Birthday wishes to my mom, who is 75 today! We're at that place where she doesn't really NEED anything, doesn't use perfume, etc. so for Mother's Day and birthday she usually gets a book store gift card from me. Other than cash, it's my personal favorite gift, you can never have too many books or too much music :-)

Actually she's easier to buy for than my father. I don't like to pick books for other people unless I know they actually want something or really like an author. It must run in the family, I'm hard to buy for also. My husband just asks me what I want and gives me the money for it pretty much. My dad and I also share that guilt gene where we obsess whether we're getting the right thing, right size, color, etc. And I grew up in a retail family, so we always get way too carried away at Christmas. It would actually be fine with me if we just got together and ate dinner, we stopped exchanging gifts with most of our friends years ago, it just got too crazy. Christmas always gave me headaches. I don't mind sending cards, that's actually kind of fun, but when stores put out Christmas decorations in August (before Halloween even), it just really takes a lot of fun out of the holiday...

My best friend Mary's birthday is this Wednesday, she's in New Orleans or I'd get together with her also. I travel so infrequently now, originally because of lack of money and lack of reliable transportation, then because we had an elderly dog. But now I have a decent car, about the same amount of money, but now we have a codependant cat. We haven't spent more than a few hours away from the house since we adopted her last March. My husband says she sits at the door and cries when I go to the grocery store until I get back.

About the only place I'd like to go is to NOLA, I don't mind the 7 hour drive, if I could take the kitty I would, but I don't think my friend's three cats would appreciate it. Plus Phoebe hates to ride in cars, she cries the whole way to the vet, which is about 2 miles away. But I'm so paranoid, even taking her to the vet makes me nervous, hell, opening the garage door makes me nervous. I could never have kids (sigh).

Ramble, ramble... but anyway, happy Birthday to my two favorite Virgos!