Happy 50th Birthday Edson!

Last weekend was Edson’s 50th birthday and we celebrated Thursday at work. Since I’m the social director, we waited until he was gone and decorated his office with Over the Hill stuff that I bought at the dollar store. I also stuck an Over the Hill yard sign in front of his parking space outside. When he came into the building and saw me the first thing he said was “you’re fired!” We all went to the board room, sang happy birthday, ate cake and I think he fired me a few more times.

Edson gave himself a birthday party and invited everyone to his house Saturday. He thought it would be fun to have a sushi bar and we joked about “mole” sushi. He said I wouldn’t know it was mole because he’d slice it paper thin. He also joked that my sushi would look more like a giant burrito when I got done preparing it. I wonder how he came up with that idea.

Anyway, I went to Spencer’s Gifts and bought him a cane that has a caution sign on front and a horn that says different “old man” things when you squeeze it. Jim & I walked into the house, I took off my shoes, put on a pair of slippers he has in a basket by the front door & handed him his gift & he fired me again. Jim told him that he thought he saw one of his sushis run across the road on our way in.

There was a houseful of people and he had the sushi bar set up in the kitchen. When it came to our turn to make our sushi, Edson told us what was in each bowl and brought up the whole burrito thing again. So he made mine for me and he knows me well enough that he put cooked shrimp & crab on mine instead of the raw salmon. It was pretty good but I thought the seaweed it was wrapped in was a little tough, causing mine to fall apart. There was more singing happy birthday with very fancy cakes that Edson likes to buy from a Korean bakery near his house and then it was downstairs for everyone’s favorite activity at Edson’s house – karaoke. Jim & I didn’t stay too long because we had to get up early Easter morning to meet his dad & brother’s family for breakfast. When we got home Jim didn’t feel very well but he didn’t blame it on the sushi – he said he thought it was from drinking the sake out of the wooden box.

I was very shocked the other night when Jim went to Pet Mart to get food for the fish and he decided to buy them a special treat. Seaweed. It looked exactly like our sushi wrappers!

More Moles

I think everyone is aware of our continuous mole problem. When Jim & I went to the St. Charles Home Show last year, we went for the purpose of hearing “The Mole Hunter” give his expert opinion on how to battle moles. After spending $150 for supplies, and a bit of trial and error, Jim has been successful in killing 4 or 5 moles. It seems we will never be all-together rid of moles as we live by the woods. I thought we had a whole family, including grandparents tearing up our front yard recently. Jim set his traps and it took a few weeks but he texted me one day before I got home from work that he got a mole. He was so proud that he saved it to show me.

My boss, Edson has come to me asking for advice because he has a mole tearing up his yard. He’s so desperate that he wanted the name and phone number of the Mole Hunter. I gave him the information but told him it would be very expensive and he should set traps like Jim. He agreed and I told him to buy 4 steel traps. Edson and I talked about it and arranged a time on the weekend a few weeks ago that Jim & I would stop by to show him how to set the traps. Unfortunately, our plans changed and we went to his house earlier and he wasn’t able to be there. Edson had told me the mole was on the side of the house to the right and we couldn’t miss the torn up yard. So, Jim & I walked around the yard and when I pointed to an area of dead grass in the front right section, Jim said it was zoysia and that’s why it wasn’t green yet. So we went further back and found tracks where Jim set the traps. After he was done, we were walking through the front yard where the “zoysia” was and we felt more mole tunnels underfoot. At that point, we realized that this was the spot Edson was talking about but we didn’t have time to move & reset the traps because we were in a hurry to go someplace. Jim was mortified that Edson would think he was an idiot! I told him that I’d pretend we didn’t walk on the dead grass and feel the mole tunnels.

Edson called later in the day to thank us for helping and didn’t mention that the traps might not be in the right area. Of course he wouldn’t mention it – he’s Japanese! Anyway, he said he would invite us over for a barbecue when he catches the mole. A mole barbecue, that is!