Here in this worldBenjamin turned forty-seven last week and for some reason I can't explain he is happier now then he has ever been.
How would you know
What the angels look like?
I made a huge chocolate cake for the huge birthday boy and he ate almost half of it and promptly turned into a huge hyperactive child. So we took him bowling and tried to dilute the sugar in his bloodstream with bad bowling alley pizza and failed miserably. He also managed to crack a ball just by touching it.
That's my Benny. Tough as nails, awkward as a duck on ice skates, sweet as that cake I baked. He offered to pay for the ball but was told it had just come out of unheated storage and they were having problems with those balls all week. He nodded very somberly and pointed out he has no problems with his balls ever. Loch and I were both doubled over snorting by now but the creepy guy behind the counter didn't notice and thought that just maybe Ben was a pro bowler.
(Ben is not a pro bowler. I don't believe he's even an amateur yet but he had an awful lot of fun.)
We had his official birthday dinner last night because we were waiting on Danny, Schuy and PJ to come home and they did while I was telling you about Sam last evening and then telling you to fuck off. Yes, I was cooking and wrapping and preparing for a party all the while swearing at the world. A fierce little multitasker, I am.
You know I love you but I get easily frustrated by your judgements. You try living here. Wait, you try being me and tell me you'd do better. Tell me you'd want to do better. I'm just happy that Ben is happy. When he is content it is as if I am too and I don't know why that is but I like it.
And he liked having his birthday stretched out into almost a full week of celebrations. When he was growing up it fell close enough to Christmas that he would be deprived of a full birthday party on account of the holidays and a lack of cash, with two working parents who were too busy trying to keep two six-foot-something boys fed, let alone have anything extra. So I like to spoil him thoroughly and he says that once again I have.
I sat on his knee after dinner (it's becoming a thing), his arm around my waist, his lips on my shoulder as he tried to keep his shit together while he listened to the speeches we give when someone turns another year older. When it was my turn last I stood up and said the words I wrote down a while back, as I have a year to work on these, you see, and as I spoke his eyes did that wonderful thing where they glass up and spill over and shine and when I finished he grabbed me back into his arms and told me he loved me. That he loves me more than anyone else does, and that he is so proud that I am with him. Then we had presents, and then we had things I can't write about because my mom wanted to hear about his birthday.
One of his favorite gifts this year out of everything was a novelty sticker for the glass by the front door that has a picture of the beast from Beauty and the Beast and it says In case of Fire, please save the Ben inside.