Speaking of Birthdays

We were, weren't we? Talking about birthdays? At least we were talking about MY birthday which, sadly, tends to happen when one has control of the blog.

I've found that the older I get, the less I like birthdays. I like them to be acknowledged with more of a whisper than a bang.

That being said, here are a few reasons why my birthday didn't suck this year.

• I got a cow pie. see previous post

• I got nice cards and gifts in general. People are so thoughtful, even when you're old and surly about your birthday.

• At the end of each month, the admins in my office post on bulletin boards the names of people having a birthday or work anniversary the following month. In our department, I am happily the only April birthday so I was able to rip down the birthday posting before anyone got the chance to see it. Was I a poor sport? Probably. Did I avoid confetti on my desk and perfunctory birthday wishes from co-workers? You bet.

• The co-workers I am close to and who know it's my birthday without a bulletin-board reminder quietly brought in brownies and muffins anyway. How nice was that?

• I got a lot of Facebook birthday wishes. That's a relatively new thing for me in terms of my birthday, and I like it. You get nice little notes and comments from your friends and relatives to read at your leisure.

• On the actual evening of my birthday - not the weekend before or the weekend after - I had a nice, relaxing dinner at BW3 with my son Joey, his girlfriend Francisca, my daughter Chrissy, her husband Bryan, my sister and brother-in-law. A nice group. Casual. Fun. And, to make it even better, earlier that day my daughter had her second ultra sound and found out she is having a baby boy. So mixed in with my birthday gifts was a little blue onesie making the announcement. Except for Chrissy and Bryan of course, we all got the news together.

Here's a picture of the cute little guy, taken on my birthday (not his):

His name is Vincent. That's a profile of his sweet little head on the left and his giant belly on the right.

Now that's one birthday I am looking forward to.

Go Ahead, Have a Cow

My friend Marsha and I have a long-standing tradition of exchanging cards and gifts that feature cows. I'm not sure how or why it started. Guess we were just in the moooooood.

Anyway, for my recent birthday, I received this card in the mail:

A couple days later, I had dinner with Marsha and another friend Betsy and received this:

It might be hard to tell from the photo, but that's a little cow tea pot. You put a cup of water in it, pop it in the microwave, then hold it by its tail and pour the hot water out its nose. It's very cute.

It's cow pottery, not to be confused with cow poetry.

I was surprised when I also got this:

That's right, a peach pie. My favorite. So much my favorite that I wolfed down a big piece as soon as I got home from dinner before I even thought about taking a picture of it.

So, thanks to Marsha and Betsy, and fulfilling the prophecy of the card, I am now able to tell you that I got a cow pie for my birthday.