Dear Cody, 8/5/2011

Happy birthday son. Please note that I did not forget your birthday and this is week 5 of the letter streak. I am still the man though I did cut this one a little close.

Today you are 19. I can tell you that your mom has been all wrinkly chinned fairly frequently as this day has approached. I did not see any drowned squirrel crying face action from her but she sure has been on the weepy side about her baby boy being 19. As for me …. I am very proud of the fact that at 19 you are self supporting and making your own way in life. That is very cool kid, very cool. No wrinkly chin from me due to being down to the final copy of my man card.

Your mom and I have been at home for the past several weekends. We are both working a ton of hours and a total of 6hrs of driving up to and back from Round Rock has not been something we have wanted to do on the weekend lately. So we have stayed local and gotten our relaxation on.

As I am sure you are aware we celebrated our 17th anniversary last Saturday. Friday I took your mom to Cowboy’s and Aliens. I tried to go to Alamo but it was sold out, I should have purchased the tickets online, so we went to Cinemark. We both enjoyed the movie. On Saturday we went to the original Ninfa’s on Navigation Rd in Houston. It was awesome. We agreed that behind La Fogata it is our favorite Mex dining location. The funny thing about Ninfa’s is that we had the best crab cake we have ever had there. 6yrs of living in the center of the crab cake universe in PA/NJ/DE and we find the best one in Houston. Very ironic. I delivered my usual anniversary BLING installment at lunch at Ninfa’s. She liked it. After lunch I took her for a day of shopping nirvana at the Galleria. 5hrs of chick oriented shopping. I was wiped out by the time we left to head back to Perry’s in Katy for dinner. Dinner was awesome. The rest of the weekend was great. We both agreed that it was one of the best weekends in a very long time. Most of our weekends are pretty good but this one was great. The only thing missing was you.

A funny thing about the 17th anniversary. In my last letter I told you I was considering getting your mom the white leather sectional that goes with her zebra ottoman. I decided on BLING. Another irony is that the traditional gift for a 17th anniversary is furniture. I guess I will have to do the sectional for her birthday in a couple of weeks. …… maybe.

I say maybe because I interviewed with the second client in Qatar on Monday and got the call yesterday that they enthusiastically want me in Qatar ASAP. That will probably translate to September with your mom joining me in Oct/Nov but it does look like Qatar will actually happen and fairly shortly at that. If Qatar is on I won’t buy the sectional and go with either more BLING or Christian Lobotomy shoe. He is some designer shoe designer dude that your mom is salivating about. We will have a fully furnished high rise condo in Qatar and will rent or sell the house before we go so it makes no sense to buy furniture at this point.

Your mom and I both have noted how happy you sound when you are talking about school. That is a very comforting thing for us. Your mom particularly enjoys your comments about “doing your thing” and when you describe your study schedule. Keep up the good work.

You mentioned on our last call that you thought you would qualify shortly for visitors/leave and to get your car. How did that go? Let us know and we will get your car buffed up and ready for you. We can even bring it down and ride back with Deema and Deepa. The second you are eligible for visitors Deema will hit the road for some Cody time. The rest of us will of course follow orders.

Since you are settling in to your school routine and have answered most of our questions over the past several weeks this letter will be a one pager instead of the usual 2+. I have to sign off and get tickets for the Change-Up at Alamo tonight. Your mom wants to see it and I think it looks pretty funny myself.

I lied by the way. It did go to two pages.

Still no calls to your mom kid. CALL YOUR MOM.

Love
Dad