;)
It was Rex's birthday party - which one? - 33 I think, but I'm not certain...32? 34? He's my third son and I'm still a young man, barely into my 30's, I'm sure; possibly still in my 20's. That's how I usually feel, anyway - not so much right now, because of these damn shingles - but usually I think of myself as being just about as young as I was on the day I married Rex's mom.
So I don't know how he could be 33 or 32 - I hope he's not 34 - but, according to the calendar, he is, indeed, somewhere in that age range.
Oddly enough, Rex hosted his own party at the home he now shares with his special friend, Cortney, who has won all of our hearts since she and Rex first got together last summer.
It was a brunch party, with eggs, biscuits and gravy, sausage and a cut up fruit mix of pomegranate, strawberrys, pineapples, melons and such.
It began with coffee - french press or American style.
Charlie went for French Press, which is just what anyone would expect him to do.
;)
We had not been sitting and eating long before Lisa passed her iPhone 4 around the table, so that people could laugh at the picture on the screen. Rex and Cortney did, indeed, laugh.
;)
I was slightly baffled. "It's a men-up," Lisa said. I had no idea what a men-up was, so after I got home, I googled the term. I learned that men-ups are "colorful photographs of 20-something guys dressed in guises of stereotypical masculinity and posed like mid-century pin-up girls."
Men-ups have gone viral. They even have their own men-up calendar.
;)
Next, Cortney passed her phone around. Even before she and Rex got together, she shared her home and heart with another guy, Kingston. When she was not looking, Kingston kept opening the door to let the birds fly in.
For some reason, birds really like to fly into this cozy little log cabin.
;)
This is Kingston. Not the honey - the dog.
;)
And this is Lynxton. He is studying the world that he was born into, trying to figure out what is what. I wish he had a camera that matched his eyes, so he could show us what he sees and how he sees it.
;)
Kalib was as full of mischief as I have ever seen him. If I had had the energy and good health and had kept my eyes open more of the time, I could have taken about 3000 pictures of him doing things like this. He was all over the place, shooting from one side of the room to the other, then to the other sides and then all four sides, seemingly at once.
He was under the table, then on this chair and then that chair.
One time, I opened my eyes and saw him running upside down across the ceiling. I don't know how he did that, but he did.
"That's impossible!" I exclaimed.
"No it's not! I could do that!" Charlie claimed.
"Well, do it then!" I challenged.
Okay," Charlie said. "I will." He then ran up the wall, took two steps across the ceiling and then fell onto his head, fortunately on the dog bed.
I photographed the whole thing, but, damnit, I forgot to use my camera.
;)
Melanie, Lynxton and Margie, partying hard at the party.
;)
Lavina shovels some nutrition into Jobe's mouth.
;)
I enjoyed the food and the company. No matter what I am doing, I must bear the pain of these shingles, so I thought I would be just as well off feeling the pain at the party as sitting home. And Cortney is a doctor in residency and she reassured me of what I had already been told. While I can theoretically pass chicken pox from my shingles to someone who has never had the pox or been immunized against it, I cannot do so through the air. I can only do so with close physical contact.
The only person in the room who had not had the pox or been immunized was Lynxton. So, as badly as I wanted to pick him up, I did not. I kept my distance from him.
Yet, the experience proved to be much tougher on me than I had anticipated. I spent a good deal of the time huddled up somewhere with my eyes closed, trying to retreat from the pain into my own pysche and meditation. I was jarred from one such round by the sudden, loud, angry screams of a wronged Jobe.
I quickly gathered that he had secured a new prized possession, but someone had taken it from him.
;)
He quickly got it back. The screaming stopped. Jobe was happy again.
;)
Any long-time reader knows that whenever anybody in this family has a birthday, Kalib must assist in the blowing out of the candles.
So, after the candles had been lit and the cake placed before Rex, Kalib was called over to assist with the blowing out.
But Kalib refused to blow. He would not blow. Then he produced a Thomas train engine and developed a new method of putting birthday candles out - the "fan and snuff" method. He furiously pumped the train up and down over the candles, creating enough wind that he actually blew some out, but some of the flames would not yield to this little wind. These he snuffed out by bringing his Tom train engine right down onto the flame.
;)
Jobe got to eat the first raspberry.
;)
Then Kalib got a raspberry.
;)
One wasn't enough. Laughing with each bite, Kalib repeatedly shot his hand in, grabbed a raspberry, shoved it into his mouth, then grabbed another before Rex could stop him.
I think he got about half the raspberries.
I only got one.
The cake was delicious, but the bite with the one raspberry that had escaped Kalib's thievery to make it to me was the most delicious of all.
Oh, that was a good bite!
But I only got one such bite... :'-(
;)
I got the idea that I should take a regular-style group photo of all who were there, except for me, to make certain that everybody present wound up pictured on the blog. It was okay that I would not be in the photo, because the mere fact that such a photo would exist would be proof that I was there.
So I asked everybody to gather on the other side of the table and everybody did - except for Kalib. As different folks called out, "Kalib, come over here," he dashed this way and that way, out into the entry and back again, but he would not join the group.
Then he ran beneath the table, where he knew I could not see him. I couldn't, either. All I could see was the top of the table and the people behind it - all of them damn cute, but Lynxton the cutest of all.
It suddenly occurred to me that if I dropped down to a squatting position, I would be able to see Kalib. I also knew that once I spotted him, I had to act instantly. As soon as he realized what I was doing, he would shoot out from under the table and be gone.
So I dropped down to a knee. At that very moment, Melanie began to choke mildly upon a raspberry, Jobe threw a fit and there was distraction all around. I shot.
I suddenly realized that from this angle, all the camera could see of Lynxton was the top of his head, including part of his right ear. "Margie, lift Lynxton u..." I began to shout.
Too late. Kalib scooted out from beneath the table and was gone.
Two November 13 birthdays, part 2.