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The Best

My parents sent me a card for my birthday.  My Mom always makes them out but I know she showed my Dad before sending it.  I got it in the mail Monday and she marked it for me to not open it until 08/17 but I ignored that and ripped it open.  Of course all that silly Happy Birthday confetti flew all over the place, which I knew would happen and that made me smile.  The card itself is really funny and gave me a chuckle but it is what she wrote at the signature that made my day.  I know I am a mommy's boy and my mother is bat shit crazy but I just love her.  I love too that she started to sign the wrong page, that is so imperfectly perfect. 

Maine

Look at everyone up at Old Orchard Beach.  Like I said in an earlier post it initially made me sad that I am not there.  One because I really want to be there having fun with my family and two that financially it made me feel a bit messed up that I could not work it out.  But now that has past.  I have received plenty of photos and videos and it is making me completely happy that they are having so much fun.  Even my dad has a smile which is rare totally lets me know 100% they are having an awesome time.  Seems strange to see all those hoodies, hats and sweaters in a picture from August.  It must be chilly there but that does not seem to be stopping the fun.  What a great picture.  I was so very, very happy when I got this.

Good Morning

My "new" car is working out well, thank goodness.  Although it does have, as mentioned before, a working cd player and cassette player - the windows do not have tinting.  No I am not gansta as suggested by a friend, it is just a necessity out here to have tinted windows.  My sisters said they would pay for it for my birthday so I went down on Sunday morning to get it done.  Oddly enough my friend and two of her friends just had theirs done so they recommended the place that I went to.  It was just a couple towns away in a town called Vista.  Although Vista is close by, I do not go there often.  I just wanted the back half of my car done as that is what I had in my other car and it helped greatly.  Plus it is illegal to have the front half done although it seems like everyone does.  It was going to take about 2 hours and so I went for a walk.  

During my walk I found all sorts of great stuff.  The first and most impressive was a Victorian house!  Those are a big deal to me out here as there are not nearly as many here as there are back east so coming across one is always a treat.  It was in muted colors but still pretty.  I think it may be being used as an office but I could not tell for what kind of company.  It was in fantastic condition too which made me happy to see it still alive, functional and being cared for.  

I then came across a really funky place that looked a lot less out of place than the Victorian.  It kinda looked like an old school house and was Mission style.  I could tell it was still being used but again I could not tell as what.  My favorite part was the bell and weather vane at the top.  I stared at that for ages.  I am not sure how they ring the bell or if they even still do but it looked to be in great condition so I was hoping they do still ring it.  If it rang while I was staring at it then I probably would have crapped my pants in delight.

After eating a super yummy spinach omelette (which I did not take a picture of) on a shady outdoor patio at a restaurant, I thought found some art!  Oh I love coming across art -- so makes my day.  This was an electrical box that was painted to look much more appealing than the standard solid industrial green they are normally colored.  Perhaps not are worthy of the Louvre but I still loved it.  I wonder if when the artist goes past it while driving on that busy road, if they think, "Ohhhh there is my art!".  I certainly hope they do.

My windows came out awesome and it will make a huge difference.  The guys at the shop were super nice and I thought the pricing was very reasonable, especially since they come with a three year warranty.  Tinting is a terrific present too as I will use it every single day :)  All in all a terrific Sunday morning over there in Vista.  I certainly must come again.

An Emotional Day

I was doing errands today and stopped at the second hand shop to poke around for a bit.  They had a pile of cassettes and they were only 25 cents each!  I know it is 2017 but I just got a new car which is a 2002 - hey no cracks as at least it is of this millennium.  Anyway my "new" car has both a working cd player and cassette player, which brings me back to my excitement over the 25 cent cassettes.  I sorted through them and among them I came across Anne Murray's greatest hits How could I pass that up?  I adore her.  As I drove around and listened to it it made my mind wonder, especially this song.  It made me feel emotional and that is always hard.  I texted some friends that I was listening to Barry Manilow (another 25 cent cassette find) and Anne Murray and was feeling emotional today.  One friend recommended I get some cardio in, which is definitely not bad advice but I said I needed to clean and the response was that my mental health was important and cleaning could wait.  I agree with that statement in general yet I only said I was having an emotional day, I did not say that it was a negative thing.  Sure some of the emotions today were hard.  My sisters and the kids left for a week up in Old Orchard Beach Maine and I so wanted to be there.  I could not financially make that happen and that crushed me.  My birthday is this week, the kids are so fun and I have so many great memories of staying at the beach with my family, to be with them this week would have been beyond the best.  Also it is really upsetting to me not to be there because I want to be so much which is coupled with that it makes me feel like a failure that I cannot be.  I had to work tonight at my second job and as I walked in my favorite niece sent me pictures of them at the beach.  I literally was walking to the doors when the pictures came through.  I looked at my phone and the pictures immediately made tears well up in my eyes and I stopped dead in my tracks.  I allowed myself that minute but then thought to let go of that silliness and be happy that they were going to be having a great week.  Plus she just got there and her first thought was to send me pictures.  That is powerful demonstration of how important I am to her and that she wants to share happiness and make me happy not sad.  I shut my phone off and swallowed hard then walked on in to start my job.

That is an example of how emotions can be difficult but also Anne Murray made me think of one of my best memories ever., which is when I saw Anne Murray live with Michelle.  I don't remember the year but it was at least 25 years ago at minimum.  It was down on the cape and Michelle bought  me tickets for my birthday, which the date of the show was close to.  What a splendid night.  Anne was so good live and it was an intimate, outdoor venue so that was all wonderful and pleased me to no end.  But what really makes the memory outstanding is how fun it was.  Left to her own devices Michelle would never have been there but she was there and mainly because she knew how happy it would make me.  I got to see an amazing show that is forever ingrained in my kinda shoddy memory but also spend time with someone who was so happy for no other reason than to see that I was on top of the world happy that day.   That is a truly special and amazing feeling. That's the other end of the spectrum of emotions, the joy and the happiness.

I am a super emotional person which can make me super strong or incredibly weak and with a 50,000 foot view of that I  can recognize that emotions exist in pairs like two sides of a  coin.  It comes with the territory and is par for the course and any other applicable cliche to state the price of being human.  As I get ready to go to sleep for the night I look back on today and think, "today was a good day" and so after my emotional day I will sleep just fine.  This is a milestone week for me so we will see how it goes but I am feeling positive for it to unfold, bumps and all.