mom's birthday

Today is my mother's birthday, or it would be if she was still alive. If my mother, whose name was Geraldine, was alive, today she would be 86 years old. I can say with some assurance that she is probably glad that she's not still around and that age. My mother was a longtime advocate of the Die Young, Leave a Pretty Corpse thing and even at 64, which is how old she was when she died (suddenly, at home, of massive heart failure), she was pretty unhappy with her looks. One of the last things we spoke of before her demise was her plan to both go on a cruise and have a face lift, although not in that order. My thinking is that if she had had the face lift and had gone on the cruise, she would have found herself another husband. He would have been Number 4. My mother was very good at attracting men, although less good at keeping husbands. Happy Birthday, Geraldine, wherever you are.