You're enjoying your day. / Everything's going your way. / Then along comes Debbie Downer.

Every year, the date December the Second makes me think of two things. My mean grandma and my dear girlfriend who died when we were in high school. It is both of their birthdays today.

My mean grandma is my dad's mom. I call her mean grandma to differentiate her from nice grandma that is my mom's mom. Grandma Ballard would be 97 if she were alive today. I didn't always think she was mean, because she wasn't always. When I was little, I lived in her house for a lot of the time when my mom was in the hospital. One of my favorite things about Grandma was her freezer full of raspberries and blueberries and strawberries. Grandma was a very talented crocheter and knitter and seamstress. She made me many beautiful afghans and many ugly ones too. And many ugly outfits. Seriously ugly outfits that my mom made me wear anyways because they were perfectly good clothes. 12-year-old girls in homemade clothes get made fun of. It was a sad time in my life. Grandma would sit for hours and watch me swim in the pool. She gave me home perms every time I was there. That was torture. I really loved Grandma but as she got older, she lost the filter on her mouth and said everything that popped into her brain. Even if it was cruel. I wish I could remember all the nice things without all the mean things too. Happy Birthday, Gramma!

My friend, Nicky Faiella also had her birthday on December 2. She and I met in preschool when we were just 4 years old. We ended up at the same elementary and high school. She lived just around the block from me and I walked to her house every morning and we would catch the bus together. We were in the same Girl Scout troop until our freshman year of HS. I stayed at her house at times when my mom was very sick. I remember kissing her poster of Bo and Luke Duke and watching "The Stepford Children" at her house. We were California Raisins together for Halloween one year. We did many school projects together over the course of our education. Nicky was nice and fun and such a good friend. I really liked her alot. In the spring of our freshman year, she was with a friend on the highway and they had car trouble. They pulled over and called for help. Nicky sat on the hood of the car to wait for help to arrive. The driver of another car fell asleep behind the wheel and hit the car she was sitting on. She was thrown from the hood and killed. It was one of the saddest experiences of my life. Today she would be 35. Happy Birthday, Nicky!
I'm on the front row, third from the left. I've got my arm around Nicky, who is second from the left.