Ode to a RHM

Happy Boithday RHM!!!

Editors Note: RHM is neither from Brooklyn nor a Warner Brothers cartoon but it seems...right...somehow that I should wish her Happy Birthday that way.

Perhaps next year we will be up there for the party - perhaps next year it will be a surprise party....ooooh, *making mental note* Perhaps next year I will get the card and present mailed on time for her to actually have ON her birthday. (I make no promises.) So, to let her know that I totally did not forget her special day - even though the card and present are WAY late (This whole YEAR has been late, I tell you, not a single birthday/anniversary card went out on time - I didn't even DO Christmas cards - I haven't left the house for work on time since January - sheesh I'm a slacker)

I present to you an Ode for my best girlfriend.

(We've discussed this before, I have a lot of sisters but no close female friends - except RHM - why she's hung around so long I can only attribute to her sado-masochistic tendencies.)

(An ode usually rhymes doesn't it? Well I stink at poetry so it'll be prose, but Ode sounds fancier than paragraph.)

Some history: RHM and I went to the University of Southern California together. We both graduated in architecture and share fond (and not so fond) memories of Dean Timme, God rest his soul, Dana, Koenig, Dimster, Le Greco and all the rest. We also survived five years with 'our boys.' We love our boys (Fleighund, Smurfy, Qwan and Cogent) don't misunderstand me, but they're...well...boys. Boys just don't get when they're being dorky or nerdy or slovenly. One needs a female comrade to sympathize and commiserate with about the nature of boys. I thanked heaven above for RHM many times during those college years.

RHM is a marvelous person - she doesn't believe me when I tell her, but she is. (For one, she's not late with the birthday card and present mailings.) She's kind, she's smart, she's dedicated. She looks after her younger brother, her mother, her grandparents, the neighborhood animals, my sister who's going to school in her town, me. She does an excellent job with her kids at school. (Unlike myself she was smart and got a job that means something, rather than coddling clients who don't understand what they're asking for. RHM is a special needs teacher at a junior high school.) She's patient and understanding. She strikes the right balance between disciplinarian and social worker AND she deals with the parents too. The kids adore her. The administration adores her. *I* adore her!

She touches people's lives far more than she's aware of and they feel better for having known her.

This is me wishing you a Happy Birthday RHM!! Hope it's a good one.

**Clarification: it's actually been almost um...twelve years (!) with 'our boys.' Five in school and then the seven since then. Crap, I *AM* getting older.