Friday, Mar. 19, 2010 - 7:20 a.m.

My mom liked her photo album, by the way. Her birthday turned out so-so-- was going ok I suppose until my brother, true to form, took the money leftover from buying her the powdered sugar and stuff she needed to bake her own birthday cake and bought beer with it. And drank it immediately, of course. Then his 'girlfriend' came over and they got in a fight. Happy Birthday, Mom! *sigh*

Mom has a number of small (or not so small) household things going slightly (or dramatically) awry-- washing machine, dishwasher, porch light, light-on-pole-in yard, ceiling in bathroom falling in, etc. She's constantly complainig about them in her litany of things she worries about. So we offer to pay to have one of them fixed as a birthday present (it has to be framed as a present or she won't accept), and she denies that any of them are things she can't live with, frugal Depression-era woman she is. Stubborn! I think, if you can really live with it, you don't complain about it on the phone to someone _every_ week.

*sigh* again.

All of my carnivorous plants seem to have survived the winter in the garage, except the pinguicula. I wasn't that into the pinguicula, anyway. Also, the potted mini-nectarine that everyone said would die if kept in the basement in the dark over the winter. It's alive! I know, because it's got blossoms and new growth. Hah! In your face, know-it-all fruit-tree naysayers!

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