A LONG AND TIRING ROAD

 Birthday parties are usually a lot of fun for everyone--child, adult and anyone even half-way involved. The same does not hold true regarding the preparations, at least in your girl's situation. How about having to deal with two members of the cast who have birthdays just two days apart--and a third member who sets up the celebration for the duet on the same day that Fiorella has claimed as her own grocery shopping day?

Ah, well--Fio will survive, and it won't hurt her to miss out on the chocolate every now and then. Besides, there's the nostalgia aspect. Way back when, Fio and Husband put together a lot of these parties for the family tribe, and it warms her heart that our offspring are continuing the tradition. Fiorella doesn't know the details, but apparently, the whole local family has been invited, which warms Fio's heart.

In the meantime, Fiorella will have to start cleaning up her bedroom and art/library/writing studio, then turn her eyes to the foyer. Luckily, the piano, which is located there, doesn't attract much more than Fio's on-and-off tinkling with the keys and a little dust.

Changing the subject, Fiorella has stared at herself long and hard in a wardrobe mirror, and there's no way to get around it. Your girl has gained weight and needs to lose it unless she's planning on buying herself a  new, more, er, uh--exPANsive--wardrobe within the next month--which she isn't. PRAY FOR HER, BUT DO--NOT--SEND--CHOCOLATE!

Again, Fio has to urge you to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou, even if you've seen it before. The story is set in Mississippi about eighty years ago (when cars didn't have locks) and the writer/writers have woven a story, a comedy, a pot full of history, and fabulous music, if not more, into it. As a student of Miss Osberon (Waco High School), your girl couldn't hep but notice a thread of Homer's odyssey traveling through it.