It's my birthday today, I'm older than yesterday.

So I couldn't decide what would be a truly fitting post for the first one.

So much so that I didn't start writing at all, and then I started writing and ditching, and now I have a couple of half-finished posts lurking in my drafts folder.

It's possibly my terminal ability to procrastinate (I'm thinking of starting a yahoo group for procrastinators, but I just haven't got around to it yet). Or maybe it's my God-given talent for embellishing, flowery digressive prose that hinders me from getting to the point (hey, I'm still not there yet).

Anyway, deletions, re-editing and refining aside, I've finally decided just to start writing. After all, a journey begun is actually begun. (Hmmm??? - wanted to avoid trite cliches like 'the first step is the hardest', but...)

It was my birthday last week.

No big milestone. Thirty-something, something, something and a couple more somethings.
My eldest edition DD12 wrote me the most beautiful letter telling me that I am beautiful and YOUNG. Oh, it is so easy to forget the regular misdemeanours of a nearly 13 year old and the tearing-out-hair-frustration in a moment as heart-melting as that. I must have done something right. *sigh*
I also had a lovely evening with some wonderful ladies - ostensibly to watch a DVD, but we kind of gave up on that and just chatted as women can be wont to do.

Digression warning - you'll get plenty of these if you keep reading my blog:

We watched (well, started to anyway), Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth, starring Tim Roth and Alexandra Maria Lara. It's about this old academic who gets struck by lightning and mystically has his youth and brain powers restored and then has to hide from the Nazis. Well, that last part I only know from the DVD dust-jacket as we never got that far. Hey, I love art-house, but even Margaret Pomeranz's glowing comment that it was a 'pleasure to watch' couldn't help us sit through it. Very slow, disjointed and a bit too strange.

My wonderful mother watched the two kids who were home from school (DS10 - the final one of my four to get this virus thing) and DD1 for a few hours so I could do the obligatory tidy up (you know, seek and destroy food scraps deposited in odd locations, removal of inch thick dust and quick scooping up of unfolded laundry into some room I hope guests won't peek in). I even managed to bake my first cheesecake, and it worked!! Yum, lemon, cherry and raspberry - ooh, hungry again just thinking about it.

Yes, all in all a rather pleasant day - sun was shining, balmy Autumn breeze - until I went to the BlockBuster video store to get the movie that is.

Apparently 42 days before my darling son had gone to borrow a DVD. And didn't return it. And didn't get me to return it.
OOPS!
ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN DOLLARS fine they wanted. Hello? That's insane. $3 a day.
Promptly went home, got my son to find the DVD and returned it with mortified son and ropable mum. "Oh, we can work out a deal if you pay it all now... Only $50."

Paid it in a daze and went home outlining to my son how long that would take to pay back on his $5 per week pocket money and that he would (obviously) not have any spending money in all that time either. He didn't look too happy.

So I told my girlfriends the sorry story and they all implored me to do something about it. As they rightly pointed out, just WHEN were they going to contact me? Would they have let the fine reach $200, $500 or even $1,000 and not let me know? Shocking customer service. Apparently VideoEzy calls my friend the day it is late!

I did go back and have a whinge (I should never have paid it in the first place, but a bit late now) and the assistant manager gave me $15 credit (PHHTT!), but at least now it will only take DS10 7 weeks of dreariness to be out of debt.

Or, maybe less. He is my little entrepreneur. He made and delivered leaflets to all the neighbours in the street advertising his 'bin bringing in and out service'. Our next door neighbours have taken this up (I think they actually appreciate not having to go up and down their sloping driveway with them) and paid him more than he asked. He is quite chuffed.

Happy Birthday to me. I'm looking forward to this year. They just keep getting more interesting!