May I Brag On My Dad a Little Bit?

Usually, a girl gets one present a year from her folks for her birthday.  This year, apparently, my dad is doing the purchasing, since he’s got nothing else to do but sit around the house and heal up (well, and get ready to retire, but so far that seems to consist of him saying “You want to fight about what at which board meeting?  Let’s schedule that for June 23.  Did I mention my last day is June 21?  Oh, hi, yes, you want to piss and moan about what at which gathering? How’s June 20 work for you?  Did I mention I can’t retire on the 21st because that’s our wedding anniversary?  I must make the 19th my last day.”

Mom said something recently about the 8th being his last day.  I would just point out that, as you Methodists surely know, he’s supposed to stick it out until Moving Day that first week in July.

God, that cracks me up.).

Anyway, so my birthday isn’t even until next week (which I am celebrating by attending the International Country Music Conference, with a big black marker and rebranding it the International Aunt B. Conference, just letting you participants know ahead of time that I expect your papers to somehow reflect the new theme of the conference), but the presents have already started to roll in from my dad.  First, there was the gold earrings I needed, but didn’t remember telling him about–gold hoops with actual gold posts, so that they wouldn’t turn my ears green.

And then… And then… My dad bought me black wool yarn so that I could make myself a witch’s hat.  He bought me a set of crochet hooks in ascending sizes so that I can stop making everything with my awesome K hook. 

And today I got Tom Stone’s biography of Zeus.

I about fell over.  Frankly, it shocked me even more than him using “gay” in a non-perjorative way and that was so shocking that the Butcher and I were still mulling it over this weekend.