When i'm 85 I'm going to eat all of the chocolate I want, whenever I want. And Smarties, too, because i love them. They're one of my favorite non-chocolate candies of all time but i rarely indulge because I'm generally trying to be "good." I swear, that whole idea will be tossed out the moment I turn 85.

Why 85, you ask? We'll, because i have this cute little neighbor lady, Sylvia, who manages a sister building across the street. She's 85 this year and has been managing for 16 YEARS. oh, kill me now. Sylvia really wants to quit her job but was not left with much money when her husband passed away. She sat down with her kids and figured out that if she played things really tight, she could live for another 4 to 5 years and then she'd be completely out of money. In the next breath, she said the doctor recently told her her sugar levels were up so she stopped eating all sweets, including chocolate. Even dark chocolate. All I could think was, if you only have a couple of years left of money, anyway, screw the whole blood sugar worries and just live out the rest of your days eating what you want to eat. why stop the chocolate now? It seems the perfect time to UP the sweets if you ask me.

I know, i know. So easy to say, so hard to do. With my luck i'd get diabetes and end up with huge hospital bills and then not die for another 15 years. Gosh, that sounded harsh. Anyway, chocolate aside, I hope she gets to quit sooner than later. My favorite sylvia question is, what's email?

the real fiesta

Cosmic bowling with 16 of her friends was Sophie's choice for her Bday this year. It was the biggest party we've thrown so far and the good news is we really didn't have to throw it at all. The bowling alley took care of everything and all we had to do was bring a cake, candles and goody bags. It was crazy and fun and probably something we'll only do every once in a while.






I remember my sister Jami telling me about her friend who decided they were going overboard for their daughter's party when they considered draining the pool and bringing in salt water for the dolphins. That sums up about every party in our area. Spiderman parachuting into the park, petting zoos in the backyard, parent buffets, a bouncy thing is absolutely mandatory as are Disney characters (minimum of 2 per bday child) It can get crazy. Once, Sophie went to a party for a little boy in her preschool and gave him some kind of action figure as her gift. It turned out this kid was giving those exact same action figures to the boys in their goody bags. 2 of them in fact along with a bunch other stuff. That was pretty embarrassing. It's like that new movie, "Keeping up with the Steins." One kid has his bar mitzvah on a yacht so, of course, the other family tries to go above and beyond. That's pretty much how it goes in our town. Luckily we've always been way to poor to even think about entering the race. So, I hope Sophie really enjoyed the big fete, it won't likely happen again until she goes off to college.

By the way, the bowling alley guys said the slowest roll their record is .98 MPH. Let's hear it for the Big O! He's already breaking records and he's not even 4.

happy birth-a-versary

May 6. One day after our anniversary and 1 day before Sophie's birthday. This was our joint celebration at Cafe 50's. Chocolate Thin Mint Girl scout cookie shakes and Sweet Potato Fries. It was super delicious and sophie said she felt pretty special because they gave her a paddle ball and some Jaw Breakers as an early present.

whoa

This afternoon I paid $3.45 for a gallon of gas.