"...besides, I like cakes with butter cream icing."

So, today is her birthday.
The now 48 year old crazy person that I'm still living with, why I'm not so sure anymore, celebrates a turning of age today. She was ridiculous all day yesterday, she'd be nice for a second and then start off on some crazy tangent and start yelling about the most inconsequential shit and not stop. Then she'll sneak into her room, close the door, and get on the phone with some weird guy she's seeing who treats her like crap and yell at him for a while, then she'll come out of her room and stare me down for a while, look at me like I'm crazy, and then yell at me for not having done the dishes while she was in her room.
Anyway, today is her birthday.
I woke up before she did and I put together her present, I stuck the card I hand painted for her on top of the nice pink and orange tissue paper display I had wrapped her gift in, I cut open a grapefruit for her and sliced each section perfectly, then I sprinkled it with sugar and made a pot of tea. I was in the kitchen pouring the boiling water over the tea bags sitting in their big pink pot when she woke up and came in yelling. Before I could even say, "Happy Birthday" she started off complaining and yelling at me because she has piles of stuff everywhere and can't get to them because she doesn't have time because she works hard and has 6 cats (the 7th found a home the other day) to take care of and comes home exhausted so her birthday wish is for me to basically clean up after her, it's her wish for me to do all her dishes right when she tells me to because when I don't I'm being "passive aggressive" and furthermore she can't have people over because I might leave a shoe out sometimes. I don't even try to defend myself because if I do she really won't stop, I don't bother saying that I work hard too and that none of those piles of stuff she's upset about are mine, and that it's not my fault she has 6 cats, and that I don't have to do things right when she tells me to do them especially when she purposefully left me a big mess so she wouldn't have to deal with it. I just let her yell and yell and walk around banging things and slamming doors.
I have an Uncle David. He's not really my uncle but he's one of my grandparent's oldest friends, my grandpa went to Pratt with him, they've been friends for over 50 years. Uncle David is married to Aunt Carolyn, who is also not really an aunt, they live in a brownstone on the same Brooklyn block as Michelle Williams and they're really fascinating. Uncle David collects and sells antiques, he has a business partner and all kinds of strange connections, I think he might be friends with the Queen of England. Things haven't been so easy for Uncle David recently because Aunt Carolyn, who's 75 year old hair is still its natural red, is a raging alcoholic, she has been forever but now that they're really old she's really bad, she's nasty, and weird, and her health is deteriorating, on top of this she has breast cancer and Uncle David has to drive her an hour each way to get 5 minutes of chemo every day. Uncle David is really good at finding the bright side of everything, I saw him recently at my grandparent's house, he stopped in on his way home to vent for a minute about the current state of things, to tell a funny story about Carolyn, to have people listen, all the while he was smiling. I drew a picture of him while he talked, he looks kind of like an old handsome walrus. I really admire him because he seems to be a master of finding things that are okay. Every year he writes this lengthy Christmas letter complete with color photos and he sends it to all his friends and family, my grandparent's and my mom and I are on the mailing list. In this year's letter he writes about Carolyn's 75th birthday and he says, "Frankly, to me it would not have been a birthday party without a cake and more to the point I had seen some I really like in a bake shop in Manhattan and had to get it out of my system, besides, I like cakes with butter cream icing." Then he inserted a picture of a bright little cake covered with colorful flowers made of icing and I felt really happy thinking about this little walrus-like old man who has it tough taking himself out to Manhattan to buy a cake for his ailing wife's birthday because in all of the mess he found something that's okay.
I ate my half of the juicy pink grapefruit sprinkled with sugar in its pink dish, I poured myself a cup of tea in my porcelain cup with a fancy "E" on the front, the sun is finally out and I'm going to spend the rest of today finding some more things that are okay.