Yesterday was my mom's birthday. My youngest sister and I had agreed to take my parents out to dinner Sunday night for Mom's birthday. At 3:40 I called my mom. Just to make sure everything was still on. We were getting ready to leave.

Mom says she doesn't know anything about it. Even though I had talked to her about it on Saturday and my dad on Friday. I guess “doesn't know anything about it” translates to “your sister didn't mention it.”

I call my sister. Most of the time she doesn't answer her phone and she waits 3 days to return those messages left on her machine. She actually answered.

“Oh, I don't think we're going. We went out with Mom and Dad for lunch.” You know, we talked about this. We agreed on dinner so that my family and I could go to our church. Had I known we weren't going to do this, I would have skipped church. I would not have been happy, but I would have skipped church.

Turns out my sister's husband has to work and the baby's acting up and “since we already went out” we're not going out.

Then I find out my middle sister, who lives in NC, has been in town for two days. She'll leave on Tuesday and I will see her at Chili's for lunch and a ten sentence conversation, if it's like the last time she came to visit.

You know, I do live across a huge city from my parents and my sister. But we almost live in the same city. For all the contact, my parents might as well be back in New Jersey. At least then they came to visit one weekend every month.

I'm glad I took my mom flowers on Saturday. She's 58 now.