Happy Birthday to your son!  And a happy year to follow.

Happy birthday to someone for whom all things are still possible!

Mom, you may find, as I did, how quickly you grow accustomed to having a house and life of your own again.

What’s even scarier is when we think back to when WE were 19. Doesn’t seem that long ago, does it?

Congrats to the man

...and I add my good wishes to everyone else’s, too.  Happy Happy Birthday and good going to you Kate.......you have much to be proud of.  He sounds like someone everyone would be happy to call their own.

The years do fly by, it is amazing and the hardest thing for we mom’s (I don’t think it is nearly as bad for the dad’s) to remember they ARE grown up and not to mother them too much.......cause in our eyes, often they still are that little 22” bundle of joy that needs us for everything!!

A largish Happy Birthday, and some song lyrics from Steely Dan (more appropriate for Mom, but she’ll have to gender-bend).

Well, the birthday boy is off on a camping trip for the remainder of the weekend. Somewhere up in New Hampshire at a cabin tucked in the woods. His cohorts plan a birthday bash for him and a last weekend for all of them before they begin scattering in different directions.

Cassie—thank you. I’ve passed it along.

Pablo, I’m of two minds here. The obvious one is that I am really sad to see him leave. The other mind has his room redecorated and my computer gear moved in there already. I think I’ll be a mix of emotions for the next few weeks.

Steve—that’s the other part isn’t it? He didn’t get to be nineteen in a vacuum. I seem to have grown up, too. Or at least older. No, it wasn’t very long ago that I was a nineteen year old. But I am absolutely positive that I wouldn’t want to go back and do it all over again.

Cyn—for the foreseeable future I will still be the National Bank of Mom, so there will be somewhat regular contact, I’m sure. It’s a new age with email and cell phones. I don’t intend to bother him much, but I might have to text message once in a while with a CALL YOUR MOTHER message. On the other hand, it would be kind of amusing if he had to send the message CALL YOUR KID occasionally.

Thanks, Linkmeister. That took me back. Now I feel really old.

And speaking of gender bending, while at the grocery store picking up supplies for the camping trip, there was guy there wearing a skirt. A sight you don’t see every day. Looked pretty good on him, though.

A skirt or a Utilikilt?

Located, as a matter of fact, just a couple of miles from my sister’s house ... she drives past them every time she drives downtown.

HBD to The Lad (soon to be The Student) ... can he really be 19 already?  Tempis really does fugit sometimes.

No, it wasn’t a utilikilt (way cool!). It was more like a 70s era batik bedspread done in a wrap around style that nearly reached his toes. It looked good on him, I’m not sure how well other men could carry it off.

Yep, he’s 19. Tempis fugited much too quickly. He was only about 11 the first time you met him. If you want to get a good measure of the years, just watch a kid grow up. The unfortunate part is that we pile on the years just as fast.

The skirt sounds like a lava-lava.  We see a fair number of them here, but that’s not unreasonable; we have a fair number of Samoans who live here.

Yes, that was it exactly! I would have said maybe he’d just come back from the beach, but it was pretty cold out there today. He kind of looked like a surfer dude. I’d love a lava-lava. They look comfy.