Reading around on here, looking out for some sort of climate change advocacy club on-campus to get involved with once next semester starts. Also, I heard Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin are a hoot to watch together on CNN's countdown if no one is watching yet. I wonder if SNL is on tonight, too....
There's a big music, dance, and countdown thing at the end of my block tonight. There are definitely perks to living downtown in a city, and this is one of them. Spending a couple of hours volunteering at it, since it's been a while since I've done any volunteer work and should start doing that again. Tomorrow morning I will make coffee, go run a 5k with some folks, immediately follow that up with a polar plunge and brunch with the same people, and then go on a date that night. Here's to a good end to 2016, and even better start to 2017.
