Your mom's birthday

Today was your mom's birthday.

I got her a bike, but I got it for her on Saturday, thinking I could sneak it home before she got back from shooting a print job for XM Radio, I think. I couldn't, so she got the bike on Saturday and no surprise today.

She also got no birthday cake, which as I'm sure you know by now, your mom loves. Cheap white birthday cake. Sometimes she'll go to the store and buy one just so she can eat it. The first time they asked her who to put happy birthday to, she didn't know what to say. She wanted it for herself. She told them it didn't need a name, but they insisted, so she said to put "Happy Birthday Sister."

Your mom cracks me up.

Anyway, being pregnant has made her crave some foods and not be able to stand some that she usually loves. And today she has no use for birthday cake.

The bike was my present to her, but the real present was that I didn't work all day. I know, that makes me sound like a lousy husband, but you have to undertand that I've got at least a dozen irons in the fire and it's so hard for me to take a day off. An e-mail came in this morning from an ad agency guy I'd worked with before who wanted to see some comedy commercials I'd directed for a possible job. I thought I'd be able to burn a quick reel before your mom got up, but two of my hard drives failed simultaneously and guess where the files I need are.

Instead of pulling the rest of my hair out trying to fix the drive, I took the day off. Your mom and I went down to Venice beach with the bikes and rode up and down the bike path.

Then we stopped off for ice cream, which she still likes, and had lunch at a mediterranean place. Yes, in that order.

After that we came home, took a nap, and I made--once again--steak. I'm getting sick of steak. Your mom loves it.

Then we walked to Larchmont and rented 'V for Vendetta' which was pretty good, but a bit juvinile in the directing.

At this point I should probably mention that we live in California. In Hollywood, specifically.

It seems weird to think that you'll never know this life that we have now. There's no way we're going to raise a kid in this neighborhood.

You'll also never know any of the life we had up until we moved here. We lived in Santa Monica for years--I owned the house there for five years before I met your mom, and then we lived there together for another six.

That's where we had Tilley and Sam and Frank the bird, who we'll tell you about sometime. Tamara lived next door to us there, with Ned and Spike and Peet, and after she left we met Werner and Maria.

I don't know if you'll have met Werner and Maria. They're wonderful--I think Maria is actually a princess pretending to be a commoner to escape her boring life in the palace. They moved from here to Ecuador, where we visited them once, and last I heard from them they were considering moving to Chile.

After Werner and Maria left, we had the Italians. They were nice enough, but not close friends. And after them, Shirin and Amin who I think may have been Pakistani. I never got to know Amin, but Shirin was really sweet. And then came Clint and Carolyn, who were also really wonderful people.

If you see a pattern here, it's because of your mom. She looks for the good in people and usually finds it. We've had some really incredible people in our life, and even though we might never cross paths with some of them again, they kind of stay with us.

And I suppose that's a little sad. Here we are adding you to our life and others are constantly slipping away. I'd like to be able to keep collecting good people. I don't believe there's any limit to the nice people you can know, but somehow, people seem to come and go.