birthday

After blogging my way back to sanity and hope Monday night, i slept well, but late. Still, i had a leisurely breakfast, then showered off the last vestiges of the madness of the day before and donned my "party in my pants" underwear. Yes, yes that IS how i think of them! They have magenta and purple confetti strands randomly strewn on a creamy background: "party in my pants"!
Somehow, just knowing i had them on made me feel like i had this great secret that the world at large was not privy to, and that was an especially good feeling on a day such as this. I felt i could take on the world, armed with the knowledge that i knew something about me that no one else did: i had a party in my pants.
Off i go to wander amongst the unknowing masses...

Just an update before i head off to dinner at a favored seafood ristorante: i accomplished almost all of my desired tasks today, all except getting my hair trimmed. Ah, well, that has waited this long, it can surely wait a bit more! The pressing financial matters are done and THAt is a relief.
One of my tasks on this important day had been to visit Mama's grave and bring her my gift from Italy. At one time, she and i were going to travel the world together after she retired. Her death one year after that milestone precluded our adventures physically together, but she still travels with me in my heart, abroad and everywhere i roam.
Whilst tromping around in the forum of Pompeii, the thought flashed into my mind: get a rock. This wasn't the first time i had gathered a rock in my travels, but it was certainly the most emphatic. And i understood the reason. Here i was, in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, standing on soil that had once borne a steaming mass of lava, soil with contents as old as the very earth itself. A piece of that site was needed to grace a headstone in Greenwich Cemetary, some rock full of age and old-world charisma for one who had not aged nearly enough and whose charms were sorely missed.
So i purloined a rock from the forum of Pompeii and i stashed it away in my luggage. Arriving home, i transferred it to a pocket in my purse, awaiting the time to transfer it to its new resting place, half a world away from its origin. Today was the day. In between showers, i placed it on the rain-washed grave marker for my mother, then sent the picture through the ether to all who had known and loved her and some who know and love me.