trash and treasured

That picture has nothing to do with the post, I just think it's funny how much Hudson resembles the orangutan. Well, we finally threw our mattress out to the curb Monday night because Tuesday was Heavy Trash Pick-up Day. It turns out some folks see heavy trash pick-up day as an impromptu, neighborhood-wide garage sale. So the mattress was gone by Tuesday morning, which I found both fascinating and disgusting. I'm glad, I suppose, that someone is using the mattress instead of it taking 200 years to decompose in a landfill somewhere. The thought of All of the Garbage and Where Does It Go? keeps me up at night sometimes. We slept on an air mattress for two nights, which was about two nights too many, and yesterday bought a mattress that should be delivered any minute now. We did not get a Tempurpedic because we just couldn't justify the expense right now. The plan is to use this one for a couple of years then delegate it to a guest room. Or perhaps we will use it for 15 years and be exceedingly thankful we aren't sleeping on cholera-infested mud like lots of people in Haiti right now.

This morning I realized that I need a new shower cap. Then I put on my SPF 70 moisturizer. And wanted to wear my large floppy sun hat to the zoo, but remembered that it's a touch snug and gives me a headache. Then I realized that apparently while I slept last night, I turned into a main character on "The Golden Girls."

Harper's birthday is coming up in about 6 weeks and for approximately nine months now, she has been planning her party. Here's a partial list of what she wants to see happen on the big day:

1. Take all of her friends to Build-a-Bear at the Galleria.
2. Then go ice skating at the Galleria.
3. Then drive over to Pump It Up (a play place with all of these huge inflatable slides and bounce houses)
4. Then go to the zoo.
5. Then over to the Children's Museum.
6. Then swimming at her friend Izzy's grandmother's house.
7. Then some cake.
8. And cookies.
9. Then a craft where the girls paint hearts and the boys paint monsters.
10. Then we will all go out in the backyard for some star gazing.
11. And finally, everyone, even the parents, will spend the night and we will have s'mores.

Basically she wants to do every fun thing she has ever done at other kids' parties. (Except the ice skating, which she has never done. She pictures herself doing triple axels the first time she laces on skates, however, which could make for a pretty disappointing birthday.) Approximately 58 times a day she starts in, "On my birthday.." I really don't know what we ARE going to do. Perhaps number 4. I wish Carrie lived here and would plan it for me. She has four kids and confesses to LOVE planning all of their birthday parties. There is nothing about party planning that I love. But I do love this girl, who loves to be celebrated. (she does not, however, like to have her picture taken these days. That's a frog and a car she painted yesterday, and a magic trick with a quarter today)