Jeremy's 19th birthday!

Today is Jeremy's birthday. As usual, he is at work. But we did manage to get in lunch at his favorite Japanese restaurant, down the street, with the three of us and my parents. I vowed to take pictures, but as usual, I had my hands full just managing my parents, making sure they got out of the house, into the car, into the restaurant, and also that my mother didn't choke on her chicken or forget to eat her steak. I needn't have worried; she actually polished off most of her sizeable lunch--teryaki steak and chicken, miso soup, rice, and eggrolls. She didn't touch the salad, as usual. There are always many errands to do with my parents, many places to stop. Generally, they stay in the car, with the windows rolled down, and wait for me to come back from Kohls, Trader Joe's, the drugstore, or wherever. Consequently, I am totally fried by the time I get back home. We had to make a detour to my house because Jeremy wouldn't eat his ice cream pie at the restaurant. He wanted us to eat it at home, and it is always very very hard to make sure everyone makes it safely into the house and finds a place to sit, etc. Even after I dropped them off, I couldn't switch off the errand meter: I tried to drop off a big bag of mom's "outgrown" pants at Goodwill, only to find the drop off box gone. AM I DOOMED to drive around forever with this crap in my trunk? I think there are things down at the bottom that I have been missing, like that lost book of high holiday sheet music. Sigh.