Missing

While the impending swine flu pandemic is stealing all the headlines these days (I'm trying not to get freaked out but I've read The Stand by Steven King twiceand am familiar with Captain Trips.) there's another story in my city that's getting attention. It's a case of a teenage girl who went missing while spring breaking in Myrtle Beach.

Brittanee is 17 and a junior in high school who asked her mother if she could go to Myrtle Beach with some friends last week for break. Mom said no. Brittanee then asked if she could stay with some friends in town for a few days. Mom said yes. Now I'm not judging anyone, I feel horrible for this mother but when your kid asks to go out of town with friends, you say no, she then asks to stay with local friends for a few days doesn't your mom antennae go up? As a 17 yr. old I also told my mom I would be one place knowing I wasn't going to be there but never left town. I'm lucky in the fact that I have great kids but I would still think something didn't ring true if they did that. But it's a known fact that teenagers don't always make good decisions and it's been proven that is has to do with the development of the frontal lobe of the brain.

Brittanee made the decision to deceive her mother and go to M.B. to the extent that she called home every day pretending to be in town. In one of those conversations she told her mom she was at the beach. Since we have a beach here on the shore of Lake Ontario mom didn't suspect anything. Brittanee left Rochester on Wed. April 22 and was last seen in Mytrle Beach on Saturday evening April 25. Apparently the group of friends were changing hotels and when she didn't show up someone finally notified authorities. Her clothes and cell phone were found in her hotel room. What teenage girl isn't joined at the ear with their phone?

Per her mother, Dawn Drexel, Brittanee has never run away before. She's getting national exposure on CNN with Nancy Grace, weeknights at 8 pm. I hope this has a happy ending and not turn out to be a Natalee Holloway story.

Hello Birdie

This spring I made a wreath for the front of our house.

Several weeks ago we noticed a bird would fly out of it

everytime we came out the front door.

Sure enough in that narrow space between

the house and the back of the wreath she built a nest.

Over the weekend the eggs hatched! Tonight the door was open and it must have been dinner time. The little birds were chirping their hearts out. Cody just looked out the door, cocking his head wondering where the hell all the noise was coming from.

When pigs fly

This swine flu thing has gotten me nervous. Is it me or did it just come out of nowhere? As of right now 147 people have died in Mexico. What seems unusual is that many of the victims are not typical of what you'd expect, very young or very old. Young and healthy people are dieing of it. I worry about my oldest who works in a hospital in NYC and the youngest living in a crowded college dorm. I guess worrying is part of a mother's job description. I certainly hope this virus goes away quietly. At one time, few people traveled internationally. Now with people flying more destinations than ever germs can travel just as fast.

In 1976 I was 17 and a senior in high school when there was an outbreak of swine flu in the country. I distinctly remember that because my parents made me get a swine flu shot. I did not want to get one but they dragged me anyway. The county had a clinic set up at the county fair grounds and it was like an assembly line. By the way, that's what they used to give the shot, talk about scary! To top it off it was all for naught. There never was a big epidemic. Today if there was a vaccination available I might be dragging my kids there. It would be nice if all of us that were inoculated back then would be immune now.

Wishful thinking.

Hey, it's FRIDAY

As a teenager I grew up listening to my rock and roll on WCMF 96.5 and still listen today. Now they play classic rock most of the time which is fine with me since I am stuck in a time warp musically. I love the stuff from the 60's, 70's and some 80's so this station is perfect for me. WCMF had a shake up last year when they fired their longtime morning show DJ, Wease and mid day man Dave Kane. My loyalty ended after almost 30 years. Eventually the powers that be recognized the error of their ways and brought back my favorite, Kane-O.

Dave Kane and I have aged together. While we don't know each other, we married our spouses around the same time and had kids the same years. One of his claims to fame is the work force block where he proves that there is such a thing as a "free lunch". You can send in your tune request and if chosen, get free lunch from local restaurants. At my previous place of employment I had a radio on my desk and listened everyday. Now working at school that doesn't happen.

Every Friday - 3:00 pm - at the end of his shift he plays the Friday Song. Again I seldom get to hear it anymore but managed to hear it today. I think I'm going to copy him and every Friday have the song on my blog. I hope I don't get sued.


http://www.mindtv.org/cgi-bin/display_asset.fcg?member_id=1776;ordinal=655;file=vodind.ttml;style=mind



The Friday Song is actually called Shanty written and preformed by Jonathan Edwards.

Steak Out

My New York City son and his college roommates went out to dinner last night to celebrate. The last one of them finally got a job and will be moving to Colorado next week. He'll be working for Boeing on some top secret project. His roommates are natives of NYC, (well really natives of China but lived most of their lives in the city) and know the good spots to eat, drink and be merry. One of those places is Peter Luger Steakhouse. The steak is legendary and rated the top steakhouse in NYC by Zagat's.

They ordered the steak for four and he said it was absolutely the best he's ever had. That coming from a kid that until age 15 wouldn't eat steak, didn't like it and would rather have a hot dog.





His palate has changed drastically, he'll try anything once. He enjoys going to his roommate's homes for dinner. Kenny's grandmother cooks authentic Cantonese and Tim's mom cooks authentic Szechwan. He says nothing is wasted in Chinese cooking, he's even had fried chicken feet. I guarantee those will never pass my lips.



On my next visit to NYC I'm going to hit this restaurant.

Life

As you may or may not know my oldest son graduated from college last May, moved to New York City and got an RN job in a cardiac unit at New York Presbyterian/Columbia, rated as a top ten heart hospital in the country. Not bad for a kid right out of nursing school. His goal is to become a nurse practitioner and the hospital will pay for the additional two years of education needed at Columbia University. Of course it will take longer than two years since he will be working full time while doing it.

Since he's been gone I've seen him three times. I've been there once and he's come home twice. I've been doing pretty well but lately I've been missing him terribly. It all started on April 14. He had gone down to Florida to visit his grandparents for a few days and the night before he was to fly home I said to hubby, "Kevin comes home tomorrow!" Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, his home is no longer here but in NYC. That seemed so sad for me. Hubby then reminded me that he and his girlfriend will be coming up Memorial Day weekend. Hooray.

But sometimes life...

gets in the way of life.

Seems that after the schedule was posted and up for a while it got changed and he no longer has enough time to come home. The same thing happened with his Florida trip, they changed the schedule, he had to change his flight and leave a day later.

He's pissed and I'm blue but just told him that in the game of life things happen. I've been in the work force for 33 years and know all about planning my vacation around other people, last minute changes in schedules, bosses that don't care if you have plans but he's new to it. Your work life gets in the way of other parts of your life and most of the time that's your priority. I guess it's hard to take since it's happened twice now.

He's finding out that in the adult world things aren't as easy. You have more responsibilities, more bills to pay and you're pulled in more directions with more demands on your time. I'm not going to add to that by going all melancholy on him. It's been hard for me to go from playing an involved role as a mother to a spectator mother. There's a small empty space in my heart with him gone on his own. I wonder, does this feeling ever go away for a mother? Will you always miss your children like this? I should ask my own mother, she's coming over today and we're driving out to see my youngest son at college and take him out for lunch. Hooray!

Friend Me

Are you on Facebook?

Why yes I am, thanks for asking.

I joined Facebook several months ago and at first I didn't know why. Sounds strange huh? Then it hit me, I can keep up on what my kids are doing. I would never call it spying, just catching a glimpse into their lives. Now that my nest is empty I don't see them or speak with them every day and I sorely miss that. Facebook allows me to see what's going on with them or drop them a line. Why not call them some may ask. Well I'm pretty sure they don't want to talk to me every day plus with one in college and the other working nights at the hospital so who knows when it's a good time to call.

I told both that I was going to friend them and if they didn't want to accept they didn't have to, my feelings wouldn't be hurt. I told them not to alter the content what-so-ever just because mom would be reading. I understood going into it I may see some things that I didn't like or I'd be surprised about. My oldest accepted me right away, my youngest took a few days to think about it but did eventually accept. My dad and hubby's mom are also on Facebook and are friends with their grandchildren.

I've learned that both drop the F bomb now and then but never have at home or in front of me and I'm fine with that. I see that both still procrastinate. I found out number one son and his girlfriend have pet names for each other. A friend of number two left a comment that she thought it was cute that I comment on his page and a friend of number one commented that "your mother is on your Facebook page??!!"

But it's so much more than just my kids. I've found and been found by people from elementary and high school. I've joined a group that someone formed about my childhood neighborhood and found someone from high school who knows a teacher I work with. You know that whole six degrees of separation thing.

I only have 20 some friends, maybe people my age aren't really into the whole FB experience but according to this more and more older folks are joining.

BTW, my Facebook is under my real name, Summer is an alias but trust me, my real name is as unique as Summer.

Shopping while Flying

I'm not a great flier, I can't really relax. Maybe because my first two experiences flying weren't that great. The first time I ever flew in a plane was in 1978 when I went to Hawaii at age 20. It was a 13 hour flight and I felt trapped on the plane. We had a two hour layover in LAX so we wondered around. That's where I had my first celebrity sighting...

Charlene Tilton who at the time was on the TV show Dallas. That's her, the young blond.

My second time flying was the worst flight ever. It was in a puddle jumper from Provencetown , Cape Cod into Logan airport in Boston on August 6, 1981. I had driven there with my parents but had to come home early so I had booked a flight home months earlier. Why do I remember that? It was the day after President Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers. I was not happy that I was flying into one of the nation's busiest airports with supervisors and non controllers running the show. Not to mention that I was flying during a violent thunderstorm. EEK.

Over the years flying has gotten easier for me but I need to keep my mind occupied. So I shop in the Sky Mall catalog. Yes, I know, it's probably very germy but I take hand sanitizer when I travel. I always find something I want from it. On my trip to Florida in February I found this brownie pan.

You see I love the edges of brownies. I don't often eat the middle but will cut all around the pan for the crispier edges. This pan would be perfect for me except it cost $39.95 and I don't make brownies that often. But I would if I had this pan.
I am slightly a germ-o-phobic. I wash my hands many times a day because kindergartners have lots of germs plus I think of all the germs when I'm out and about and have to touch things like the grocery cart handle or the door handles at restaurants. The first thing I do after I order is go and wash my hands. Then there's my toothbrush. I clean it with the hottest water I can get out of the faucet. I can get grossed out if I think about putting the same brush in my mouth every day. Enter this ingenious thing; the million germ eliminating travel toothbrush sanitizer. What a deal at $29.95

Now Sky Mall also has some of

the craziest stuff in their catalog too.

Take this for example. The James T. Kirk captian's chair. No kidding, there is such a thing and it only costs $2,717.01 ! (How did they arrive at that odd amount?) If this showed up on my door step we'd be in divorce court. That's crazy. I hated Star Trek as a kid. I thought it was stupid that every planet they ever landed on looked like Earth. Plus every alien woman fell in love with Capt. Kirk. If I were Scotty I wouldn't have beamed him back up to the Enterprise. The only episode I liked was something with little furry creatures.



Moving on we have this lovely garden statue of Big Foot. I suppose it would be a conversation piece but I think it would freak me out every time I saw it. But I'd take him over Kirk's chair.

Hmmm, I wonder if I have to fly to get this catalog?

I love Yellow

The goldfinches are back.

We hang two feeder socks from our floor to ceiling window in the kitchen.

They're little pigs but so pretty.

Sometimes Cody lays in the sun watching them through our floor to ceiling window in the kitchen. Other times he barks at them and they scatter.
My yellow daffies in the front garden. Spring is finally here!

The past month we've noticed a white/silver squirrel.

We have brown squirrels and grey but never one like this.

I don't need to tell you this but boy, kids can be so bratty sometimes. Case in point; today one of my students was in a mood. First some background info on her; she's rough and tough, a tomboy if you will. She won't wear pink or anything that can be construed as girly. Her parents are separated but mom just had a baby about a month ago. As far as I can tell they weren't that "separated" because Suzie says the baby daddy is her daddy too. Suzie needs a lot of attention and will do what she has to to get it. At the beginning of the year she would go under the table and not come out. She didn't want to be in school. During the course of the school year she and I have come to an understanding and have a trusting relationship. I've grown to love her. I swear, the tougher the kid, the harder I fall. Maybe because I spend more time with them or just know that they need the extra love.

Today she didn't want to do any work and I knew I was in for a battle when she covered her ears and made noise with her tongue as to not hear what I was saying.









After giving her many chances to listen I told her that her choice was to listen to me or see the principal. She chose the latter. While we were waiting for the principal she got blatantly disrespectful to me and another adult in the office, falling on the floor, biting herself which is a new behavior. I decided it was time to use the restraint training I learned so many years ago. Now she really angry. She told me she was going to ignore me, never speak to me again, she was quiting being 5 she was going back to being 4. I just let her ride it out. After about 10 minutes she finally relaxed and I loosened my grip. She turned to me, flung her arms around my neck and sobbed into it. Then out comes the story.


She didn't want to do her work because it was too hard and it sucked all of her energy (wonder where she heard that one). She said she wasn't smart enough to do it. I told her, "of course you're smart, you could do that if you tried". She went on to tell me that her dad says she's not smart and he calls her a punk and a dork. I asked if he was goofing around with her when he says this. "Nope, he sends me to my room and I cry." then "I'm sorry Mrs. B. I'm really sorry." comes out through the tears.


Now even though she was a brat, disrespectful and all that jazz I couldn't help but just hold her, let her cry and murmur reassuring words in her ear. I'm going to treat her the same way I treat my own children.



I wear many hats at school; educator, referee, confidant and mother. There are good days and bad days and you'd think today wasn't a good one but I consider it a success. Suzie may have had a melt down but in the end I was able to be there for her and show her that someone truly cares for her.


I love my job.

Shiver my timbers!

I'm a kind and gentle person. Sometimes it may not seem that way because I'm opinionated and passionate about what I think is right. I'm a peaceful person. I don't like violence. I am always amazed at what one human can do to another so I surprised myself when the news came out that American ship captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by Somali pirates.

My first thought was that we and I mean the US Navy should have shot the pirates dead on the spot when they refused to give up Phillips. I still feel that way and am glad that it ended that way. The pirates are dead and Phillips is free to continue his life as a law abiding citizen with his family and friends.

I am just so tired of bad people taking advantage of good people minding their own business. The world is a cruel place and getting more cruel by the day. Lawless gangs and warlords have taken over Somalia and I feel for the innocent people and the fisherman that are forced to do their bidding. But I feel it was time to send a message that it will not be tolerated.

This can go two ways; either the pirates will learn something from this action and back off or it will make it worse and more innocents will be taken. I for one think the right thing was done and it should have been done sooner rather than later.

Some may not agree with me but again, some have to learn their lessons the hard way.

Happy

Easter

Keep it in your pants buddy

Today I saw a flasher and I don't mean this kind of flasher.

I'm lucky to live a mile from a beautiful county park where you can picnic, hike and fish. It has shelters as well as cabins for your festivity. There's an unofficial dog park where you can take your pooch to frolic and play with other dogs. There are maintained baseball diamonds and tennis courts and trails to go horseback riding. Our fifth grade walks there for a pond life science unit. It's not a huge park but a nice quiet retreat from the rat race.

Until today. I saw a rat. Hubby and I were driving home through the park. As I'm looking out the window into the park in a small grove of trees maybe 50 yards from the road is a man standing there with his pants down to his knees. I looked twice to see what I was really seeing and it was real. By this time we were past him going up the hill to our house. I said to hubby, "that man has his pants down!"

He asked was he peeing?

" No, just standing there in the breeze with all his manhood exposed for the world to see."

"Are you sure? " he asked

Hey I know a prick when I see one.

"We have to turn around!"

Why? he wanted to know.

"Because if he's still there I'm calling the cops."

So we turn around, maybe two minutes has gone by. We pull into the parking lot and there's a car beside the spot where the guy was. A man was walking around in that same area with a cell phone to his ear.

"Is that him?" asked hubby.

"I don't know, his pants are pulled up now".

But his hair was white/grey/silver and I think the flasher had hair like that. I was too busy staring at other parts of his anatomy.

We parked and I wanted to wait a few minutes to see if the police showed up. Maybe this guy had seen him also and pulled in and called. But I didn't think so. I think it was him but couldn't be sure.

I'm not some delicate flower that would faint at this sight. I've had a second grade student expose himself to me several times. I just told him I didn't want to see that, put it away and reported it to the principal. But this was a man and obviously a pervert. I absolutely hate how the world has become such a scary place. Would I let my children go down to that park alone now (if they were younger) in a word, NO.

Is a flasher or exhibitionist or peeping Tom dangerous? Some say yes, some say no. Click here to read about that topic. The things that men to do women and children just make me sick. This is not a man bashing post at all but the truth is that most of the sexual predators are men. Off the top of my head I can think of two missing little girls, Haleigh Cummings and Sandra Contu although her body was found last week in a heartbreaking story. Edit: there was an arrest in the killing of this little girl and it was a woman. Read about it here. We had a similar tragic event in my area in 1994 less than 10 miles from my house. The girl was 4 years old at the time. She was found 2 years later in a 30,000 gallon cooling tank at a business where the killer, Mark Christi worked. He was her neighbor.

This stuff isn't new. When I was a kid we had the alphabet murders in my city. In 1962 there was an elm tree that developed Dutch Elm disease and it had to be taken down. A man named James Moore did the job while a mother was home alone with two young daughters, ages 4 and 2. Three weeks later this same man killed a 14 yr old girl, Pamela Moss. That four year old was me.

She's a lady, whoa, whoa, whoa

Edit: When I stopped over to Dirk Mancuso's place today I saw he had a post about Lady Gaga and her American Idol performance. I had forgotten I'd saved this post as a draft and never posted it until I saw his. Dirk's is better because he's got the video so head on over there. I'm too lazy today to put the vid on mine, not feeling too well.

Here's my forgotten post.

Who is this Lady Gaga? It seems like she's just burst on the scene. I started seeing her in Star magazine several months ago. Yes, I subscribe to that supermarket rag, it's my cheap entertainment plus I love the crossword puzzle.

I'd never heard her sing and wasn't sure I wanted to. Her look is over the top with the blond wigs, costumes and make up. Sometimes with all that glitz singers really can't sing. She reminds me of a cleaned up, blond Amy Winehouse. Then came my chance to hear her on American Idol. To my somewhat surprise I thought she was pretty talented. She sang Poker Face and I enjoyed the piano playing as well as her singing. Edit: Last night on Dancing with the Stars Melissa and Tony danced the Paso Doble to that song. Lady Gaga also reminds me of the drag queens in Provincetown on Cape Cod. I looked closely and she's very pretty. But the zippered eye patch was just weird. It reminded me of a picture I've had hanging around on my computer for a while that I didn't know what to do with.

This must be a long lost relative of eye patch.

He's going where?

Big news, (I say tongue in cheek). Michael Jordan's son Marcus has chosen a college.

Not his father's alma mater, not an Ivy League or Big Ten or Division 1 school but the University of Central Florida. I've never heard of it and that doesn't matter but what bothers me is that he got a scholarship to play basketball. That's great and all, that they've recognized his talent and are willing to pay his tuition. But doesn't his father make enough dough to pay for it? That's money they could have given to some other hard working student who couldn't afford to attend their college.

As a mother of a college graduate and another a freshman in college I know it's tough paying for college not to mention how competitive it's getting. My oldest son spent four years at Binghamton University which is a SUNY school (State University of New York), their cream of the crop school in the SUNY system. My son applied to BU while in high school. That year BU had 21,000 applicants for about 2,500 freshman spots. Let's do the math: 21,000 applicants multiplied by a $60. non refundable application fee = $1,260,000 and that's just for freshman applications. That alone could pay full tuition for 70 students each year. They only take the top applicants. He got in but didn't get a dime and now has over $36,000. to pay back.

Number two son goes to a much smaller SUNY school who recruits top students to enhance their reputation. He did get a partial scholarship due to his SAT score and GPA but the average kid out there is out of luck. There are plenty of students that just want a chance but with the cost and competition they aren't going to get one.

I'm just going to say it... If you're rich you don't get any money for college, forget the scholarships and state aid. I don't care how smart or athletic you are.

What do Scotsmen wear under their kilts?

I don't know what they wear but let's talk about bagpipes. I've found that most people love them or hate them, there's not much in between. I happen to love them. I do believe I fell in love with them as a kid when I heard the music in an Old Spice commercial. For years I thought the name of that song was Old Spice. Lo and behold I eventually learned it's Scotland the Brave.

People sometimes ask me if I'm Irish, especially around St. Patrick's Day. Maybe because I have fair skin, freckles, green eyes and reddish hair. Not a drop of Irish in me but lots of other nationalities. My grandmother on my fathers side was Canadian. Another being Scottish. My mother's maiden name was Ross. In the 1850's or so a great, great grandfather came here from the Highlands of Scotland.

This is the clan Ross tartan. I have a kilt pin that's a sword and when I wear it to school the kids are fascinated with it. But back to bagpipes...
As a kid we went up to the CNE in Toronto where we attended a huge Scottish Tattoo. There were pipe and drum bands from all over the world. I will admit that after a while they can be hard on your ears and I understand why some don't like them.
To me there is something sentimental about bagpipes. I don't really know why. Is it the kilts and all the accoutrement's that go with it? The sound that can be so melancholy? All I know is that when I hear them coming my heart beats faster. To hear Amazing Grace or Scotland the Brave on the pipes makes me tear up every time.



What I really really enjoy is bagpipes in rock and roll. Very few bands use them as they're hard to fit in but a favorite of mine manages to do it. One day in the very distant future when I'm gone I think I'll go the nontraditional route and have this played rather than Amazing Grace. I love it. If you only listen to a little of it, listen for the first 3 minutes.





One last thing to my very few readers out there; my husband tells me my posts are too long. Do you agree? I can go on at times.

Watch where you walk

What a day today. The kids were more challenging than usual but I can deal with that. What I can't stand is the politics, tattling and back stabbing that goes on among adults.

Why would someone go to the extreme to trash a person, to make them look bad, make false statements and ruin their career? Because she voiced her opinion and it didn't agree with yours? Because she stuck up for a student she was having success with and you weren't? You can't say you did it for the sake of the children. She's been lobbying to get additional help for a student that you didn't want to take on because of their behavior, how it would affect your program's success rate and ultimately how it would make you look. Yes, we know you couldn't handle it so this was your way of dealing with it. I see how you talked others into your point of view.

The shit is hitting the fan and it's everywhere. I work intimately with this teacher everyday and while she has some things to work on, she is wonderful with the students. I see how hard she works on her job, the hours that she spends after school preparing. They are learning new things everyday and have already met the benchmarks of the grade level curriculum. It's amazing what people will believe if enough people say it. How they will let people poison their mind about another. Why bother to check the facts and let the data and the numbers do the talking.

In all honesty this teacher can be annoying. I've complained about her myself to another collegue but it was superficial stuff. Her empathy for children is admirable, she clearly wants the best for them. She did not deserve to be denied tenure and let go. I say let go, that's not really true. They are keeping her on for the remaining 3 months of the school year so they don't have to find a sub and go through all that crap.

I would like to think that the person who started all this didn't really mean for this to be the outcome of their campaign. If this teacher was yelling at the students all the time, making them feel bad about themselves, not teaching them, not meeting expectations then maybe this final action would be appropriate but to go for two and a half years with out any issues and glowing evaluations then bam, thrown under the bus... Something's rotten in Denmark.

Then I come home from school and am greeted by the news that another nut has lost it, gunning down 12 people then taking the chicken way out and killing himself. Binghamton is a small city where my oldest son went to college. Nursing homes, churches, schools, parties and now this. Is anyone safe anywhere? I spoke with my son who is going out to dinner tonight in Manhattan. I always tell him to be careful since he lives in the nut capital of the world but it's everywhere now. My heart aches for these victims and their families.

What does this 20 year old underwear model

have in common with just sweet 16 Miley Cyrus?

He's her boyfriend!

Not only that, he lives with her and her family. I just don't get it. What does a 20 year old man see in a 16 year old girl? I'm not ultra conservative, as a matter of fact I'm pretty open minded. I don't have a daughter but I can tell you this...
if I did she would not be with a boy 4 years older than her at this stage in her life. I feel once you hit a certain age, the age of your significant other doesn't matter too much. Twenty four year old guy + 20 year old girl, no problem. But this situation bothers me. Not to mention she's underage. Where are these parents heads? The following is an excerpt of an interview with Miley in Glamour magazine.

On the four-year age difference between her and boyfriend Justin Gaston:
"I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong, and I'm ready for people to accept it. My fans already accept it -- they just want me to be happy. And I haven't been that happy in a few years ... working so hard, moving to L.A. from Nashville, going through a bad breakup [with Nick Jonas]. I'm finally happy again, and I think that is reflected in my music and my work. So honestly, I don't feel like there's anything to hide. And I love him so much I don't really care."

This girl is sixteen for heavens sake. She sounds like she's 30. Maybe that's what he sees in her, she seems older. Or maybe it's because she's a gold mine.

April Fools

Nineteen years ago today the biggest April Fool's joke was played on me.

Number Two son was born 15 days early
and he's been my delight ever since.
Happy Birthday
Love you tons
XO
and that's no joke!