The Kind of News You Couldn’t Make Up

Heron breezed in the door this morning, “Today is Peacock's birthday.”
Oh, crap, I forgot another kid's birthday.
Well, in my defense, on a good day I couldn't tell you what month or day it is.

Time just has no meaning around here. It feels like we’re in a bubble where time doesn’t exist.

There are only ten days between Raven's birthday and Peacock's. Have you tried to keep up with kids' birthdays that close together?

So, I quickly sent Peacock a birthday text.

Then Raven popped out of his bedroom.
He decided not to go to work last night.

Now, this is something I'd share with my uncle, but of course I can't, so y'all get it.

Let me see if I can do this: he just blew mine and Cowboy's mind.
Okay, so he has given his former partner rent money, and she is going to rent a house, but she will be living in that house with a friend and her new boyfriend.

Raven will live in the backyard in an RV, which he has not purchased and has no clue how to hook up.

Um, yeah.

He's quit his current job and seems to think that he'll have a job that is closer to this house. But they don't have the house yet.

I popped my head in his bedroom. He has everything piled in the middle of the room, and he seems to think that he is actually moving. That means if his kids come down this weekend, they'll have to be on my couch. There is no bedroom.

This just screams disaster.

Raven is back at her house tonight.

All I can say is, dang. I really shouldn’t have dropped him on his head so many times when he was a baby.

Let’s see if we can hurry this thing up.

We went to town, grabbed our weekly groceries, came home, and the rest of the day went the same as any other.

Cowboy headed to work.

It was just Badger and me all evening. She’s been in her room, when she wasn’t she-shed sitting with the dog.

Honestly, my legs are throbbing!
I know it’s where I am so fat, and I am fat.
Coming down that steep hill was rough, my weight definitely didn’t help.
I’ve sat at my desk and did nothing.
I plan on, well, scratch that.

We’ll need to get ready for Raven’s kids.
If they’ll be sleeping in the living room, I’ve got to hide things a lot better than usual.

So, a rather uneventful day.

I clicked on Facebook this evening and saw that another Class of ’88 classmate had died. 
This one hit like a ton of bricks.

I went to Pre‑K with her, “private kindergarten,” they called it back then. 
We went to school together from kindergarten through high school graduation. 
We went to church together, choir, GAs, Sunday mornings.

I wasn’t liked in school. 
I was the quiet, poor girl wearing the rich girl’s hand‑me‑downs. 
I was always the outsider, the one who never quite belonged.

She was one of the rich ones, but she was always kind to me
She tried to stay in touch after we all joined Facebook.

I’m just terrible about staying in touch with people. 
They’ll text, and I’ll think, yeah, I should reply, and it’s ten years later and too late.

This really hits hard.
She was on Facebook the 14th and gone the 19th.

I have to say, I had a good cry over her. 
There aren’t many old classmates I’ve cried over. 
I might’ve been shocked when they died, but I never had a good cry over them.

As soon as I get Heron off to his RV for the night, I’ll head to bed.
It’s not quite midnight, but close enough, and I’m sleepy.