The birthday celebration went well today. I think Dad is feeling loved and appreciated (because he IS), and everyone had a good time. And enjoyed the food, too. We made braciole–little, individual ones for everyone, instead of one, big one–and pasta, with salad. The braciole was fun to make, too–it was the first time I’ve ever made it, and it wasn’t really that hard. And I love dishes where you can do all the hard parts in advance.

Of course, there was cake for dessert. With candles. (Nor were we the only ones celebrating, today–go wish Laurie a happy birthday, huh?)

After we ate, we brought out some of those old pictures that I talked about yesterday, and that was fun, too.

The sad part of the afternoon? We saw a police car go by the house. Then an ambulance . . . pulling in across the street. Now, last month, I told you about our neighbor with the heart problems. A week or so after that event, there were fire trucks at their house, responding to a (luckily) false alarm. (Well, lucky because no-one was hurt, the house didn’t burn, down, but bad because it made all those volunteer fire-people come for nothing.) We thought, at first, that the ambulance was there for him again . . . but no, they pulled into the house on the other side. The house of my Mom’s dearest friend, who woke up the other night with chest pains, and who was scheduled for a stress test tomorrow . . . Apparently, she had chest pains again, and her pulse rate dropped so that she almost lost consciousness . . . I don’t know if it was a heart attack or what, but . . . scary. They’ve been neighbors and good friends of ours for 31 years. At first, Mom was standing next to me at the window, shaking and worrying. My sister went out to see what was going on, my Dad went over to see if there was anything he could do. (The husband is a good friend and golfing-buddy of his.) But when Mom saw our other neighbors coming to see what was going on, she shot out of the house, She was shaking so hard! And almost cried when then wheeled her friend out to the ambulance, although she (the friend) was joking with the paramedics, and they didn’t exactly RUSH away from the house, so we’re all kind of assuming that everything is going to be okay . . . we certainly hope so! That corner has been FAR too busy with emergency personnel lately. Again, if you care to send any prayers and good wishes our neighbor’s way, it would be appreciated.

Okay, to end on a lighter note? My cousin made a Christmas gift for Chappy–a wreath of Milkbone doggie treats . . . which she made herself, with the assistance of her own dogs. She tied dozens of treats to a coat-hanger-bent-into-a-circle  . . . and whenever one would break, her dogs would take care of that for her. (Dogs are helpful that way.) Well, Chappy thinks this is one of the best ideas ever. Not only was he eager to help sample this–and to wag his tail to show her how much he appreciated it. We laid it on the kitchen table while we did all the other dinner/dessert kinds of things, but when we were done doing "active" food things? He just sat and stared at his wreath–through the table, you understand–just trying to will the whole thing closer to the edge. Chappy’s really very cute when he’s being obsessive . . . he’ll sit and patiently stare at things for what feels like hours. He might occasionally jump his paws up to look at his object of desire, or glance longingly at a person in the room ("Would you please give me some of that?") but for the most part, he waits. And waits. And waits. Often while drooling gently on the floor. It’s pathetically cute, especially since he’s really so well-behaved about it. He doesn’t desperately jump around, trying to reach whatever it is. He doesn’t make a pest of himself running around, trying to get a person’s attention. He just sits and . . . pines. And he does it very, very well. No wonder he’s so exhausted tonight!

Oh, and I DID do some spinning for Distaff Day. My aunt and cousin were intrigued, I think, at my Journey Wheel. I’m not sure. What kind of level of interest does, "What’s that? It looks like some kind of torture instrument!" imply, anyway?)\

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