Mafioso Celebration

The white blanket that uncharacteristically covered the area all week was vanquished yesterday in all day rain that produced as dreary a day that I can remember. You add an overlong (aren’t they all?) meeting with the politicos downtown and you have a recipe for a down day. My wife was charging around Worcester all day reconnecting with friends and even stopped by the office a couple of times. I’d like to think it was to bask in glow of our spousal love but I think it had more to do with driving directions.

The Birthday Girl and My Favorite Panamanian

We completed the voluminous documents required for the mortgage application which along with the supporting paperwork required a trip to FEDEX to ship it all back to USAA. I usually use UPS so I was amazed at the difference. At UPS I’m usually in and out in minutes but FEDEX was a completely different story. The personnel seemed to know their computer system well but it still took nearly ten minutes to service the person ahead of me with a simple transaction. By the time she did get to me the line had grown to ten people. I had a simple pre-paid envelope to drop off and that took nearly three minutes to process. I don’t ship enough to know, but if this is indicative, then UPS must be kicking FEDEX’s ass in a big way.

Cake and Granddaughters

The day took a definitive turn for the better at dinner time. It was the next door Mafioso’s birthday and we dodged though the rain to join them for dinner and birthday cake. We used this opportunity to put our heads together to come up with a scenario for filling the house next door with an appropriate replacement once we move out. The consensus from the ladies was that it should be someone from Panama (go figure!). The Mafioso’s granddaughters were flitting around both dinner and birthday cake which added to the fun.

Here Kitty, Kitty
I Venture to Guess the Cat's Life is going to Change when She Becomes Mobile

After dinner and the departure of the younger generation another contingent of the Worcester Chapter of the Panamanian mafia showed up to celebrate the birthday. This turned out to be the best part of the night as we laughed almost constantly after their arrival. I even broke my self-imposed prohibition against “school night” beer drinking. I cannot think of a higher form of entertainment than spending an evening laughing with good friends. Yesterday was certainly rescued.

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