20 years!

This is me, 20 years ago. I'm helping plan our 20th high school reunion with my friends Sharla and Lori. To be truthful, Sharla's the one who stepped up to the plate at the last reunion and I told her I'd help her, but once we got into it we knew we needed some help and Lori just jumped in and save our arses. She has a knack for it or something. She still is in regular contact with many people in our class. I lost contact with most people about 5 minutes after commencement was over. I haven't lived in Pipestone (where I graduated) for over 20 years now. Its weird. Its weird to think that some people still live there. I remember moving there the summer before I went into 3rd grade. We had been living in Mankato where most of my extended family lives. Mankato isn't huge - maybe 50,000 or so, but compared to Pipestone at under 5,000, it was a metropolis. When we moved there, I remember thinking that the town was po-dunk - somehow beneath me because I was from the big city. La tee da. And even though I enjoyed growing up there and called it my hometown, I don't think I ever lost that feeling. I knew I would never live there past high school. So the fact that there are classmates of mine who CHOOSE to live there, still blows my mind. I'm just so used to all the amenities of a bigger city. I don't even want to think about living without a Target! Ack! Its weird to think that I'm old enough to be going to a 20 year reunion in the first place. I always had a mental image of people going to their 20th, and they were always super old. And I am not old. Although some parts of me are trying really hard to be a little too mature, if you ask me! Not liking that one bit. Anyway, it will be fun to catch up with old classmates. At least I hope it will be. I've never been good at small talk, it completely bores me. And after 20 years, you really don't know these people so you are reduced to small talk. But hopefully, I'll be able to connect with some of my closer friends that I've actually asked about in the last 10 years and we can have a conversation that doesn't make me want to barf.

On a completely different subject, my poor daughter Cate is destined to become anal. At least if her current behavior is any indication. She's a little perfectionist in the making which is really too bad, because it means you get way more stressed than you really need to be over the dumbest things. I am a partial perfectionist and Scott's a full on perfectionist in the things that matter to him. If it doesn't matter to him, he could give a rat's ass. So she was destined. She insists on lining up everything in a perfect row. Gets very upset if you mess with it too. She's 2 and half! She likes to do things the way I do them, to a T. Case in point, the sunglasses on the dash. When I get home I put my sunglasses on the dash of the car. Cate likes to play in the car for a few minutes after we get home, pretending she's driving. I went out to my car the other day to find my glasses on the dash and her bright pink one's sitting right next to mine in the exact position. All lined up. I'll start saving for the psychiatrist now.

Clare's brain seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. I swear she's trying to say full sentances already, even if they do sound all gibberish. But sometimes she gets a couple words right! And she is totally understanding way more than we think she is. I told her to comb her hair the other day and she did. Genius. She finally sprouted her front two teeth. That's gotta be a relief for her. And we discovered that she can ride a little push tractor today. She had a ball. But she almost fell off of it so that prompted me to go get a helmut on her (I'm turning into Stoller). Cate had already grabbed one of them which happened to be the smaller one, so I put the bigger one on her. She had a total balloon head going. It was great. But now I know we can head outsite and actually all play instead of Clare just crawling on the asphalt (she acutally walks on her hands and feet like a monkey - cute).


Well, that's about it. We're heading into the weekend with not much on our agenda which is great. We haven't had many weekends open like this. I'm looking forward to it. Adios.