Birthday Recap

So yesterday, 10/29. was my birthday.

We don't need to talk about the number but suffice to say that it was a milestone birthday. 

Initially I wanted the actual day and days surrounding it to be "epic", whatever the heck that means.
But then as it drew closer I started realizing that nothing I could do, no place I could go, no experience I could have, would replace what I already have: people I love unconditionally who love me back unconditionally and who would not dream of not making sure they were with me to insure that I had a special day.

My circle is small. My husband, daughter, and her fiancè. Oh, I have more people than that who I am related to or acquainted with but there's a whole lot of weirdness and off-the-chart dysfunction that keeps them from enjoying what we have to offer. See, our house is full of love and fun and generosity and good food and regularly the kind of laughter that makes you scream because your stomach hurts from it. Sure, we might piss each other off from time to time but in our small circle we resolve issues instead of using them to harden our hearts and let bitterness take hold of our souls. No matter what though, we show up for each other. I am not related to or know a lot of people who relate to that or adhere to that edict.
And, boy, are they missing out. We have a lot to offer to those we care about.

Anyway, here is something else that defined my milestone birthday:

I secretly harbored a hope that my friend - whom I have been friends with since 7th grade - would show up at my doorstep to surprise me on my birthday weekend.

When I told my husband I was going to run out for some shopping on Saturday, the day before my birthday, he very uncharacteristically said I should stay home instead. He cited traffic and reminded me of how much I disliked weekend shopping because that's when everyone was out, overcrowding places.
After more back and forth, I finally asked him what was really going on. He told me that there was a delivery coming but would say nothing more beyond saying that the delivery was not from him
.
I deduced that the delivery was going to actually be my friend, driving the two hours to surprise me, especially since we had driven those same two hours for their milestone birthday.
Afterall, if it was just a delivery of something why did I have to be home for it, as my husband was insisting? Couldn't he just accept the delivery while I was out? I figured they were all in cahoots behind my back to surprise me.

So I set to work cleaning the house just in case my suspicion was correct and since I didn't want to wind up feeling stupid, telling myself that if I was wrong at least I'd have a clean house.

There is a fall wreath hanging on our front storm door. If someone is outside at that door, all you can see is the bottom half of them as the wreath obscures their upper body.
I had let the dog out and was standing on the back patio watching her when I heard someone knock on the front storm door. 
I ran inside and saw the bottom half of a person standing on my front steps and I could see that the person was holding a gift bag and balloons.
My friend is here! I thought, with a happy skip of my heartbeat.
I opened the door...

only to find an elderly delivery man holding some flowers in one hand and balloons and a small gift bag* in the other.

It hit then, really a little bit hard. Friend is not coming.

And then hit hard again a little while later when another delivery person showed up, this time with a cake, also sent from friend.

Turns out the thing I was right about is that I did not, in fact, have to be home for the deliveries (friend had told my husband & daughter to make sure I was home for them - all of us now unsure why friend couldn't have just stated that someone should be there to accept deliveries).

Did I wind up feeling dumb for cleaning my house with a hopeful heart? Yes, I did. Mixed with a little bit of embarrassment for being naive.

I'm not ungrateful. The deliveries were very nice.
But there is nothing that can be delivered to your doorstep that will ever take the place of someone you care for showing up on that same doorstep to say "I wouldn't miss sharing this with you for anything."

Isn't that the thing we all want most?

Life is so short. Birthdays are one day out of 365. One day that is someone's very own special day.
364 days to plan for it.
Don't miss that for them. Make the drive. Show up on their doorstep if you can.

Think about the look that will be on their face when they open their door and find you standing there.

Think about making this happen: 

 

*1st delivery man delivered flowers, birthday balloons, and a bag with a tiny box of candy.

Gumby? No, GUMBO!

I thought it said that today was National Gumby Day.

Turns out it's actually National GUMBO Day.

Anyway, here is Gumby hanging out with some of the ingredients for gumbo.

Southern Food Heritage Day

Today is Southern Food Heritage Day... and so I pay homage to my second favorite (hush puppies are #1) southern food that I quickly loved as a child in North Carolina.

North Carolina Has Bugs

For the past very many months we have been actively researching the state of North Carolina, having made up our minds that it would be there where we would make our next and permanent move.

Having spent a ton of time there in my younger days at my father's house, North Carolina is near and dear to my heart and it wasn't hard to decide that it would be a great place to settle. 

My father lived in Pilot Mountain, 

on the more western side of the state,

but I need to be near the ocean in order to be sane happy so our research has been focused on the eastern side.

I joined a bunch of online forums related to moving to or living in NC and the people and their posts have been extremely helpful with lots of talk about good/bad neighborhoods, how to register your vehicles (way too complicated compared to NJ, by the way), weather, etc.

But the other morning there was a post about bugs.

Basically the person was saying that they recently had a NC visit to check things out for a potential move there but there were so many BUGS there that they didn't think they could live there.
They were actually very specific about the kind of bugs, too. 

The C word.
Or the R word, if you take off the first syllable.

this is not an actual RockCoach but i am so 
phobic about them that i cannot even look at 
them so i have to make them look like this
even though this bears absolutely 
no resemblance to an actual one

I cannot bring myself to even type the actual word because one of my many phobias is exactly this brand of bug. If you haven't figured it out, here's a hint: it rhymes with RockCoach.

As if that post wasn't bad enough, the comments that followed it were horrifying. 
Or traumatizing if you've got a RockCoach phobia.

Many people responded with their own stories using words like INFESTATION and PALMETTO BUGS - which are just FLYING ROCKCOACHES - and how you have to having PEST CONTROL out to your house so often that you might as well invite the Terminix guy to Thanksgiving dinner since he's at your house so often anyway.

(I was quite aware that certain disgusting bugs were a thing     

RockCoach wintering in NC

in Florida (see below) which is one of the reasons I could 

never live there...but I naively never considered that they'd 

find North Carolina suitable since, while it doesn't get 

freezing there, it can get pretty chilly in the winter.)

My RockCoach phobia more than likely started many years ago when we were wintering in Miami Beach and I had a run-in with a palmetto bug in our hotel suite. Let's just say that it was not small and it was sitting on top of a loaf of bread that I wanted to get to in order to make some toast 

and that when I saw it - and it saw me - I literally took off running.

I ran through the kitchenette...I ran across the beds...I threw open the door and ran down the hallway...I ran through the lobby...and then I ran for several blocks along Collins Avenue.

And thus a phobia was born.

Fast forward to my 20s.
I was living in an apartment in a building that my parents owned in Elizabeth, NJ. My daughter was just a few months old.
I was in the bedroom folding laundry and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something move

on the cord for the television.  
I walked over to look closer.

This time I did not take off running but I did pack a bag (that I thoroughly inspected) very quickly with my clothes and my daughter's things, got in the car and drove an hour to my mother's house at the Jersey shore.
And that was the day I moved back in with my mother.
Yes, that's right...I never lived again in that apartment. No amount of extermination and reassurance could convince me to go back.

Nothing has changed.

My husband knows that God forbid anything disgusting shows up in any house we own, I'm out.
And I do not mean I'll be staying at a hotel until the situation is taken care of.
I mean I no longer live there.

I did wind up asking questions to the people who responded to that bug post about North Carolina.
People said things like "it's the South, they are everywhere, get used to it", to which I was like

One nice man told me that "it's not too bad - you might see a few every month as long as you keep up with pest control - but remember they don't want to be inside your house as much as you don't want them there".

Actually, nice man, that's not really true.  I can guarantee you and them that I exponentially want them there a gazillion times less than them, as they happily munch away on some crumbs we missed on our kitchen floor.

That one post activated phobia mode and made me change my mind and completely switch gears on where our next move is going to be. Thankfully JP agrees.

It still could be North Carolina but it would have to be on the western side where the online forum people recommend for people like me. But that would mean no quick trips to be by the ocean.
Sigh.

Always an adventure.

Stay tuned as it all unfolds...