Happy Birthday To Me!

Coffee long cold in a Kavarna cup, "One Step At a Time" by Clifton Chenier off of Bogalusa Boogie on iTunes. The album was a birthday gift from my mad friend Keith (who would make a great B&B chef). As he put it, even though it's the blues, they can't help but make you feel better (I paraphrased badly as I can't find the e-card with the actual words). Okay, it's almost noon and I have spent the entire day so far Putzing. I took J to school--with a stop at Publix for bananas, water and muffins and with a stop at Kavarna for coffee as the coffeemaker is still broken--only to find they had already left for their field trip to the Puppetry Arts Center downtown. It's a good field trip, and it's J's last day at school for four weeks (for one reason and another), so I drove her downtown, got there, got her seated and let her teacher know she was there all right before the show started. Then back to school to take down her Superstar board, then to the mechanic to drop off the Honda.

When I finally got home the first thing I had to do was submit a request online to have the tree next door removed. It's a water oak with a 51" diameter (really, I measured) that is dead and rotting on the side farthest from our house. It has dropped several big limbs in the past couple of years (one right in front of a previous tenant--it crushed her car and would have crushed her had her dog not stopped to pee right before it fell). The property is a rotting rental (vacant for the past year) whose owner's attitude when told that the tree poses a danger to our house and property (by the tenant after the tree limb almost killed her) "They have insurance...".

For those of you who live in the north and west, trees in the south are different. It is common here after a storm to see many ginormous trees blown over and crushing houses, cars, blocking roads, etc. These big old trees have incredibly shallow root systems and one good wind and they fall over. I have been nervously eying this one ever since the first big limb fell. Right now there is a really big dead limb right over our house that I am sure is going to go soon. It has already shed several little branches off itself that litter our roof.

The situation is especially hard for me as I am a tree-hugger and I LOVE this tree. It blocks the view and sound of the busy, ugly street to the south. It shades and cools out house and front lawn. It is home to hundreds of squirrels. If the property owner would have it regularly pruned it could probably last a few more years. But we are in a drought now and she doesn't even water it. It is going downhill fast and we can no longer afford to just let it be. Too bad the rot and slant of the tree aren't such that when it goes it would take the rental house instead of ours. It's empty and full of rats, bugs and who knows what else.

Now about glass. Yes glass. It's supposed to be incarnate here. Lately I feel more like mommyincarnate than glassincarnate, and while that is a GOOD thing, it needs to be a planned thing too in order not to cause me stress. One should not have stress on one's b-day. And speaking of b-days, we are celebrating mine tonight by going to see the Braves vs. the Cubs with a bunch of friends including 5 children 6 or under. There will be hotdogs. There will be beer. There will be fireworks and friends. I will celebrate 46 in style. There will be glass... next week. Happy Weekend all!