Cindy’s having a birthday!

My baby’s growing up. Actually, she is all grown up, but she’ll always be my baby. In the above picture, she’s in dress-up clothes. Cindy loved dressing up and didn’t hesitate to look wild and crazy. Like this picture. She had on two different shoes which really stand out and some material that was covering her lap and one leg which could have come from a skirt I wore to a formal dance when I was in college. Other than that, nothing else is recognizable to me. I don’t know what kind of statement she was making with this outfit, but she must have been successful.

I sent Cindy’s birthday present to her early, and told her what it was. We never seem to be able to keep gifts secret. Cindy always manages to tell people what their presents are before they get them. Sometimes she even forgets to send them, but we know they are waiting for us at her house. She has never been good at keeping secrets. I’m sure she’s gotten better at it as she’s become older and realizes you can’t tell everyone everything. But when she was a little girl, we had quite a time with her sometimes. There was the time I decided to buy an Old English Sheepdog and breed her. I planned to sell the puppies and make tons of money. But first I had to cash in a couple of bonds my parents had given to Cindy for her college education to pay for the dog. I thought I could recoup that amount in no time with my puppy business, so I did it. Unfortunately, Cindy found out, and when my parents came to visit shortly thereafter, she met them up the street on the corner and followed them down the street screeching, “My mom sold my bonds to buy a dog and have puppies!” Needless to say, it was not easy trying to explain it to my folks. And Lucy, the dog, never worked out. She had a bad hip so I couldn’t breed her. I guess that was my punishment for doing the bond thing. But I’ll never forget little Cindy running down the sidewalk beside my parent’s car, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Cindy can always make me laugh. The other day I sent her an e-mail, telling her how much I loved the bedroom slippers she gave me for Christmas and how that’s all I wear on my feet in the house. The only time I don’t wear them is when I go outside. So she e-mailed me right back saying, “If you really loved me, you’d wear them outside.”

So, Cindy, I really love you and hope your birthday is a good one. Maybe you should put on something wild and funky and wear it to your office . . . the one where they sell fences. That could make all the fence people crazy and turn into a real party. Fence people do party, don’t they?