“Remoted” – Day 150 (Thursday)

8/13 Birthday!

Thursday, aka Friday Eve, also my birthday, and the day of staycation where I finally left the house. Mom and I made plans earlier in the week, which went only as far as committing to “do something,” which was not specified until this morning. Neither of us felt like shopping or dining out, so I went to her house. We ordered subs and spent the afternoon in her shady back yard screen house and it was great.

The idea danced through my head that the previously planned road trip could be executed on the way home without too much of a detour. This didn’t happen, because it was so nice sitting and talking with Mom that I pushed the timeline bit by bit until suddenly it was doggy dinner time and an hour’s ride separated me from them. It was likely I’d arrive to two fur babies pacing like hungry lions and ready to pounce, which was pretty much the scene when I walked into the house. Both boys were hopping and anxious to go out, and then it was time for Kibbles and Bits, perhaps the most fragrant (i.e. stinky) dog food. Of the many life aromatics that fail to penetrate my faulty sinuses and register with my nearly absent sense of smell, this particular funky dog food is one of the few. Ewwww.

Mom sent me home with an entertaining facsimile of a birthday cake in the form of a box of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls. She couldn’t find any Ring Dings, family joke and memento of my life as a juvenile criminal. When I was around eight or nine years old, my desire for sweets was so powerful I would sneak out of bed to steal the desserts for our school lunches. My sister and I shared a bedroom with two doors. One opened to the family room and the other opened to the kitchen, where I would stand in the doorway, heart pounding, looking down the hall to the far end of the house where my parents sat on the couch watching TV. A turn of either of their heads just a few degrees and I would be spotted darting to the bread box and then back to our room. And one night I was.

Birthday supper!

As I was in bed executing the ritual of unwrapping and smoothing the foil before devouring the precious Ring Ding, Dad appeared, asking what I had in bed. Of course, the answer was “nothing” and of course he pulled back the covers and there was the pilfered Ring Ding, unwrapped and ready to be devoured. And the case of the missing school desserts was finally solved. Also, the bedroom furniture was rearranged to block the door to the kitchen, cutting off the path to the kitchen and specifically the breadbox of treats. 

So yes, I have a box of Swiss Rolls. Birthday supper for one was Swiss Rolls and ice cream in my new, hand painted, commemorative birthday ice cream bowl sent by my amazing cousin. Dang, that bowl holds a lot of ice cream. And it was good.