About Birthdays
Tue., June 3, 07:57 PM
Birthdays have undergone some strange metamorphoses for me, and I’ll explain some of them. First, however, some thanks are certainly in order.
There were a couple of pages of Guestbook greetings, as well some cute cards sent to my e-mail. Thank you most gratefully to auntie-mari, chailife, cosmicrayola, Denver doug, kidneygurl, life-my-way , marn, sixweasels, tattodnanny, and trinity63, as well as some strangers whom I hope to Randomly Sign. If I’ve missed someone, please excuse my lack of organization. I do appreciate it. The sneaky little notifier was my M.D., golfwidow, who thought up what turned out to be the second best gift I received over a five-day birthday. That is, I began receiving messages via snail mail and e-mail on Friday, continuing through the weekend, and received more this morning.
Yesterday, Husband and I had lunch with a group of his childhood friends who were visiting from Florida. This kind of meeting is always enjoyable, though it seems there are fewer people each time. At the Home some of the older girls were responsible for the younger children, and I missed seeing the girl who was assigned to Husband. But that’s another story; the point right now is that, while we were there, U.D. had sent flowers to my office, and so I didn’t see them till today. 
And meanwhile, I got to eat out without telling anyone what the occasion was – snicker, snicker.
My mother was very strange about birthdays. Yes, they were celebrations; she certainly never ignored them. (Although, so help me, the year I turned twenty she forgot it was my birthday. “How could you forget?” I asked, “you were there.”) But she didn’t believe in birthday parties. Relatives were invited, but no one else; birthday parties were “begging,” and begging was not allowed. Trick-or-treating was begging too.
All three of us kids went to other people’s parties and always brought very nice gifts. She didn’t believe in “cheap” gifts, either, it “didn’t look nice.” But we didn’t have birthday parties. She served cake one year for my brother’s Cub Scout meeting. And Sister, an October baby, always had Hallowe’en parties, which she dislikes to this day. Don’t send her autumn flowers, either; they remind her of the parties that weren’t birthday parties. To this day, we don’t usually publicize our birthdays.
Thirty-five years ago Fiancé and I celebrated with my friends Gloria and Bob, since they already knew it was my birthday. So they were the first to see my engagement diamond. Okay, that was worth celebrating.
Two close friends in high school arranged a surprise party for my eighteenth. That was the first birthday party I ever had. Their gift to me was in a large package, which I unwrapped to find a box marked “1,” inside of which was another marked “2”… Number 18 was a little envelope, containing tickets to “My Fair Lady,” in New York! Perfect.
Sister and U.D. threw a party for me when I turned fifty. They invited lots of old friends and co-workers, most of whom believed I was a lot younger. I enjoyed it, even though my secret was out.
Oh, yeah, the best present this year – Son cleaned my bathroom. Big deal, you think? It was. He removed three large bags of other people’s junk from the closet and the cabinet. He cleaned the walls where I can’t reach. He scrubbed up cat litter from the floor; it had been too cold all winter for me to kneel there. And he put up a new shelf, replacing the rusted one that had been a housewarming gift. With this kind of help, I may revive the cheesebox yet.
