It's My Birthday @Solsticepublish

Well, it’s one of those things in life that you see coming.  You know it’s coming.  You often wish it wasn’t coming.  But in the end it is like most events in life.  There really isn’t anything you can do to change it.  Today is my birthday.  I thought about this blog for a while.  I could write the “Why I Hate Birthdays” blog or the “Why I Love Birthday’s Blog”.  As usual, I fall somewhere in the middle.  So this is the “Memories of My Birthdays” blog.  So let’s get the negative part of it out of the way.  I have been sick on over half of my birthdays, including this one.  There have been snow storms on seven of them.  The space shuttle Challenger blew up on one of them.  That was a bummer.  The only famous person to be born on my birthday is Alan Alda.  As much as I liked M.A.S.H., my brother was born on the same day as Paul McCartney.  I cry ‘foul!’  That’s really about it for the whining.  As John Lennon said in a Christmas song, “…Another year over, and a new one just begun.”  Now let’s look at the more pleasant things.  I was born very late and in the middle of a cold snap in Port Huron, MI.  My mother said, “I knew you would not come out until the temperature broke freezing and the first day it did, you were born.”  Those of you who follow my writing know my mother was a key individual in my life.  She always used this date to single me out and remind me I was special.  She always woke me up by singing Happy Birthday.  Even when I was in college or moved far away, I would get a call.  Sometimes it was on the answering machine waiting when I arrived home.  Once I was in Vancouver, BC working.   I was staying in the bottom of this little bed-and-breakfast for a few months.  She contacted the owner and had her get me a cake so I would have one on my birthday.  I love fresh fruit and one of the things I always ask for is fresh fruit.  Unless I move to Australia that’s going to be a tall order.  But Mom took me grocery shopping every year and we would get a pineapple, oranges, grapes and a coconut.  Dad would always make his world class lasagna.  He always used real ricotta cheese and a splash of tabasco sauce (maybe that’s why my stomach would get so upset) to give it some kick.  It took hours to prepare and he built it like he was doing surgery.  My brothers and sister would blow up balloons and then we would rub them on our heads in order to build up a static charge and stick them to the walls.  My sister is one of those people who would be the best at anything she tried.  Every year she would make me a Devil’s Food cake with sour crème icing.  They were masterpieces.  I never truly thanked her for all the effort.  In college my two roommates would play the Beatles song “Birthday’ and sing it to me.  And now I take my whole family to Olive Garden and have Dairy Queen Cake for dessert.  It doesn’t sound too bad, does it?  I am blessed to have family that cares about me and they show it on this day.  I guess birthdays aren’t all bad.