I have the best kids in the world. Within about 30 minutes of getting up this yesterday morning a guy came to the door with a nice vase full of yellow tulips. I love tulips. I knew they weren’t from my husband, because I know my husband! Low and behold, they were from my dear Soldier Son and his new bride.

Then about 30 minutes later I got another delivery. This time it was a gorgeous azalea bush! I love azaleas! I have them all over my yard. The azalea was from my sweet darling daughter.

I hardly ever see my kids any more, but they are really the best. I love them dearly and they certainly made my Mother’s Day wonderful!

I have been blessed with a very large family. I have a ton of brothers and sisters, inlaws, nieces, nephews and cousins. I never really realized until recent years what a gift that has been. I have noticed that it has its pros and cons. Over the years I have had a number of friends who either were only children or had very small families. I have noticed that they take much more effort with their friendships than I do. Its not that I don’t value friends, I certainly do. But those friends with smaller families call me more than I call them. They plan lunches more often than I do. Not too long ago I asked one of those friends of mine why she goes to so much trouble to arrange get togethers with friends. She said she doesn’t have any family so she makes her own family with her friends.

My cousin, Don Baird, was one of those people. He was an only child and never had any children of his own. Over the years he became another one of our siblings. My mother always made sure he was invited to whatever family gathering we had and over the years he came more often until finally, he was just one of us. I don’t know if he felt that way, but I did and I believe my siblings did as well. He was just another one of us. When you have 50 or so people at every family gathering it doesn’t seem odd to add a few more.

One of my earliest memories is of the pride my grandmother took in Don’s beautiful voice. She made him sing at every family gathering. That was a huge family as well and most of the people at those early gatherings are gone. His beautiful voice worked well for him as a radio personality.

When I was a child I was proud of my cousin Don. He was a radio personality in town. I could tell people that was my cousin and they knew who he was. He never acted like a celebrity and he was really a moderate local celebrity, but to a little girl that was something I was proud of. In later years he worked for the Atlanta Journal Constitution and then for CNN until he retired. Don always took the time to send cards, call and remember people. He always asked about my children and remembered everyone’s names and what they were doing.

My son called from Germany earlier tonight. He had gotten the email about Don’s death and was upset about it. He had connected with Don. He said that when he got out of boot camp he had been at a family gathering and Don talked to him like he was an adult. He said he didn’t feel like an adult at the time and it made him feel good that Don was so open with him. He said Don told good stories. Don did tell good stories and he had a lot of them. He had lived an interesting life.

Years ago when Don’s ex-wife became ill and was dying, he took her in and took care of her even though they were divorced. He married a wonderful woman a few years ago who was quite a bit younger than him. They seemed crazy about each other. She got sick one December and was dead in January. It was so sudden and so shocking that it was hard for any of us to wrap our minds around. She had been an only child and her mother was alone now. Don has continued to look after her mother since then. I found myself thinking about how hard this must be for her mother to have lost Don now. He took care of her as if she was his own mother and now she really doesn’t have anyone else. He had only been married to his current wife a couple of years. She and her children became Don’s family and looked after him in this final illness.

Don loved Atlanta. He had been actively involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and had covered most of the important events that impacted Atlanta over the years he was in journalism. He liked country music lyrics. He would find fun ones and pass them along. He would write some and pass them along. He wrote songs, some getting recorded by the likes of Willie Nelson. He talked about a book he was writing about Cabbagetown, a neighborhood in Atlanta.

I don’t know where this post is going. Just random thoughts, I suppose. Yesterday the trees in our yard were bare. Today I noticed buds were suddenly bursting from the limbs. I thought that Don would have liked to have seen the spring. I like to think that Don is with loved ones who have been gone so very long.

I was just talking with my daughter via IM when I found myself wondering when it was that I became ‘The Mother’. Its one thing to be the young mother of two little adorable rug rats, its a whole other thing to be The Mother of two grown children.

When my kids were little I didn’t think of myself as ‘The Mother’. I was still Beth …. with two little kids. I still had my whole life ahead of me and the kids were a great little addition to things.

I was still my mother’s daughter. I was still my daddy’s little girl. To make matters even worse for me, I was the youngest daughter in a large family with a lot of girls. I was the young one and that was just fine with me. That all meant that I told my mother about how things were. I picked out gifts for her to give and wrapped them for her. I was better at cleaning her house than she was. I knew more about style and fashion than her. I knew more about marriage, children and life in general than she did. I advised her. I worried about her. I hooked up her VCRs for her. She needed me to take care of her and help her. At least in my mind she did. She let me do it because she’s not crazy and it was free labor … when I was in the mood and not involved in my own dramas at least. I did my caretaking job with more than a little bit of condescension and at my convenience. I’m not sure how she managed the biggest bulk of the time when I wasn’t available. She was ‘The Mother’.

I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that she’s much more capable than I ever gave her credit for. She also knows more than I ever admitted she could possibly have known. She had actually lived a few years longer than me and had learned a few things along the way. I didn’t know that then because I hadn’t lived long enough to know it.

Now I’m ‘The Mother’. It hit me suddenly this evening when my daughter’s im popped up. ‘Hola’, she said because that’s how she usually starts an im. As soon as I replied she asked, ‘Have you been to the doctor yet?’. I’ve been sick this week and she’s told me a couple of times to go to the doctor and I haven’t gone. I actually sidestepped the question at first, as though I was in class and didn’t have my homework ready and was trying to avoid letting the teacher know that. Then I caught myself. This is my daughter!! She’s supposed to be sidestepping my questions, not the other way around. ‘No, I haven’t been yet,’ I explained, ‘I’m feeling better today. I don’t think I really need to go.’ See what I did there? I didn’t avoid the question but I’m EXPLAINING TO MY DAUGHTER WHY I HAVEN’T MINDED HER YET!

She didn’t accept my explanation. She started in on me, ‘Mama, you need to go to the doctor. You’ve been sick a week … yada, yada, yada.’ I found myself feeling guilty and reprimanded. That’s when I realized that I had become ‘The Mother’.

I’ve sensed it before with both of my children. Its been increasing over the last few months, especially since my son has been out of Iraq. At some point in time things changed. I can’t pinpoint when it was. I don’t even know if there was a particular point in time that marks the second in which the scales tipped more in one direction than the other. But it most certainly happened because things most certainly changed.

Apparently the two of them discuss me from time to time. There was the time that they both approached me at different times to tell me that they had been discussing me and what they had decided I needed to do about a job situation I was in. They were discussing me. They had decided what I needed to do. They had decided how to approach me about it. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE and WHY are they telling me what to do!!! I can practically see them shaking their heads in sad disbelief on the other end of the telephone. I can only blame myself. I’m the one that taught them to talk.

Sigh. They are me twenty years ago. I hope my mother enjoys this because I know that she knows exactly how it feels. Its all coming back on me. They were me as teenagers and now they are me as young adults. Fortunately, they really are smarter than me and better than I ever thought of being.

The little rug rats then

and now

I’ve managed to get my hands on a few more pictures from my son’s wedding last December. The pictures I posted before are here. The photographer is my daughter-in-law’s sister’s boyfriend (there has to be an easier way of saying that!). His website is CB_PIC_ART. I think he did a fantastic job with the photos. He took over 400 (if I didn’t misunderstood them since they were talking in German combined with broken English). I want to see them all, but I’m so far away I’m having to take them as I can get them!

They were married at the Schloss Thiergarten. It was built in 1725 as the hunting lodge for Margrave Friedrich. When we took a tour of the Plassenburg castle, which was built in 1135 for Bishop Otto of Bamberg, we learned that at some point the line of the Hohenzollern family that had inhabited the castle for generations ended. Therefore, another branch of the family that had control the area around Berlin sent a cousin down to take control of Plassenburg castle and all the surrounding fiefdom. That was Margrave Friedrich and his wife Wilhelmine who was a sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

Well, Friedrich and Wilhelmine thought they’d come to the end of the earth in this, what was then, remote ‘country’ place. Even though its one of the largest, if not the largest, castles in Germany (I can’t remember), they didn’t like staying there. They were city people after all. To make matters worse, they didn’t particularly like each other. So Wilhelmine spent a lot of time in nearby Bayreuth and spent an enormous amount of money building some of the most ornate and beautiful buildings in the Franconia (now Bavaria). She had the Bayreuth Opera House built. We were allowed to spend about $20 per person to spend about five minutes in the opera house while we were there. It is spectacular, even though very expensive for a walk through. Wagner played there but thought it was too small for his music.

Another of the properties Wilhelmine built was the Schloss Thiergarten (Schloss is German for Castle. I *think* Thiergarten is ‘the garden’ - so that would be the Castle of the Garden (or since they word things backward from us it would be ‘The Garden Castle’) - if you speak German please don’t make fun of me!). We were told in our tour of Schloss Plassenburg that Schloss Thiergarten was built as a hunting lodge for Wilhelmine’s husband, the Margrave Friedrich. I imagine she liked having him busy doing his thing there so she could do her thing in some of the residences she had built in Bayreuth.

Now. That HAS to be more than you wanted to know about that little hunting lodge castle. So on with the pictures ….

Michi was having a good time …..

I finally got some pictures of THE WEDDING. That would be my son’s wedding we went to in December in Germany. German weddings are interesting in that they go on all day and all night. They start in the morning when the bride and groom have to go to the local court house and get married by the State. I thought that would be just a small official signing of papers and swearing oaths and that would be that. No … I would have been wrong if I’d thought that. The ceremony at the court house was every bit as long as the religious ceremony they had later in the day. On top of that, EVERYONE came to the court house ceremony as well.

The bride and groom sat at the front of the office and the official sat behind his desk. Everyone else sat in the room and spilled over into the hallway. We waited while the bride and groom signed papers - a lot of papers. When the ceremony started the official gave a very long talk on the meaning of marriage, etc. They had hired a translator for our benefit, which was very thoughtful of them, so everything was said in German and in English.

After that ceremony there was a gathering in the landing at the bottom of the stairs and then it was off in their chauffeured, decorated car with all of us following them in our respective cars, honking the horns and in general calling attention to them. We drove all over Beyreuth honking. Even in the cold weather, people came out on their balconies to wave and other cars honked as they passed us. It was actually fun.

After the ride through all the streets in town, it was off to the castle for the wedding. This was actually the hunting lodge of the woman in the painting above the fireplace in the photos. We had toured their castle a few days before. That’s how I knew that. They didn’t like it out at their castle so their built a bunch of places in Beyreuth so they could be in the city. They also built the Beyreuth Opera House where Wagner sometimes performed. But that’s off the subject. It looked like a castle to this American girl. We don’t have castles like that here.

Before they got into the castle, they had to cut through this heart. There were several of these hearts that stopped them along the way and each time they had to cut out the heart to go on. Josh apparently cut faster than Michi. By the time they were at the second heart, he just cut all the way around before she had cut her half very far.

One of the funniest events they did was to have a doll that Josh had to diaper before they could go into the castle. Michi tried to help him, but they wouldn’t let her. Being a good Southern boy, after some failed attempts to figure it out, he took out some duck tape and taped the diaper on. I was so proud!!!

After the diapering and heart cutting and other very cold activities, we headed into the castle. We had a brunch. Then socialized. Then had another ceremony that was very similar to the first one only there was music and it was conducted by a minister. Then we had cake - and I don’t mean a little cake - there was a table with about a dozen cakes. Then we ate a zillion course meal. Then the ‘music man’ showed up and there was music and dancing into the wee hours of the morning. A fantastic time was had by all. It really was wonderful.

Here are a few more pictures from the day ….

Since Beth is in Germany and gave me the keys to her blog while she’s away, I decided to take advantage of the situation by writing this post to announce that today is my baby sister Beth’s birthday.

That’s Beth to our father’s right.

Beth is the youngest girl in the family, and I’ve always thought her name fits her - sweet and feminine. She might argue with that. She’s a funny, creative and hard working woman and the author of Blue Star Chronicles. She also is the mother of two wonderful young adults. You’ve read about them both here before.

The last photo is of her graduation day.

Beth, we all wish you a wonderful birthday along with many many wonderful birthdays to come! Enjoy Germany and give the newlyweds a hug and kiss from all of us.
Happy birthday to Beth! Hope your day brings you joy and love.

And Beth - I hope you can get these photographs straightened out. I’ve been working on it for about an hour, and I can’t get them the right size. Sorry for my technological ignorance!

We are having a blast in Germany. We got here in the early morning hours last Thursday and after getting lost in the Frankfurt airport and somehow circumventing customs and coming out on the wrong side of the arrival terminal, we found our son (or he found us) and we started making our way back to his city via many stops en route. It was absolutely wonderful seeing him and his fiance and immediately getting a tour of a couple of German towns before we got back to his apartment.

The second day we were here (I think … cause time is completely out of whack for me!) we went to Rothenburg. One of the cultural differences that has really struck me here is that regardless of how cold it is outside … and cold only begins to describe it … people still get out and go places and do things OUTSIDE! My first real taste of that was our day in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (that means that this town of Rothenburg is the on that is above the Tauber River. Apparently Bavarians might have several towns with the same name and distinguish one from the other by where they are located. This one is distinguished from the others because it is located above the Tauber. Now you know!). Rothenburg is an ancient, medieval town that is well preserved, has survived many wars and continues to thrive.

As anyone reading this surely knows, it is one thing to know something intellectually and something altogether different to know it through close observation. Our day in Rothenburg impressed upon me the very different sense of history and time that Europeans have from those of us who have spent our lives in the ‘new world’. There are buildings in Rothenburg that were built in the 1400s and 1600s. Those buildings have stood and are still in use since long before Western man had a clue that the Americas even existed. They still believed that the world was flat. Just think of the history that has transpired since the day someone decided to build those buildings and build the wall around that town. Their perspective is much longer than ours in more ways than one.

As I mentioned, the German’s don’t stay inside when its cold. I lived in Michigan for a few years and really kind of expected it to be cold in much the same way it is in Michigan. Its not. At all. We are woefully unprepared for the cold and have had to buy more to keep warm because we are spending most of our days and evenings outside in spite of the minus 2,000 degree weather. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m not sure its much of one. My poor Southern bones are just not used to being this cold.

We spent all day and well into the evening outside, enjoying the sites and sounds of Rothenburg. And it wasn’t just us crazy people. The place was full and everyone was walking around, enjoying the Christmas market, enjoying the shops and doing tourist-y things in the frozen place. They even put their babies in strollers and take them out - thickly wrapped in some German material that has a super sekret ingredient for warmth. ‘How do they stand it’, I asked my Beloved Curmudgeon, with chattering teeth and shaking bones. He said they are used to it. Its their culture, he said. They just don’t let weather stop them from what they are doing. Oh.

At one point we go into one of the horse drawn open air carriages for a pleasant tour of the town in minus quadrillion degree weather. The driver of our carriage could have just walked straight out of central casting. He spoke to us in German and when he saw our blank stares, he spoke in English. His English was good as far as it goes. He was obviously accustomed to English visitors. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger’s accent and multiply that by 100 and you will have some semblance of an idea of how this man sounded. His red hair was cut short in what appeared to be some sort of buzz cut, at least what I could see of it under his hat. He had the complexion and demeanor of a man who had spent most of his days exposed to whatever elements God provided from day to day. I imagined that hard work without complaint and hard were his lot. I imagined that was just fine with him.

He told us the outrageous price for a thirty minute carriage ride through town enhanced by his guided tour. We turned over the Euros and got into the back of the buggy. I greedily pulled a heavy woollen blanket over myself and offered to share a corner of it with Beloved Curmudgeon. Beloved Curmudgeon took what I offered, which wasn’t much I’m ashamed to say. My Soldier Son and his fiance climbed into the other side and under another blanket. Somehow that blanket offered an unbelievable amount of warmth. I wondered if they made wool thicker in Germany. The horse chose that moment to urinate on the sidewalk. Our driver/tour guide said something to the effect that we would have to wait on the horse as he must clean up his pee. He went to the back of the carriage and pulled out a large container and once the horse was done he poured the contents of the container on the pee and then we began our tour. As the driver got back up into the carriage I commented on the cold. The wind was blowing and the only warm part of me was what was under that wool blanket. He looked at me quizzically and stated, ‘It is winter’. Why yes, it is. That was the end of that.

As we went along our driver would point out sites of interest, such as ancient torture chambers and places of hanging and punished those who needed public humiliation to keep them in check. He seemed to enjoy describing these techniques to us. Maybe I just imagined that, but I don’t think so.

Both of the horses pulling our wagon had to stop and … how do I put this delicately … answer the call of nature. This called for the driver to stop, grab a bucket and put it up to their rears to catch the waste. It was not a pretty sight or pleasant smell. My son thought my reaction was hilarious and only made it worse by making funny remarks. He was sitting further back than me. They were right in my face. The second time this happened it was the horse right in front of me and our driver seemed to enjoy that my son and husband were making viscous fun of me while I tried to catch my breath somewhere … anywhere … away from the smell. As he held his bucket behind the horse and turned more or less in my direction he remarked that the shop on the corner right next to us was a great place for very large sausages if we were hungry. He described the sausages in detail with a twinkle in his weather worn eyes. I looked at him to try to determine if he was joking or completely oblivious to the sight and smell that was permeating the entire wagon at this point. I didn’t want a sausage right at that moment.

As the day went by it became more and more obvious to me that the Germans don’t let the weather interfere with their good time and have a variety of ways to keep warm. The market place was full with happy and festive people. St. Nicholas was there digging through his knapsack for gifts of brochures to give out to whoever. The night watchman walked the grounds in black robe and carrying a long wooden double bladed axe that was a very convincing crime deterrent. My husband and son climbed the highest tower and saw the world from that height while we watched from below.

By the end of the evening, even though I was still chilled to the bone long after we had returned to the warmth of my son’s apartment, I understood why the German people go out regardless of the weather. They, at least the Franconians, are a people who enjoy life and find any excuse whatsoever to have a festival. In fact, as best as I can determine, they have festivals all the time. By the time we went to the local Christmas market (again) last night, I wasn’t so cold. We stayed till it closed, had a fantastic time, meet a lot of random people, I laughed till my face hurt at stories told in German that I couldn’t understand but were still funny and I didn’t feel all that cold. I’ve discovered some of the secrets of the locals to keeping warm. It really is a lot of fun. We are just loving it here!

We are leaving for Munich in a couple of hours for a couple of days. I just wanted to steal a few minutes to say hello and write a quick update. I know my son will have us up well before dawn to start the trip. He’s gotten so bossy (smile). I apologize for the wordiness and will try to cull it down a bit when we return from Munich - although then we are going up north for the wedding so who knows when I’ll be online again. I’ll also try to tell you about our trip into the mountains to go to a Monastery at the very top of an icy/snowy mountain and try to order food that we didn’t know what it was and they couldn’t tell us. Its all an adventure ( ) Thanks to all the wonderful people who are posting here while we are gone. I hope everyone will visit their blogs because they are great people and have a lot to say that is worth reading!

I finally got a few homecoming photos. I had to go steal them off my future daughter-in-law’s myspace page since they seem too preoccupied with each other to think of their poor ol’ mother sitting over here waiting to hear from them. How’s that for a guilt trip!!! I think its pretty good. Its one of the things I do well, thank you very much! It won’t work though. When I try to make my kids feel guilty they just laugh at me. Oh well. At least I got some pictures!

I’m thinking I’m going to have some pretty grandchildren when I get old enough to be a grandparent! (That’ll be a while yet seeing as I’m still a hot young thang myself!!!)

As anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows, my Soldier Son is back in Germany after an excruciatingly long deployment to Baghdad. Also, he is getting married in a couple of weeks to his lovely fiance. We are hurriedly making plans to go to Germany for the wedding and for Christmas. (yeah!)

My Soldier Son is an organizer and planner. He’s never been one to sit around and watch TV. He was the kid who was outside from dawn to dusk. He was the kid who reluctantly came into the house for dinner and played outside every second he could. If there was a physical or mental challenge in the wild of the outside world, he would figure it out and take it to the max. When we lived in Michigan, he would jump into the river to swim as soon as the ice flows gave the first hint that they were melting. He’d come out of the water blue, but happy. He has always been a dare-devil. I remember wondering if I was going to be able to keep him alive into adulthood when he was a kid. He was always on top of, climbing over and slipping through whatever obstacles might have been in his way. I credit him with almost every gray hair I would have if it weren’t for the miracle of L’Oreal and whatever Cherokee blood might be pumping in my veins.

So in the last weeks of his deployment it is only natural that he passed his time there planning for a trip with his buddies once they were back in Germany. A ski trip was planned just two weeks after they got back. Anyone can predict what happened. They guys got home and instead of it being a time for the guys to go off on a ski trip, it became a time for the guys and their wives to go on a ski trip. DUH! I could have told him that if he’d have asked me!

Two weeks after returning from Baghdad all the guys (and their wives) take off to Austria for a ski trip in the Austrian Alps. Sounds wonderful! It was billed as some relaxed time for the guys together after the intensity of their time in Baghdad. A time to unwind. A time to bond their friendships in better surroundings. A time to let off some steam.

They took off on this trip this week. Two weeks before my sons wedding to his fiance. He took her with them. She is an expert skier. He has laughed in the past that she has to wait on him. He thinks that funny because he prides himself on his athletic ability and the thought that he didn’t master skiing the first time he was on skis was funny to him. I reminded him that he was raised in the American South where the word ’skiing’ refers to an activity that takes place in the water behind a boat in the spring and summer. She was raised in the Bavarian Alps where skiing on snow is second nature.

On the second day of their trip she fell and had to be medivaced off the mountain. She’s okay, but her leg is injured. She was in the hospital for a couple of days and is going to have to have surgery in January. I suppose she’ll be limping down the aisle now.

I’m thinking that in years to come, when they are thinking back on their wedding day, she’ll remind him that if he hadn’t planned a ski trip just before their wedding she wouldn’t have had to wear that cast on her wedding day. I imagine that’ll be something she’ll remind him of on his death bed!! LOL The lesson of this little tale is, don’t plan a ski trip the week before your wedding.

I have done a lot of genealogy research. I really went through a period of a couple of years that I did obsessive research on my family history. In fact, I still maintain several genealogical websites. Its very addictive and interesting. You find all sorts of information that you might never have known. Searching through old records (wills, deeds, birth records) not only teaches you about your own family history, but the customs of the times they lived in. I was often surprised to find historical information that I had previously had no idea about.

You can start work on your own family history. Its much easier than you might think, especially with the ease of accessing resources on the internet. You can create a family page on TribalPages.com. Its free and as you add names on your page, the program creates the family tree. If you have already started creating your family pages somewhere else you can import the GEDCOM file onto TribalPages and take it from there. Take a look at their program, view sample pages and look through their resources. This is a great resource for building your own family tree.

It has really been great having my Soldier Son back in Germany. I haven’t seen him, but I’ve talked with him quite a few times and he sounds wonderful. He’s so happy to be back. I can tell he’s changed some, but not necessarily in a bad way. He’s older, if that makes any sense. He’s grown into a man.

It kind of reminds me of a summer he spent with his father. We were living in Michigan at the time and so both the kids went to Georgia to spend the summer with their father. His voice changed one night. Literally. I talked with him one day and he sounded like himself. The next day he sounded grown. That’s kind of what this feels like. My frat boy son went to Germany three years ago. At some point he became a man. Then he went to Baghdad and 15 months later he came back in charge of things, confident and self-assured.

The thing is that I didn’t have his new phone number. I had his girlfriend’s phone numbers, but not his. I thought maybe he still had the same number. I knew he probably didn’t, but I needed to tell him something and thought I’d dial the number. A man answered the phone, ‘Hallo’. Okay, it sounded KINDA like Josh, but not quite - and sometimes he does answer in German so I thought MAYBE it was him.

‘Hey Josh’, I said with a question in my voice, I wasn’t sure it was him at all.

The man on the other end of the line said, ‘Vlsdknfj oelejoei aoiej cvlkn e oeijfa cne voe rijfa[’ew jfcaocnv oe.’

That wasn’t Josh. Now I was sure of it. I didn’t know what to say but I was raised to use telephone manners, so I couldn’t just hang up. That would go against all my raising. ‘I’m sorry, I dialed the wrong number.’ I said. I then waited for a reply as if that was a reasonable thing to expect.

The man then replied, ‘Wekndkdnfowe lkjsoeih hiohopies neoweihf eoifho veojff’olsn.’

He spoke in full sentences as though we were carrying on a conversation, which made no more sense than me speaking to him in full sentences. But again, it was against everything I was ever taught to just hang up. If he’d been a salesman who had called me it would have been different. But I had called him and had an irresistible need to explain that I was sorry I had disturbed him. I again apologized, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve dialed the wrong number’.

This bizarre and ridiculous tete-a-tete went on back and forth two or three times. I finally apologized and just hung up the phone and laughed to myself. I just called Germany and carried on a conversation with some stranger in a different language that neither of us understood for a couple of minutes. That’s just strange.

I never did get ahold of my son that evening.

Well, it was funnier in person.

My darlin’ daughter im’d me a while ago and accused me as only she can do, ‘hey where is my bday tribute on your blog?’. Yikes! I’m a terrible mother. I called her several times today and sang happy birthday to her. I talked with her a number of times on Yahoo messenger. I talked to her extensively about what all she had done and is going to do for her birthday, but I hadn’t written to her on my blog. How could I neglect her so badly? She’s already pointed out to me that I write much more about Soldier Son than I do about her to begin with. Never mind that the name of this blog was derived from the Blue Star banners!

She knows I love her more than anything but apparently I started a new tradition when I wrote a happy birthday tribute to her last year and she looked for it on my blog today and it wasn’t there. That means I’m a terrible mother!

Maybe I didn’t because it reminds me that she’s catching up with me in age!!! I don’t know how that is happening, but it is. She left about a year ago to go out west and seek her fortune - and find her future. I told her at the time that she was at the age where she will be putting down roots and does she really want to put down roots in California (read that to be, do you really want to leave ME!). She left anyway, against our advice, and drove herself in her little car all the way across the country with no idea where she’d work or live. She’s never had a shortage of raw courage.

I told myself at the time that she’d get it out of her system and would be back home shortly. All was going according to *my* plan as she had trouble finding a job at first and was having to work several jobs just to get by. She was meeting a few people, but things hadn’t really clicked for her. I was sympathetic while keeping her room ready for her return. She called me when she had been there about six months and said that when her six month lease expired she thought she’d return home and look for a job here. Oh - okay - I could deal with that. BUT she said, she was going out that evening with a guy she had met at work. She’d call me the next day to work out the details. Ut - oh.

I had heard her talk of this guy from the time she had gone to work. She insisted they were just friends, but I heard more than friends in the tone of her voice. They hadn’t been out on a date, but they were good friends. Nothing else to it she had told me. And now, on the very eve of her deciding to trek back to the right side of the country she was going out on a date with this guy who was just a good friend and they weren’t dating. I felt my heart sink.

Sure enough. The next day she called and there was no talk of her coming home when her lease was up. The conversation was just her gushing about how much fun she’d had and how she really liked this guy - the one that was just her friend. I knew at that point I had lost my daughter to California. I’m still bummed about it. I miss her terribly. But I am glad she is happy with her life and is enjoying her youth.

I blame the guy! If only he had waited a little longer to ask her out. Well, you know I’m kidding. I really just want her to be happy and I would not want a child who didn’t want to venture out into their own life. But I do miss my little darlin’. She’s the best daughter in the world and I am very happy that we have a good relationship.

Happy Birthday sweetie - you are the best and I’m glad you are having a good time!