98 vs. 42

Am I the biggest doofus or what?  I erased all the pictures of Nana on her 98th birthday from my camera, along with the pictures I took the next day of the flowers Tricia sent, and the arrangement from Nana's neighbor.  I did take this darling video of Nana talking to Da when Da called from Thailand to wish her a happy birthday.  I love how Nana embraces everything and everyone with unconditional love.  I have a long way to go on that.  I don't even love my kids if they're too slow coming out of ballet!  OK, that's not true, but I could relax a little bit.  Nana keeps saying, "We'll just take what comes and love it."

"That's so hard," I think as I grit my teeth.  I don't want to take what comes.  I want to decide what comes and when and how.  Maybe by the time I'm 98, I'll feel more zen-like.

But enough about me, let's talk about Nana's visiting teachers.  I went back to Nana's house the day after her birthday because I had given her a cake on her birthday and she was worried about how big it was.  I told her I'd come back and get the leftovers.  The visiting teachers came in, darling ladies in their '80's who didn't seem that old at all.  I must be getting up there!  Nana had written down that they were coming at 2:00, but they came at 10:30.  One said to me, "Oh, we don't want to interrupt!"  She looked at me and said pointedly, "Ruby NEVER gets to see YOU."

I looked at her and said, "No.  She sees me almost every day, so go ahead.  I'll be back tomorrow."

Do you see this?  It was supposed to be a blog post about Nana and how wonderfully optimistic and loving she is, and how she was getting birthday calls nonstop the whole time I was there, and instead it's a blog post about how I erased the pictures I took and then got annoyed at a nice old lady's assumption that nobody visits Nana.  Well, we do.  I don't have any pictures to prove it, but...

You know what?  Let's all just do our best.