The Happy Song

Well this weekend marked me officially getting older. Little Becca graduated and I turned another year older. For those that couldn't be there, I'll share a few of the highlights.

• The towels - last Tuesday I finally reached my breaking point with the towels and decided to write Laurel a note asking her not to use them. Of course she called me several hours later (when she finally awoke) to deny any allegations. Obviously, her suggestions were ridiculous, but I figured drawing it to her attention would be enough to make it stop. L decides to bring up this whole conversation while we were out Thursday night. L suggested that my towels were getting bleached by residue left in the washer. Being that I was a little drunk, I told her this wasn't possible b/c nothing else gets bleached. Kristie jumps in at this point to "helpfully" inform me that towels are ore porous and therefore more likely to absorb bleach than my clothes would be. Obviously she was being sarcastic, but L missed this and thanked K for her helpful comment. I retored that no one uses bleach in the house. This kept the conversation going for another 5 minutes, and it was only ended when K solved the mystery by stating that "all of the towels must be from a faulty batch..." Whatever.
• The birthday celebrations ended with yet another night at El Presidente. However, this time we were joined by our cabbie. I know what you're thinking and this was not my idea; it was Jeanna's. It was, however, my idea to leave the restaurant after eating 5 bowls of salsa b/c our food was taking too long. I wonder if the workers there recognize us - we honestly have some ridiculous incident nearly every time we visit.
• My mom didn't bother to get directions to the hotel. She just assumed that it was on the main strip.
• Becca's graduation gown was huge, but it made her look like an angel. Also, the damn zipper broke 20 minutes before the ceremony (if you can call it a ceremony).
• They left off that Becca was graduating magna cum laude, which pissed her off to no end simply because she wanted some snobbish girl in her program to see that she did better than her. So, she marched around in her angel wings until convinced someone to read the honor with her name. Nice Becca, nice.
  
• When my grandmother showed up she informed me that her long time friend happened to be in the hotel room next to them and she was just certain that the "snobby girl" was her friends daughter. Never quite figured out if this was true or not.
  
• My job for the ceremony was to get Becca there in one piece (b/c we all know how frantic she can get) and to save seats for the rest of the family who do well enough to simply get there in one piece. Thankfully though, there was one young adult per old adult. (Side note: my Grandpa has pretty severe Alzheimer and seldom knows what is going on.) Anyway, I begin fidgeting in my seat shortly after everyone sits down. So, Grandpa turns to me and says "are you going to fidget the whole time?" I said, "well I might... these seats are simply too close together." He pauses for a moment and then says, "well, why didn't you get more seats - that was your one job today." Fair point Gramps. Fair point.
• Half way through the "ceremony" a baby starts crying. Gramps turns to me and says, "a baby is crying... and I don't blame him. Shortly there after he says "you know, I really like Chicago's better. They treat you like a king up there - giving you champagne and crackers." How in God's name this man remembered my NU graduation but can't remember my name, I'll never know.
• The family left shortly after lunch and then we took a long nap. For dinner we decided to go to some Japanese steakhouse, which was an excellent choice. The theme here was that they cooked the food right in front of you and your sat at a table with strangers. By the end of dinner, our fellow diners were no longer strangers. We were sharing beer suggestions and drinking stories. And then our waitress brought out 4 cakes and sang the "Happy Song" to everyone who was celebrating birthdays or graduations.