Today Is Your Birthday!

What do:

Robin Wright Penn,
Izzy Stradlin
Tom DeLay
Vivienne Westwood, and
Kofi Annan

all have in common?

They share a birthday with my mother. I was surprised to learn that Aunt Maggie's mother almost shares my mother's birthday... Instead of April 8? She is April 7. So, belated Happy Birthday Mrs. Barrett! This explains so much our reactions to our mothers, at I think so...

Anyway... I went searching for my Mom's horoscope for the year. Color me freaked out. I mean, the ultimate manager is told to become a manager? Oy.

Horoscopes for April 08, 2009

By Linda Black | Tribune Media Services

April 8, 2009

Today's birthday (April 8). You've learned to get by on your own. This year, expand your influence. Become a manager. That skill expands your prospects enormously. What's more, it's fun.

(oh. dear. god. help. us. all.)

Aries (March 21-April 19): Today is an 8. An expert can help you solve the mystery, finally. Ask around and you'll find the perfect person for the job.

Happy Birthday Mom!

A Jiggle-free Thank You.

I am thanking the people that I love in advance.... You are making it happen for me!
From Tribune Media Services...

Today's birthday (Feb. 5). You start out with faith and work toward your goals. As you go along, you learn many things. You can't do it all by yourself, for example. The people you love make it happen.

Aquarius: 9. Enjoy every moment of this precious day. Tell somebody you love them, and mean it from your heart. Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Also, thank you to Fun Daddy for giving me a camera clicker thing so I can take pictures without jiggling my camera!

Look at that sharp picture!

Also thank you to Aunt Maggie. I will be taking pictures of her gift of Moet & Chandon White Star Champagne that I will be drinking later... and the pictures won't JIGGLE!!!! Yeah!

I love you all! And I DO mean that from my heart.

A belated birthday wish

I got a text message from Aunt Maggie yesterday reminding me to party hard for a perennial favorite for us University of Chicago geeks!

Yesterday was the 100th birthday (YES! He is still alive!) of Claude Lévi-Strauss.

I was lucky enough to never had to read M. Lévi-Strauss's works on the anthropology and mythology in a class that we referred to as "Self-Torture and Society" because I currently already torturing myself with Greek Thoughts and Literature. I was lucky enough to gain some insight into his work by staying up all night winter quarter typing Aunt Amy's paper likening Prom to Marriage which made some vague profound references to his work.

So, Happy Birthday, Claude Lévi-Strauss! And remember that you have had a lasting impact on U of C nerds everywhere!

Happy Birthday!

And many more Aunt Maggie!

I think that I miss you the most

Aunt Maggie has just shut the door to her townhouse and already I am crying. I miss her. And I am not even a good enough friend to deserve it.

I don’t call lately. I don’t email. But it isn’t her. It is all of them. Aunt Amy, Auntie Noranne, Richard and Charles. I feel overwhelmed. So my first instinct is to close down. I don’t talk to anyone. This mother of teenager thing sucks. And I am the only one there. Everyone else’s kids are younger (for those of you that have them). I feel lost. I don’t have a community. Where the hell am I going to find a community? Other insane University of Chicago grads with overly clever. Underlywise young teenagers? Other women raising their children Catholic when they are unsure. We crazy gals who find our marriages falling apart and not sure where to go or what to do?

What does that Venn diagram look like? How many of us are there? And what is our geographical distribution? What is the size of my Chicago subset? 3? And how do we reach each other? Particularly since we don’t communicate? At least not like normal people.

At least Aunt Maggie and Aunt Amy and Auntie Noranne read.

So they know I love them.

Even if I can’t say it