Turning 83

 So I'm 80 and now Walt is 83.

Ned fixed a delicious eggs Benedict for breakfast and I gave Walt earbuds for his cell phone, which he didn't seem too interested in.  But maybe someday he'll decide he'd like to listen to a podcast...or speak to Jeri.  

He doesn't like cake, so for his birthday dessert, I made a lemon meringue pie.  I was so pleased with how it turned out.

The Zoom Party was at 6 and we had a full house, with all of us in California, including Walt's sister and her husband who were driving home from somewhere and did the Zoom in the car.  Jeri and Phil in Boston and Walt's cousin and his wife in Maryland, were there.  It was a great party,

Everyone had a good time.  Tom and Brianna even danced while Lacie played t he piano.

Walt had requested basilico for dinner, which Ned cooked and we ate during the Zoom.  We even cut the pie during the zoom and when the pie was served, it was about the end of our Zoom time, so we closed the meeting.

It was a full day,but I think Walt had a good time.  

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The last celebration

Well, the celebrations for my 80th birthday are now over, and the final one was one of the best.  Ned made arrangements with our Mexican daughter, Marie, for us to go and have dinner at her Mexican/Italian restaurant in Elk Grove, a suburb of Sacramento.

Marie came to us when she was getting ready for her senior year in high school.  Her father (who had died) was American, so she had a double citizenship and there were no immigration problems.  Friends of ours went to Mexico every summer to work in one of the low income areas.  He was a doctor and provided medical attention to the community.  They met Marie and could see that she was above average intelligence and felt she could make something of herself, but that she would need to get training in the U.S.

We were finished with hosting foreign students, but decided to take her.  We had no bedroom for her -- all of our guests were male and shared a room with the boys.  So she moved into our living room and lived there for a year while she went to school.  Since she had no friends and very little social life, I suggested she get a part time job and she found a job with a restaurant, which worked out very well.

After she graduated, she moved to Sacramento to attend college (she's Ned's age) and continued to work part time in restaurants.  I think she got her Masters degree.  Anyway, eventually she married and she and her husband opened Todo un Poco, which has, over the years, won many awards for quality.  I love the decorations on the walls.

Marie always makes way too much food, but everything was wonderful, from the hors d'oeuvres to the salads to the main course and desserts.  She likes to support local farmers, so the greenery and tomatoes are from a farm that she supports..

We sat and visited and ate and had a wonderful time.. Ned's friend Sarah came with us.  She had owned a restaurant and  has worked in food services for a long time, so she and Marie got along very well.

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...and then she packed up all the leftovers and sent us home with them for dinner tonight (along with a wonderful bottle of  wine--she has become a sommelier in the last few years and I was sad that I couldn't drink the wine (because of my meds) because the little tastes I took of Walt's were wonderful.

We came home not only with enough food for dinner for the next night or two, but also pastries for breakfast in the morning.

So my birthday celebration is now over but what a wonderful 80th birthday it has been.  Next week we celebrate Walt's 83rd.

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80 at Fenton's

 What a wonderful day yesterday was ... and what a frustrating morning today has been!

We met the group at Fenton's for lunch and what a wonderful time we had.  These are all Pinata People.

Oddly enough, as we were sitting at the  table, our friend Natalie MacKenzie came over.  She was there with a friend.  We hadn't seen her since her husband died and it was so good to visit, however briefly.

The crab salad sandwich was as good as it usually is.  Cam and Evelyn shared a huge sundae.

We had such a good time chatting.  I loved this photo that Ned took.

It shows the great shirt that Walt found for me for my birthday.

I had a late nap and we all had leftovers for dinner.  I saw up watching The Fabelmans until 11:30, then went to bed.  Had my usual up and down, up and down night of sleep, but ultimately slept until 8 a.m., which was great.  A perfect day to celebrate my birthday.

Last night I did a Google search for what I might use as a replacement for PhotoShop and found  that you can download a light version of Photoshop for FREE.  I was eager to do that this morning and do you think I can find it today?  No.  I found a couple of places to download for free...only  then you have to pay a monthly fee after a certain time.  

I know that a free light version of PhotoShop exists somewhere and my task today is to find it.  

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On Turning 80

 What an amazing birthday I had.  It started around 5 with Ned making coffee for me.  Then an hour or so later he made a coffee cake and asked if I had seen what he posted on Facebook.  I had seen something, but didn't really know what it was.

What it was was an amazing "padlet," which I had never heard of before.  It's a collection of messages from people, some with photos, some without, all wishing me a happy birthday, but what a collection.  There are some 200 entries on it, some of which Ned wrote with appropriate photos, but he and Jeri and I don't know who else contacted every person they could think of  that I knew and asked them to pass on the information to others and this is just absolutely amazing.  (the most amazing was from a guy who used to sell tickets for the Lamplighters, whom I have not seen or heard from in 40 years!)

I read it several times, and each time I found something I had missed.  The combination of this and the over 200 birthday messages I got on Facebook made me feel very humble and very loved.  If I ever get depressed, all I have to do is pull up this page and it will pull me out of the depression.  I loved the memories people shared, of things I had forgotten.  Ned changed the setting later in the day so people could add entries so every time I looked at it, it seemed there was something new to read.

I spent most of the day just reading birthday messages.  

Ned cooked roast leg of lamb for dinner, one of my favorite meals and it was delicious and he followed it with strawberry shortcake.

I had a long talk with Jeri and a short talk with Tom (which I had to end because dinner was ready) and after watching Jeopardy, Walt and I watched the old movie The Loved One, which was quite different from what I remembered!  I ended up going to sleep at 10 and sleeping 4 hours, which is a long time for me!  

It was just the absolutely perfect birthday...and today we'll be having lunch with a bunch of people at Fenton's, so the celebration continues.

Thanks to everyone reading this who participated in the padlet.  I love you all!

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Wordle

 So what am I doing up writing this entry at 3:30 a.m.?

My night started like it usually does -- went to sleep at 11 and woke up at  1.  Posted my 1SE videos and then went to do Wordle.  I got the second letter in the right place and one other letter that would be somewhere else and most of the letters unusable.  I absolutely could not find the answer and couldn't get back to sleep without finding the answer.  Whenever I put the phone down and decided to go to sleep, all I could think of were words to use.  I came in to use the desktop because it was easier to make guesses and when I finally got the word right (which was a very simple word) on the fourth try, I was wide awake, so decided that while I'm here at m desk I might as well write my journal entry.  Wordle is going to kill me!

We went to the bank this morning.  This is the third time I've been downtown in the last two weeks.  It's almost like being normal again.  We were going to have Ned's signature put on my Golden One account (we had his signature on our B of A account last week).  I was hoping to make a videotape of blossoms, but it's about a week before blossoms will be everywhere in Davis (another excuse to go outside).

After lunch, Marta cut my hair while I watched The Muppet Show.  Ned said I should look better for my birthday lunch on Saturday.

She does a great job and I'm happy with the results.

Best part of the day was finding out that my good friend, who has lived in Arizona for  the past several years, whose husband died recently and who moved back to California will be able to join us for lunch. I haven't seen her in about 3 years and am looking forward to her being with us.  There should be about a dozen people taking up a table at Fenton's.  It will be a nice celebration.

Ned has also arranged for us to have dinner with our Mexican daughter at her restaurant on Monday, which will be great.  I haven't seen her in 3 years or so too.

Now it's approaching 4 and I think I'll try to get back to sleep.

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Decisions

I've made a decision.  I've decided to skip trying to make the old type of Funny the World entries, but just start a new one on Blogger.  So this is Entry #1 of the new Funny the World. (Pay no attention to the date on this entry)

With my inability to find something similar to what I used before, and knowing that I don't learn new software as easily as I used to, plus the fact that I can't remember how I used to post entries, it just seems that since I have this lovely Blogger available, I'll just use that. The domain "Funny the World" will remain since it's the only way I can keep my 20 years of entries on line.

In a week I will be 80 years old and it feels like so many things are "new" though I couldn't list them for you....but the new FTW would top the list if I had a list.  I have missed typing an entry every day and though I can't have an "index" page like I had before, you can check this page every day and see if there is a new entry.  I hope to get back to writing daily again.

(I don't know why I didn't think of this idea months ago!)

Now if only I could find a photo program.  I've tried several but none is as easy as PhotoShop and I sorely miss PhotoShop!

We are preparing a birthday month celebration.  Today we are going to see 80 for Brady, which I've read reviews of that were not very good, but it just seemed to be something I wanted to do to celebrate my 80th.  

We will be going out to dinner to celebrate my birthday and Walt's and then on the 18th we are having a gathering at Fenton's with about a dozen people.  Crab salad sandwich .... yummm!  and then it will be Walt's birthday.  If I think of turning "80" as being old, I think of Walt who will turn 83.  At some point  there will be a family Zoom.

I've been sleeping surprisingly well lately.  Oh, I never go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning but I've started going to sleep at 10 on the couch under a big fluffy quilt.  I wake up just after midnight.  Then I sit up for half an hour, posting videos to 1 Second Every Day and then do the new Wordle.  By then I'm ready to sleep on the couch again.  I will sleep for an hour or  two and then I'm ready to move to the family room and climb into the recliner.  Sometimes I watch TV (if it's 3 a.m. or after), sometimes I listen to podcasts.  I generally wake up around 6, often when Bubba leaps into my lap, but don't try to go back to sleep so am surprised when I look at the clock and it's 8 a.m.  Then I have a one hour nap after I eat lunch, so I'm actually getting more sleep now than I have in a very long time.

(and haven't you missed FTW entries about my sleep habits?)

So here we are.  Funny the World is back, sorta, and I hope people can find it.

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