And Now... The Rest of the Story

Well this ought to be lengthy. But, as promised, this is the birthday post, followed by Halloween :). Might as well get it all done now, since there's no telling when I will be at a computer where I can do this for any length of time again.

So I talked to Mary on Thursday night for something like 2 hours. We were both very surprised that we managed to stay on the phone that long -- and we didn't realize it had been that long. It was 1 in the morning by the time we hung up the phone. However, she had regaled me with many hilarious stories -- which will come into play later on.

So, I woke up at about my usual time on Friday, October 30. Which was my 29th birthday. Good grief. 29. Who'd have thunk it? So anyway, I took my sweet time getting ready for the day. At about 8:50, I got a phone call from my boss telling me that I needed to hurry in to work, because they couldn't find a file for a family who had come in. So, I grabbed my stuff and headed in to work. Well, I got downstairs, and everyone was sitting in the reception room, and they immediately began singing Happy Birthday. So, I was a bit embarassed and went and sat down. Well, Mary exclaimed, "You'd better look behind you!" Well, here's what I saw:

And here is how I reacted to what I saw upon closer inspection:

Yeah, not a flattering picture of me. But it was hilarious. Because upon closer inspection, you will see that the cake says this:

And above the cake was a collage of me!

If you care to see some close-ups of the pictures and what people wrote on them, click on any of the pictures in this blog post, and it will take you to my photobucket. Needless to say, this was hilarious! Good ol' Mary. She sure knows how to get me. And let's just say that some of the pictures she chose were less-than-flattering. Like my sleeping in the airport picture. YIKES.
So here are me and Mary with my cake

And here's one of just me and my cake:

(which Sue jokingly said is for next year's collage). Hahahaha.

So everyone was wanting cake, so we went ahead and cut it -- even though it was maybe 9:30 by this point. Mary thought it was hilarious that, even with taking a huge chunk off the top of the cake, you could still see my whole head... aka my melon :).


So, meanwhile, Mary re-tells one of the stories that she had told me the night before... Only now it is more understandable -- and sadly so -- because now she can tell me the rest of the story. (Wow, that worked well with my post title :)).

So, the story Mary had shared went like this: She was at the grocery store, and the store clerk said to Mary (about a 20-something year old), "But you're the mom." So, Mary, feeling horrified, went home and applied her face mask and re-dyed her hair. As she was telling me this story, we were laughing and she was saying, "The only reason she had for saying this was because the girl was in my vicinity! There was no other reason for her to think I was the girl's mom!" So, this is funny, because Mary doesn't have children in the first place, and plus, Mary isn't really old enough to have a 20-something year old daughter. So, we had chuckled about this on the phone the night before. And so now I got the rest of the story. Turns out Mary went to pick up the cake. The bakery had closed an hour earlier than anticipated, so she was getting help from a store clerk. Well, they had to get even more help, because they couldn't find the cake. They finally found it, and the store clerk was hesitant to carry it. She said she didn't want to drop it. Mary said, "But I don't want to drop it either!" And the store clerk said, "But you're the mom!" And so... Yes, that makes the story even sadder. At least for Mary. Because Mary is definitely NOT old enough to have a 29 year old daughter. But I told her, "Maybe I look 16 in that picture." Which would be really good news for me, since I have, like, a ton of gray hair on my head. But, I digress...

After all of this, I go back to my work station. And I realize that the party-fun was not over! Mary had also decorated my desk and surrounding area :)


So here I am, showing off the "Over the Hill" can that has been bequeathed to me by Mary:


And here is "Old Lady Hila" demonstrating the use of said cane:

FYI -- I am well aware of how horrible a picture that is of me. Every time Mary sees it, she just laughs at how awful it is. But, I can say... At least I posed that way on purpose :). Have to look like an old lady with my over-the-hill cane, right?

I ended up running several errands for the funeral home, such as picking up death certificates, doing the bank deposit, etc. When I arrived back at the funeral home, I found all sorts of my birthday pictures being played on the TV. Turns out Bob had so graciously burned them as a MeM. Including the horrible one of me with the cane. Classic. Nothing like seeing yourself on the big screen. Hahaha... As the day wore on, Mary and I went to lunch at a Mexican place and got a ton of food. Way too much for me to finish in one sitting. So, I saved the other half for another day. But it was delicious. We got back to work, and I ate my piece of Hila cake, and then finished up the day. After work, I opened the presents my BFF Juliebean sent me :). She got me pampering stuff that she said she knows I would never get myself... And it was pure white. For the vanilla in me :). Plus she also got me some nice lotion and little cutsie decorations for scrapbooking that include two peas in a pod... Because that's what we are :)!


The rest of my evening consisted of shopping at Fred Meyer. Yeah, I know... You get old, and shopping seems like birthday fun :).

I am almost positive that I have left out a detail or two. But it's been a week. You can't really expect my old lady brain to remember that far back, can you :)?

On Saturday, I worked. But Saturday evening was our Halloween Party! My mom took care of getting everything ready that I had put on the "to bring to Brad's house" list, since I was at work and therefore unable to do that. Thank goodness for my mom! I ran home, picked up all the stuff, and headed to Brad and Tarylyn's. The evening was fun. We had lots of lovely food. This is an overview of the table, but if you click on it, you can see all the dishes individually :).


Not pictured above is the body-part and worm jello and the punch, and the non-alcoholic butterbeer.

Other than Christina (who did her make-up to look like a sparkly vampire) and the kids, we didn't really dress up this year. I have gained too much weight to fit nicely into my 80s gear. So sad. But anyway... Here are a few shots:








Oh, and in my jello, I ate two worms, a brain, and an ear. That was kind of gross, actually. The gummy brain. Ewwww. After my mom and my grandmother left (my grandmother wasn't feeling well, so they left early on), and once we got the kids settled in to watch their movie, Brad, Christina, Tarylyn, and I played Mexican Train. We were only able to play 2 rounds, but it was fun. Though it is hard to play games with a 10 month old who wants to get all the dominoes...