Taylor turned twenty-seven yesterday.
*cue “27” by the magnificent Passenger:
twenty seven years now / only thing I know / I know that I don’t know how / to please everybody all of the time / ’cause everybody’s always fucking changing their minds
When we were young birthdays were super exciting; you all know how it used to be in the days of our youth. We got cards in the mail with money in them, donuts for breakfast, Mom planned us themed fun-filled parties (some of my most memorable were dinosaurs, cats, and pirates), and we’d get a day off from all of our chores. For 24 hours everyone just had to be nice to you, cause it was your birthday.
These days we really don’t do too much to celebrate birthdays in our family; more often than not we just give a few gifts and have a nice meal and dessert. We’re lucky if everyone remembers to send us a “happy birthday” text, and why does the money always stop when you need it most!? Like, we have bills to pay now. What’d we need it for when we were 6??
Anyways, despite the downgrade over the years, we still enjoy our special days of believing that the world revolves around us and the celebration of our birth.
Usually Taylor would’ve come over to our house for her 27th birthday meal, but this year we brought it to her…because she has a pregnant cat who we have to:
1. keep an eye on
2. get well enough acquainted with that she won’t mind us being there when she gives birth (heh)
It’d been nearly a week since I’d seen Agnes last (the day Taylor brought her home), and she’s plumped up noticeably since then. When she lays down (every five minutes) that belly do be poppin quite nicely…could we be lucky enough to see kittens before August’s end?? 🤞🏼
The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter
We only moved Taylor into this apartment a little over a month ago, but it already feels like home, more so than her first apartment did (and we all liked that one a lot).
It’s just the right size for a girl and her cat, and it gets especially cozy when the sun starts to set (while we’re stuffed on the couch watching Good Omens, because once in a while Taylor succeeds in getting us hooked on one of her nerdy shows). The bonus is that there are always neighbors to spy on out her kitchen window. Pure entertainment, I can assure you.
I will not elaborate on my poetry, but I did predict the pink sunset
Although my family knows each other well enough to be able to make/buy fun and useful gifts for each other, it’s not always necessarily easy to come up with the ideas when the time comes. So last year Riley Mae came up with the ingenious plan to start wish-list Pinterest boards.
We each made a “secret board” (i.e. hidden from the general public), and then we invited each other to be members of each one — therefore we can see everything that the other people have pinned on theirs.
See something you need from Amazon? Pin it to your board! Something you want from Etsy? Pin it to your board!
pink sky who??
It’s made shopping for holidays and special occasions 100x times more simple, because you know that whatever you buy off the board: the person who pinned it actually wants it (feel free to steal the idea and thank us later).
Some things are practical, some things are just for fun, others are uniquely and specifically that person™. You can pin whatever you want throughout the whoooole year, and then once you receive something you pinned (or you change your mind), you simply delete it from your board.
Taylor’s masterpieces — “worshiping petals in the garden”?? I’m dead.
One of the things that Taylor has wanted since she moved into her own apartment has been fridge poetry magnets.
Necessary? No.
Highly entertaining? Absolutely.
I will work on these things until my eyes go crossed from trying to find the last “and,” “the,” or “but” in the pile.
Riley Mae’s classic little quips
So last night after we finished dinner, cake and ice cream, gifts, and played a failed round of quadruple solitaire (it was Mom’s fault), Taylor, Riley Mae, and I sat on the floor in front of the fridge for quite a while sifting through the magnetic words.
We hid our work from each other and laughed about how cringe and metaphorically nonsensical our poems were…like we were Instagram poets who sign their work with just their lowercase initials (you know exactly what I’m talking about).
and i oop-
But then when we read them aloud to each other, with just the right dramatic inflections and pauses, we realized that they were nothing short of fucking art.
I was laughing so hard that I had tears leaking from my eyes while Taylor was trying to read her work to us. It was hilarious, and way too much fun. We are so easily entertained.
Now Mom thinks that we should compile a book of fridge poetry, though personally I believe that some things should just…stay on the fridge.
art by jordan rae 