December 31, 2006 Happy Birthday Mother!
Exactly 73 years ago tonight, my mother was born. She was the third child, and the only girl. She was NOT spoiled, despite being the youngest and a girl, she will quickly tell you!
I feel remiss in not having posted in several days, but things have been hectic.
Alesia got tutored for several hours yesterday, and while that happened I had a chance to do some writing. I actually finished my revision of the manuscript of Adopting Alesia. I will get it to the publisher within the next few days. I am anxious to find out if she thinks it’s publishable. If she thinks it really needs a lot of work I will have to go back to square one, and I have little time to write, so who knows when it will ever get published.
I am reading a great book, the autobiography of actress Ellen Burstyn. She talks not only about her life, which has been quite colorful – was abused as a child, quit high school, married 3 times, starred in The Exorcist, etc. – but about her interior journey. She was raised Catholic, but has educated herself on a wide range of topics, and explored her spirituality in a lot of different ways – meditation, yoga, Sufism. Sounds like a typical wacky Hollywood chick, but she’s not. I’ve read a lot of celebrity autobiographies and this is one of the most intelligent and thoughtful things I’ve ever read.
Mother had planned to go to church, then out to a nice lunch today, but the weather was really bad – pouring rain – so she stayed in. Alesia and I went to church. We picked up lunch from Red Lobster and had a fancy lunch at home. Mother’s arthritis acts up when the weather is like this, even though it’s not really cold – in the 60’s.
Over the last few days, Alesia has alternated between being a total pill and being sweet, but the pill states have predominated. At lunch, she lashed out at me and Mother, after Mother asked her to refrigerate the salad, saying she would NOT eat the salad! Mother and I just looked at each other in astonishment, and reminded Alesia we never said a word about eating the salad.
Lesleigh came over tonight and we were telling her about it, and she said it sounds like it’s just hormonal. Alesia does get bad PMS. I asked Les if she thought I needed to get Alesia to a therapist and she said no. Les is our unofficial family psychotherapist, since she has her master’s in psychology.
We didn’t feel like going out tonight, so at Mother’s request we had hors d’ouvres for dinner, and birthday cake. Alesia and I made Mother an Apricot Brandy Pound Cake. After Les had left, my friend Paul came over and we had a good visit.
We are making no effort to stay up until midnight. We never try. We are old fogies and proud of it.
Coco proved once again last night that she is, despite evidence to the contrary, a brilliant dog. Alesia was carrying her upstairs last night and Mother asked Alesia to come back down and cut off the tree lights. Alesia set Coco down on the landing, and said to her “Now you go on upstairs and wait for me. I will be up in a minute.” Coco looked at her resignedly and walked up the stairs and got on Alesia’s bed like OK, I did what you asked.
Now if only I could make Alesia obey as easily!
Happy New Year!
