“Remoted” – Day 515 (Friday the 13th)

Birthday flowers and coffee!

Friday the 13th, with notable exceptions, is usually one of my favorite dates, and while some people think it is unlucky, I often have a great day on these days. Today was destined to be a great day purely by virtue of it being the first day of  vacation. Oh, and also my birthday. As a youngling, I was irritated to have been born on a Saturday and not a Friday. I thought it would make me more interesting to have been born on Friday the 13th.  

My Sweet 16 was on a Friday the 13th and was one of those notable exceptions to my great day track record. The plan for that party was a “paint The Rock” pool party with friends at my house. “The Rock” is the granite face of a prominent hill in Fitchburg and was the site of granite quarrying operations in the city’s early days. The senior class paints their graduating year on the rock, then at the end of the school year, the incoming seniors would paint it on “junior skip day” after graduation. We weren't seniors, so this would have been a daring paint raid of sorts. The day of my Sweet 16, however, Mother Nature had other ideas and delivered rain, thunder, and lightning. No Rock painting, no pool party, just a bunch of teenaged girls in our dining room and Dad spinning records for us. At least there was a professional DJ, so there was that.

This year, the Friday the 13th birthday began with a laptop that chose today for the battery to stop charging. It was down to 14% before I realized that even though it was plugged in, it was draining power like water through a sieve. Even though the unit is not even 18 months old, and was bought as the backup to the work laptop with the cracked screen corner, it may already be time to start exploring options. 

Fancy, delicious truffles!

This year's fabulous gift to myself was a half dozen ultrasonic rodent repellant devices with nightlights and another two with extra outlets. This is the official declaration of war against the rodents that have taken up unauthorized residence at the The BungaLowell. The little gray rodents are so comfortable  they don’t even wait for darkness and make bold, daylight, midafternoon appearances. The devices arrived today, and now every room has one. The rodent eviction is underway. 

Ariel mermaid cookie!

The celebration didn't stop at the ultrasonic plug-ins. This latest trip around the sun included a delivery of beautiful flowers and coffee right before I left for lunch with Mom, my sister, and a niece. Later in the day, there was a home cooked dinner with three friends. The day included cake (twice!), Priscilla Chocolate ganache truffles, and even an Ariel mermaid cookie. Winston got to spend time with his little girldog CoCo who he hasn't seen in a while. Of course, both dogs are blind, so they didn't exactly "see" each other, but they got to sniff each other and be in the same room. When we got home, the laptop was functioning correctly again. Overall, it was a pretty perfect day.