The One About The Lazy Sunday

Sunday, May the 4th, 2014

click on the image to see where I got it from

Dave sez, Today is a lazy Sunday. The unofficial "Star Wars" day. May the Fourth. As in, May the Fourth be with you. It always sounds like Obi-Wan or Luke have a lisp. Can you imagine Darth Vader lisping, "The Fourth is strong with this one,"? Maybe if it was Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet in Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, maybe...

Randy Travis turns 55 today. In the radio biz that I work in, that's known as turning double-nickels!

The late Audrey Hepburn would have turned 85. She's best known for melancholy roles like Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden (brilliantly remade with Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear, but I digress) Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert; My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison; and Breakfast at Tiffany's with The A-Team's Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, the equally late, George Peppard.

Paul Xavier Gleason star of The Breakfast Club and Die Hard, just two of his many roles would have turned 75 (along with Batman, since they were both born in 1939!) His most famous line from The Breakfast Club ~

 

 

 

- and don't you forget it! The Lego Movie's Will Arnett, *NSYNC's Lance Bass and Pia Zadora are all adding another year today too.

 

Tomorrow, my sister and brother-in-law, Paula and John will be married for FORTY years.

 

They're lookin' pretty AWESOMETACULAR ain't they?

That is an achievement in this day and age. My folks married later in life and they were married 35 years when my dad passed away from prostate cancer in 2000. Mother's Day, 2000. That's coming up. On May 10th, my mom turns 81.

 

 

On Tuesday, Cathy and I will celebrate 24 years together. There's a Kiefer Sutherland, 24 joke in there somewhere, I'm sure.

 

Oh, yeah, anyway, we're just sitting around the apartment enjoying a quiet, lazy Sunday.

 

What's on my mind today, is I want you to imagine that you are five or six years old. The first people in the world you develop a relationship based on trust break that trust. For whatever reason - can't or don't - the people that made the conscious decision to bring you into the world have changed their minds. You are not theirs anymore. You are not any one's anymore. You're really no one. The people that define you, do not anymore.

 

On this lazy Sunday afternoon, I am very thankful that each one of my three children chose me. They chose me and Cathy. They each said to us and to a judge, I want them to be my parents. I want him to be my dad.

 

Cathy and I have talked from time to time about The Butterfly Effect. Basically, it is the idea that if a person could travel back in time and make a change - any change at all; like say, killing a butterfly, or in George Bailey's case in It's A Wonderful Life, erasing, or eliminating your own existence - profound changes take place. If Cathy and I had done any thing differently over the last twenty-four years, it is possible that we would not be blessed with Bella, Ethan or Justin.

 

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I think how each one of the children were introduced to us. Justin introducing us to Ethan; and, in turn, Ethan introducing us to Bella.

 

I look back over the last twenty-four years. There are some things I would have wanted to go differently. But not so differently that we wouldn't be where we are right now.

 

      

 

That's for sure.

 

Forever Five

The Fourth will be with you, always.

Mama's Happy Birthday!

So, today is Cathy's Happy Birthday! That's how the kids say it. "My Happy Birthday".

What are you getting me for My Happy Birthday? When is My Happy Birthday? My Happy Birthday is coming up! That is exactly how both Justin and Ethan talked about their birthdays. See that's what you and I call it. I call it my birthday. You call it your birthday. The boys have used the whole phrase "Happy Birthday". And it pretty much sounds, with the accent, like, "Heppy Burfday". And that's not meant to be teasing, just appreciating the kids' accents and their trying to say it in English.

We are hearing Masha's voice a lot more. And it sounds AWESOME. We are also hearing her whine. She's not a big fan of learning English or reading. Like any kid, she just want to sit around in her pajamas and play video games all day. We know all about that from Ethan, so Cathy has written out a sentence for her, "No whining." "English first, then games."

Today, maybe because it was Mom's birthday, Masha had a lot of energy and spark. She smiled more. She laughed. She was actually playful. She showed some attitude and a certain amount of cunning when we played Uno. Some days she has been very quiet and timid. We're all sad when we have to leave at the end of our visit.

I brought a calendar along with and I marked the days. There are some days that are marked with question marks because we just don't have a timeline yet. Once we have our court date then our timeline will be better laid out. Ten days after our court date we will get our court decree and then I'll be able to sign her out of the orphanage and bring her back to the apartment. From then on, it will be another countdown. Before I can sign her out, I'll get her birth certificate. Then we'll get her passport photo. The passport comes next, then physical, then the trip to the Embassy for her visa. And then we are on our way home. I've guestimated some of those days with question marks on the calendar.

But, when I first gave her the calendar, I marked her Happy Birthday and Cathy's Happy Birthday. Next, I have to mark down Mama and Popi's anniversary on May 6th. A couple of years ago, we took Justin to Chicago when we celebrated our Anniversary. He was so adamant that he had to get us something for our anniversary, we stopped at a grocery store and gave him some money. We wandered around the store trying not to follow him as he ran around looking for something to get us for our anniversary. He got Cathy some flowers and he got me a Kit Kat and a Mt. Dew Amp. We treasured the gifts, because of how serious he was and how badly he wanted to get us something. "I have to get you something for your anniversary!" He kept saying it over and over. We're not expecting this from Ethan and Masha. But it is nice to see how they respond when presented with the information. It is very cool to see Masha and Cathy bonding.

If you're a fan of birthdays and cake, here's my favorite comedy bit from Jim Gaffigan. I hear this every time someone I know has a birthday. "Hope it's chocolate for ME!"