What I See

I'm cheating today. Today was the day for the Clean Water Festival and...well, I'm speechless. It's the end of an era. The last time I have to do that. So I'm cheating and posting my column as it appeared in the Owen Sound Sun Times today. Forgive me.

There are days when I wish I had a camera with me everywhere I went. When I see so much that I will never get back and I think ‘This. Right here. This is what I’m supposed to see.’ Today was one of those days.

First thing in the morning. Driving down 10th Street hill, stuck halfway up behind a line of 9 am traffic. I looked to my right and saw a young woman and a young man in the car beside me. He was staring straight ahead, his face set and miserable. She was turned in her seat, fully facing him. Watching him unblinkingly, her face full of things he couldn’t see. She loves you, I thought. Just turn around and look – you’ll see.

At Dufferin School in the morning. Jack standing in the line-up after the bell has rung, dressed for Spirit Day in head-to-toe green and gold, right down to a crazy hat. He is taller than most of the other boys in his class. He is already broad shouldered – something I hadn’t noticed until just now – and I think maybe he is a little older than I see sometimes. He comes to crouch in front of my friend’s little two year old, his face kind. “Don’t you recognize me, Sarah?” he whispers when she doesn’t smile back. He pulls his hat off . His voice is so gentle it breaks my heart. “It’s ok Sarah, look...it’s just me. Jack.” Sarah smiles.

And I see in that moment the man I am helping build. I watch him turn a little into something new, something older and wiser and even a bit sweeter. It’s only five seconds of time, but I see it.

Later in the afternoon, when I’m writing at Harrison Park. There is a young mom with her son at the new playscape. I don’t know her, but I know her. She is very young – maybe only 19 or so – and she is wearing all of the wrong sort of things. A sparkly top and tight jeans. Lots of black make-up that looks like it might be from the night before. She is there with her new boyfriend, and I watch her play with her little boy for show. I see it’s for show. I see her glance over her shoulder to see if her boyfriend is watching. He isn’t – he’s smoking a cigarette and texting someone, which I loathe.

I watch her play with her son. And I see the moment, the very moment, when she starts playing with him for real. When they are playing tag and he starts to catch her a little. And her laugh becomes real. They run in short stops and widening circles. They collapse in the grass. Her little boy reaches up and cups her face in his chubby hands. She kisses his hair. And I get to see her love him in a new way for the very first time. And I think, I bet they’ll be alright now. I bet the boyfriend won’t seem like such a big deal now. They’ve let each other in.

After school, Ben and Callum’s football game. I watch from the sidelines, not understanding much as usual. But I’m there. I’m there. Ben won’t play in this game – it’s only for the seniors – but he is carrying around a clipboard and a pencil so I guess he feels important. I hear the coach call out ‘Ben!’ near the end of the game, the score so tight no one can breathe. I see Ben’s whole body tense, I feel him thinking, This is it, this is it, this is it. ‘Ben – throw me your pencil!’ Ben slumps a bit. Then rebounds, squaring his shoulders, determined not to give up hope that some day, he will be at the bottom of that pile of legs and shoulders and sweat. Holding the ball tight in his arms, the game won on his back. Callum comes off the field, strutting past his brother a little. But smiles too, friendly. He’s learning.

Jack and Nathan lie spread eagle in the field behind me. I watch them over my shoulder. They are whispering things back and forth not meant for my ears. They are pointing at clouds, their hands sometimes behind their back. Nathan swings his legs scissor-like for a minute and Jack laughs. They are feeding each other something I can’t give them. They are cementing something for later.

I didn’t have a camera at all today. But I don’t think I missed a thing.

Geisha Camp For Girls - Don Draper Camp For Boys. Cute!

When I was a little girl I spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s house. We lived there on and off for a few years and later...I just liked it there. They always had ginger ale and mint Oreo cookies.

My Nana was a real lady. She would sometimes let me stay home from school with her and we would have little spa days. We would put cool masks on our faces for our complexions (at eight I already had dreadful laugh lines...horrid) and paint our toenails and wash our hair. We would eat butterscotch ripple ice cream out of tea cups with real silver spoons while we waited for our toes to dry. We listened to Fats Domino or sometimes Anne Murray, who I still love to this day I don’t care if she isn’t cool. And she would teach me The Ways Of A Lady.

Like how to walk like a lady. Heel-toe, heel-toe. A Nancy Drew book balanced on my head because that’s all Nancy Drew books were ever good for. God, what an idiot. Nana would practice for me and I still remember the scratchy wool feeling of our couch under my thighs, my knees drawn up to my chin, a towel wrapped turban-style around my head as I watched her. Her hips swaying, her toes tilted up just a little. Her shoulders back. And I felt then that she was passing on to me some of her power. An ancient knowledge that is a gift. The gift of being a lady.

She taught me how to speak to people, how to shake hands and make eye contact. My mother has that same quality about her, something I sometimes just about have but never manage to quite pull off. This direct femininity that is a power within itself. Nana and my mom could pull it off even if they were in their nightgowns....if I’m not in some sort of finery, I’m screwed. They wanted to pass this down to me not because they wanted me to catch a man or throw elegant dinner parties or become a perfect hostess. They just wanted me to enjoy being a woman. Which I do.

In Montreal, there is a new summer camp. It’s a makeover camp – and I’m not making that up, that is actually what they are calling themselves. (http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/06/16/it%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98wife-camp%E2%80%99-for-10-year-olds/)

It teaches the girls poise, posture, conversation skills, wardrobe choices, make-up application and hostessing skills to list a few. So, like Geisha Camp. I mean – hey. I like Mad Men just as much as the next girl. Retro is in. But this? This is supposed to help a modern day girl struggling to find her identity?

Talk about a confidence boost! ‘You think you’re doing everything wrong and you’re being judged on looks and presentation alone? Well, guess what – you are! But we’ll help you fit into the mould, rather than the mould fitting around you.’

Why don’t we just go the whole nine yards. I could send my boys to Don Draper Camp, teach them to cheat on their wives, drink at work and smoke a pack a day. But as long as their hair looks awesome and their shoulders are broad – oh, and as long as they are good providers too – the world is their oyster.

Girls don’t need to be taught conversation skills...they need to be allowed to become interesting in their own right. They need to feel as though what they are in their skin is perfect and lovely and right. They need to think of make-up as fun paint – not necessary but a blast when you feel like it.

They need to feel the way I did when I was eight years old, soaking my feet in a tub of warm soapy water beside my Nana as she hummed softly to herself with cucumbers slices over her eyes.
That being a woman is a gift. Not a job.

Time After Time...After Time...

It’s 1987. I am sitting on my bed in my pyjamas, slouchy socks the perfect purple to match my scrunchy. My bangs are huge, my hair is crisp from too much hairspray and swept up into a messy side ponytail. Cyndi Lauper is singing ‘Time After Time’ which just breaks my heart.

And I am waiting for a boy to call. A beautiful boy who I think really likes me. He seems to like me...he laughs at my jokes and everything (I won’t learn until I’m much older that sometimes boys might want to be the ones telling the jokes...). He always picks the seat beside me in class – or do I always pick the seat beside him? I can never really tell.

So he said he was thinking he might call tonight. If he wasn’t busy. I cancelled important plans to watch ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ with some girlfriends because I didn’t need them around, listening in to what was sure to be an important conversation. I stayed in my room, parents and brothers and cat locked out. I was breathless. For hours and hours.

Of course he never called. I cried myself to sleep that night and for a fair few nights after. But there was one little whisper of hope in the back of my mind...one day, I thought, I will be a grown-up. With my own fridge and everything. And I will never, ever wait for some boy to call me again...

It’s 2009. I am drinking cheap wine purchased from – gulp – the wine kiosk at Zehr’s. I’ve just had a shower and I’m wearing my somewhat famous ‘writing pants’ – pink and purple striped pyjama pants I’ve had forever with an old ‘Molson Rocks!’ t-shirt from my bar years. My hair is long and let’s face it. Streaked with a whole lot of grey. I’m under the blankets of my bed, reading a trashy romance novel with lots of sex in it because I’m out of books. And also because I secretly still just like those books. I have two giant sons in the living room watching the original Halloween, I think because there might be the odd flash of seventies boob in it. They’re glad I’m occupied.

I have two little sons asleep upstairs but one or both of them will be down soon to crawl into my bed. Mostly I’m just pretty happy someone wants to crawl into my bed.

I am waiting for a phone call. From a boy. Who said he’d call...he for sure said he’d call. I think I like this boy. I think he likes me. He seems to like me. He sends me emails alot...or do I send him emails alot? I can never really tell.

I am thirty-seven. And I am seriously sitting here, waiting for a boy to call me. Seriously. And when I give up after only two hours of waiting (I have apparently finally learned a thing or two) I think...

Some day I’ll be sixty. And I will never have to wait for a boy to call me. I will finally FINALLY be a grown up....

No. Time. For. Coffee.

In two weeks I have to go to the Clean Water Festival with my son’s class. And when I say I have to...I have to. At the school barbeque the other night his teacher used some sort of Vulcan mind-meld trick on me. It must have been that. Because I’ve been on this God-damn trip FIVE times now –count ‘em, five – and there’s just no way in hell I would have agreed to go on this effing trip otherwise.

The Festival is an all day event. I have to ride the bus with the kids. No fun moms go because they’ve long since learned to save their volunteer time for the good trips like apple picking and such.

The Festival sucks ass. And it always has either just rained or is raining while we’re there so that I’m soaked through. Lunch time – usually the time I realize I have not, in fact, packed a lunch for myself – is spent being entertained by a children’s entertainer who forces me to get out of my seat and dance in time to his shitty music. The most exciting thing we see is a toilet flushing from the inside. Seriously.

I can’t believe I’m going on this trip. Again. I think I’ve been on this trip more than any of the teachers. Twice with Callum, twice with Ben, once with Jack and now with Nathan.
At least now when I go I won’t be working a night shift. God, sometimes I forget how exhausting that was. For years I was a bartender. The bad kind, the kind that made you feel shitty for forcing her to serve you drinks. But it paid the bills....sometimes a bit better than this gig, I might add. My shift was three nights a week back then, from 4 pm -2 am.

And the Festival always fell between nights two and three of my shift. My aunt lives down the street from me and she would take the kids overnight. But still...I’d get home from work at around 2-2:30, sit and stare at the walls for an hour then fall asleep around 4 in the morning. Turn around and get up by 7 so I could be at my aunt’s house when the kids woke up in the morning (I remember becoming quite a math whiz, calculating the waking hours I was away from them in a week. If they were in bed by 9 it was fifteen.) We would rush through our morning to make it to school and then get on the bus just in the nick of time. No. Time. For. Coffee.

I would stumble through my day, putting on a big phony smile when my kid was looking so he wouldn’t feel like shit. I would eat an apple out of my son’s lunch and maybe have one of his cookies if he wasn’t looking. The complimentary coffee always ran out before I got a cup so that around 2:30 my eyelids would start to seize and stay at half mast for the rest of the day.

Then on the bus home, it would start to rain. Real rain. I would try to stay awake on the bus but it usually didn’t work. And I would calculate how much time I had when the bus pulled back in to school before I had to get ready for my night shift. Three, maybe four minutes. Then back into my uniform that always smelled like deep-fried chicken wings no matter how many times I washed it, a bit of eyeliner to make me look sexy but just made me look older, my hair in a ponytail and a kiss goodbye for the boys.

On the drive to work I’d tell myself, it’s probably not going to be busy. Sure, it’s always insanely busy when it’s raining but today...it won’t be. Then I’d pull in to the parking lot and barely be able to find a spot. The place would be packed with screaming kids and pervy old guys sitting along the bar waiting to look down my top. And every time I tried to grab a cup of coffee, someone would yell out ‘Hands!’ – which means they need...you guessed it, hands to carry food – and I wouldn’t get a sip. Then of course, because I was such a bitch all night, tips would suck. I would go home and worry about money, and not get a wink of sleep.

I really hate that fucking Festival. This year I'm bringing coffee.

Le Divorce...or at least Le Leaving.

I asked my husband to move out on August 1st. Seven years ago now, though sometimes it feels like five minutes. Our kids were 2, 3, 6 and 7.

I forget sometimes. How it felt. To have one life and suddenly to have another, even if it was my very own choice. I forget that I loved him. I only remember the little things. Like how we had just painted our family room a weird shade of cayenne pepper that didn't go with our brick fireplace. I remember the way the paint was still so fresh it smelled like it might taste good. I remember thinking 'Two weeks ago I must not have thought it was so bad...we were painting our house."

That look in David's eyes behind his glasses stays with me. Angry but not. A mask he slipped over his cheeks so I couldn't see his wounds. The sound of Jack and Nathan's deep, rhythmic breathing through the baby monitor. Crickets outside our kitchen window and congealed dish soap crusting it's dispenser. An episode of the Simpson's in the background...I think it was the one where Patty married Sideshow Bob.

I was wearing pyjama pants and a tank top. Ordinarily we would have been having sex instead of breaking up. It was a hot night. All the boys were sleeping in their own beds. The dishes were done. Prime conditions.

I wish I could tell you why I decided it was over. We were fighting all the time. I remember that. Though I can't remember what the major fights were about. Mostly it was stupid stuff. Like what would we do if we won the lottery - he wanted to build a house with a fieldstone fireplace. Which is so not my thing. We fought about movies - he is a Charlie Sheen lover. I am not.

We fought about the kids. About the amount of milk he put in their cereal bowls and haircuts and bedtimes. He pretended to treat the older boys - mine from a previous relationship - the same way he treated our two and I pretended along with him. All the while thinking 'They're mine, they're mine, they're mine...'

But the truth is - I was young. so young. And I was stupid. I wanted to hurt him, to claw at his skin to see if I could make him feel...something. Anything. I couldn't see past hurting him, not then. I wanted him to love me enough. And he just couldn't.

The truth is I wanted him to beg me to stay. To kick down the door I hid behind and tell me I had to stay. The truth is I wanted to move back to my hometown, but I wanted him to come with me. The truth is, maybe I thought I could do better. Be better, with someone else sleeping beside me.
The truth is I knew, deep down further than my own toes, he just wasn't for me. And I wasn't for him.

The truth is, I'm glad I did it now. But for a long time - longer than I care to remember - I didn't know the truth. At all.

What A Man-Eater!

OK - here is what I hate about living in a small town.

My boys just started back into school. I love their school, actually. It's like a Norman Rockwell painting - happy teachers who I know on a first name basis, gardens, trees...parents playing soccer with their kids before school starts in the morning. Moms and even a dad or two standing around with their coffees after the kids have gone in to class, talking about things like pie or the Fall Fair.

We're super invested in that school. I know the kids and the moms and the teachers. I volunteer sporadically. I'm there. Almost all the time.

So they know me. Or at least, I thought they knew me. See, Jack and Nathan have male teachers this year, which I love. I think it's great for boys to have male teachers thrown into the mix. One of them I haven't met yet. I was asking around the playground about him, since Jack threw his backpack at me after school and took off for a rousing game of four square without saying much. One of the women said,
"Oh he has Mr. __, does he? Hmm...wait until you see him. Yummy."

Being a normal red-blooded woman I said, "Oh - he's nice eye candy, is he?"
And then more than one of my married friends jumped in quickly with, "But he's got a girlfriend, Jen."

Jesus - like I was going to go and attack my son's teacher! Like I am so desperate for a man that they have to keep me on a tight leash, make sure I keep my raging mid-30's hormones under control. This isn't the first time that's happened either. Whenever one of my married friends points out a good-looking man, they usually follow up with a quick "Oh - he's married, though." Like they're warning me off.

The kids have gotten in to the act too. When we were talking about the aforementioned hot teacher who I have yet to see, Jack ignored the other moms as they waxed poetic about his manly attributes. But before I could say a word, Jack said, "He's too young for you, Mom. You can't date him."

Even though Jack has never seen me go on a date, hit on a man or have any male friends who aren't married to my female friends. I guess I must come off as a bit of a maneater. In my yoga capris and old t-shirts. Carrying backpacks and a large double double. With my hair in a ponytail.

Maybe it's time to shed my mom coat, throw on some stilletos and do a catwalk through the playground. Give everyone a show. Shake things up a bit. As the song says...let's give them something to talk about...

Note - check out the What You're Thinking Section when you've got a second. We're posting questions every day and we want to know...well, what you're thinking.

Tragically Un-Hip

The kids are on their way back to school in the morning. First off I'd like to say I was morally and physically opposed to writing a 'back-to-school' blog. Just because...I mean, c'mon. Isn't that what everyone is talking about? Couldn't I come up with something just this side of more interesting...like sex. I could talk about sex. I've had it, after all. More than once. Everyone likes talking about sex, even people that hate it. I think saying 'sex' in your blog probably ups the number of hits you get by about 200% or something like that.

Sex, sex, sex.

But unfortunately, I am a simple sheep bahh-ing along with everyone else, lining up at Staples for foolscap and Post-its and pencil cases. So here I am. Writing about sending the boys back to school.

Now, I've noticed a subtle shifting in Mom-speak lately. See, for years we all talked about sending the kids back to school the first day and potentially having a champagne breakfast to celebrate the minute they were out the door. Maybe do a little soft shoe. At the very least, chocolate and/or massages were in order.

But lately it's all about 'Oh, I hate sending my little cherubs back to school! We so enjoy our time together - all the freedom to just be together and bask in the glow of our communal love.' A few years ago I could have called 'Bullshit' on that one, but it's a trend that's picking up steam. Too many moms are saying it now. Which means I'm going to sound like a right bitch if I laugh or mock them or question their sincerity.

It's like U2. You know, the band? When I was in high school, everyone loved U2. In 1987. I started loving them in 1988 when everyone thought they were lame. The same went for acid washed jeans and Corey Hart and perms. I was always at least six months off the trend. The tide shifts and I'm standing on the beach with my water wings on, waiting for it to shift back when I know damn well it's never going to.

Well I'm sorry, but I'm sticking here. I'm glad the boys are going back to school - there, I said it. I'm glad that I get six uninterrupted hours a day to work or drink coffee or do whatever I want except maybe housework. Now before you start thinking I'm a rotten mother I'm glad for them too. Glad the two older boys are psyched for football try-outs and my two youngest are jazzed to see who they get for a teacher (I know who Jack is praying for but I don't want to jinx him just in case).

I'm glad we get our normal lives back. That I actually feel like cooking them a meal instead of McGyver-ing something for them out of soup, Lipton's Sidekicks and ground beef (I say again - I swear I'm a good mom). I'm looking forward to making them a giant breakfast in the morning, to baking cookies for them after school. To roasting the good chicken stuffed with lemons and garlic for our dinner.

And I'm glad they won't be home. Because...I just am. C'mon admit it.You're glad they're going back, aren't you?

Let's all have a champagne breakfast tomorrow and let the good moms cry their crocodile tears and listen to U2. I hear they're cool again.

Candy

I miss candy. I miss the way I used to feel about candy…see, now candy is such a complicated relationship for me. I know we should break up, I know it’s not good for me. I know that it’s never going to change, even when it keeps telling me ‘I’m sugar free!’ or ‘I have half the calories of a cheeseburger!’ Candy is what it is – it can’t really do anything about it. It’s my own fault for loving it the way I do.

But I miss the way it felt when I was still just a girl. When I was newly discovering candy. And it was all so – surprising. Varied. I remember the first time I tasted Pop Rocks. It was in front of our little town house we lived in for awhile, and we kids were all lined up on the curb with scabby knees and sticky Kool-aid fingers, hoping one of the adults would turn on the sprinklers for us so we could cool down. And my friend Christina said “Hey, I’ve got some Pop Rocks. Want some?”

Never before had I tasted such a thing. If one even really tastes Pop Rocks, that is. I mean sure, I’d already been experimenting with Lik M Aids. I had been eating Tootsie Pops for years and fake smoking Popeye cigarettes (the REAL ones, mind you, not those fake ones they have out now. The new ones don’t even have a red tip to make you feel like you’re really smoking!). Chocolate bars were already old friends of mine, especially Big Turks. Those were such a great deal, like licorice and chocolate in one.

But Pop Rocks…well, there’s just no going back after Pop Rocks. I laid back in the grass and let the chemistry experiment explode in my mouth, not tasting anything other than fizz and a faint bit of cherry but just knowing this was a big step. Pop Rocks are the French kissing of candy. No going back to a peck on the cheek after a really good French kiss.

After that it was no holds barred. I became a massive Sweet Tart junkie. I wore candy watches, candy necklaces and Ring Pops like I was Willy Wonka’s version of Elizabeth Taylor. I even got in to the hard stuff for awhile – black licorice cigars. That didn’t last though. Real black licorice tastes like dirt, even when they shape it into a cool cigar with little red sprinkles on the end.

Of course, my addiction was expensive. My allowance was only fifty cents. And my mother was forever trying to push broccoli or cauliflower on me. Luckily, I had a dealer. And I called him Grandpa. He was a Jersey Milk addict from way back, so he knew how to fix a girl up. We would go out ‘for a walk’ that always took us to the corner store. He would help himself to three or four of those Chunk bars that were always sitting by the cash register, and I would outfit myself with Red Hot Lips, Big Feet and purple candy shoelaces.

Candy was the universal language back then. If you met a new friend and didn’t know what to talk about, you could always mutter, “So, what do you think of those new Skor Bars? They’re something else, eh?” And your new friend would know exactly what sort of person you were. If you were fighting with your little brothers and felt really bad, nothing said ‘I’m sorry’ like some Bazooka Bubble Gum with the mini cartoons inside. And if you felt really bad, a Pop Shoppe Pop always sealed the deal.

Eventually, candy stopped seeming so mesmerizing. I ate it, sure, but it wasn’t the same. I might snack on some Cracker Jack when I was on the phone with a boy I liked, but I didn’t taste it. Not like when I was little. Candy wasn’t the side dish then. It was the main course, the whole point. And even though it was terrible for me, could have rotted my teeth and my brain…I miss it being the point. Because there was something incredibly sweet and innocent about it back then. Something pure. Something to look forward to, even on a rough day.

Something maybe even a little poetic about it. Like when there was a boy on your street you really liked and you didn’t know how to tell him and your stomach was in knots…half your box of Razzles said everything you needed to say.

I miss that.

Nathan

Today my youngest son turns nine. I don’t know what is significant about nine...nothing really, I guess. It’s not like he’s turning double-digits or anything. Or heading into his first year of school or graduating into high school or anything momentous like that. All it really means is that I have all ‘big kids’ now.
Like most of my friends have littles. They get to bond over diapers or picky eaters or not getting enough sleep. And here I am, over in my boring old house getting eight solid hours every night. All my kids know how to use the toilet, although they have yet to master replacing toilet paper, so I guess that’s something. I guess I can complain about that at the next mom get-together.
Sometimes it sucks being a ‘young’ mom – as in, starting young. I sure as hell don’t look/feel young these days. My kids are all old now. I struggle to remember what it was like when my oldest Callum was two and keep falling back on the same five or six stories. “Oh, I remember when Callum took a permanent marker to my parent’s spare bedroom...” and then my friends are like, “Um – yeah. We’ve all heard that about seven thousand times Jen.”
Nathan was two when my husband and I seperated. In fact, we seperated seven years ago today, essentially. Wow, that just blew my freaking mind. I never made that connection before. We moved here the weekend of his birthday and my aunt and her daughters brought over pot roast because I was too confused and preoccupied to cook. Actually, I think I was too confused and preoccupied to do much when Nathan was two. I hate that his baby years were swallowed up by Le Divorce. I hate that I can’t remember the precise day he was toilet trained, or when he went on his first playdate or what he liked to eat best for lunch. I hate that he’s nine now and I don’t get any of it back. He doesn’t get any of it back.
He’s managed to turn out decidedly...original at least. Nathan is what we like to call ‘maniacally extroverted’. I don’t know if that’s the clinical term, but I also don’t know if anyone has his particualr brand of Nathan-ness either. He loves – LOVES – talking to strangers. The other night at our launch party for this very website, Nathan was like Miss Universe about to greet her public. He practiced his affectations in the mirror and gave himself a kick-ass combover. He asked me over and over ‘So – I get to talk to whoever I want? Really? You promise?’ I had to keep reminding him that he didn’t need to tell everyone about how he knows what a tampon is or how I usually work in my pyjamas (“And sometimes she works in bed! My mom can work laying on her back!”). Nathan is full of charm and wit and spunk.
So I guess I did something right. Maybe letting him sleep in my bed every night wasn’t so bad after all. And maybe...
Oh wait! I just remembered something. When Nathan was three he stuck a Playmobil toy up his nose so far we had to go to the Emergency Room. They kept referring to me as ‘the mother of the toddler with a foreign object up his nose’ and the doctor – who had to be cute, of course – was forced to McGyver a special tool to get the toy out. We almost missed Jack's very first Christmas concert because of it...and Nathan wanted to keep the snot-covered toy as a keepsake.
Happy Birthday, Bubs. I’ll remember this one for you.