The stories of our lives

On Saturday night we had one of two parties for Brad's birthday.

Does your family do multiple parties for a birthday? We always seem to. One with one side of the family and one with the other. Not because they don't get along but it just works out that way because of scheduling, it's impossible to get everyone in one place at one time. Anyways, as a present for Brad I had the landscaper come and clean up the back yard so we could have dinner out there. (I KNOW! Do you get the irony of that statement? Wasn't I just moaning the other day that everyone has a secret maid that I just don't know about and here I am talking about a landscaper. Trust me, the irony was not lost on me when I called him on Thursday night. The thing is - justification time - Brad and I both hate cleaning the back yard. Neither of us are yard people. Some people love working on their landscape, we do not! So, we found this great guy who charges a super rate and does a phenomenal job. He even cleans up the kids toys!) During the party, we were relaxing on the patio under the lanterns and twinkling lights relaying funny stories of our lives. It was a movie worthy moment in my life. It wasn't our intention to be in story telling mode it's just that there's a story from at least one of us for every situation. What I realized while laughing was that every story we told had not only been told multiple times before, but told to at least two of the 8 adults previously and included at least two of us in the plot of the story. Did this stop us from laughing? Nope, we all got involved, telling different parts of these stories for the one or two people who had never heard this story. Let me tell you, they just get better each time we re-tell them. There were parts that were so funny we choked, doubled over in laughter and shed tears.

It's the stories of our lives!

Stories of dates gone wrong, embarrassing moments in life, childhood memories, etc... I wanted to grab a recorder and record us sitting out there story telling so that our kids have the stories when we're long gone. It dawn on me though, that this wasn't the first telling of the story, nor would it be the last and if we do our jobs right, our kids will be sitting around at their 31st birthday telling the stories of their lives some of which were told tonight. I can only hope they recognize the bond tying all the stories together and how deeply it ties us generation to generation. That and I hope I'm the grandma sitting there to hear my kids version of their lives.

Have you ever been on a date with someone who tried to prove to you that you can in fact eat all of a lobster? Shell and all? One of us has! Have you ever seen those internet dating sites come up with "no match found" after telling you it was searching its million customer database? One of us has! Have you heard the scream of a live crab as it's being thrown into a pot of boiling water? Or witness someone eating the brains of a boiled octopus? Yep, a few of us have!