It Was My Birthday

Once Dad would have been on his feet, pacing around the fire. I’m just glad he’s feeling good enough to be out watching it. Photo by: Chris

This will be my third attempt to post a birthday blog. Blogger ate the first attempt for an improperly closed HTML—which X2 used to pronounce “hate mail”— tag. The Blogger editor used to a little more forgiving than that, but I guess they’ve made it so easy to use that it’s extremely destructive.

Other than disgruntlement with Blogger, this has been one of the best birthdays I can remember. Unfortunately, since it’s taken so many times to get this post done, I don’t remember all of the things I was going to list. Here are some of them:

• Quality time spent with loved ones
• Good health
• Word that Dad’s radiation is done with and he’s starting to get his health back
• Enough rain for burning the brush pile at the farm to be thinkable

Brithday Table Topics

Apparently my friend isn’t the only one who likes Birthday Pie. Original photo from: merrimentdesign

Suna’s birthday is this Saturday. So I’ve been thinking a lot about birthdays.

This is a list of Table Topics questions I used at today’s Toastmasters meeting. Rather than having volunteers choose a number, I just picked a topic for them, including (jokingly) asking the guy I know never watches movies, “What’s your favorite birthday movie?”

• Tell us about your favorite birthday memory.
• Tell us about your worst birthday experience.
• James Doohan who played Scotty on original Star Trek series, would’ve been 91 today. Tell us about your favorite Scotty moment.¹
• Do you keep your birthday secret from your coworkers? Why or why not?
• Describe the wonders of cake.²
• How do you usually celebrate your birthday?
• Adults typically fall and one of three categories:
  • They lie about their age.
  • They don’t worry about her age and may not even know what it is.
  • Or they are proud of their age.
  Into which camp do you fall, and why?

Notes

1. Substitute any celebrity birthday.
2. I half expected to get a dissertation about the band, Cake. Instead, I got a wonderful story about birthday pie.

Food for Thought #2

All these vegetarian enchiladas need is a nice bowl of pinto beans or maybe some refries slopped on the plate. Oh, and some salsa on the side.

Photo source: sweet and saucy

I need a logo for this series. Any artist types got an idea?

Appetizer: Look to your left. What color do notice see first?

Suna is wearing a quiet brown jacket and shirt. She usually picks a much more festive pallet, so brown is very noticeable. I like it.

Soup: What type of beans do you enjoy most?

Pintos. They are very flexible. You can put them in chili (if you don’t follow the Terlingua rules), serve them in bean broth, or fry them again. I love them.

Salad: What was the most interesting thing that happened during the last week?

To me it was that a CEO acted with dignity and honor rather than taking the money and running. See my post about Howard Schultz yesterday.

Entré: What was the most difficult decision your had to make in the last year? How did you decide?

That would be the decision to sell part of the old family homestead. I needed the money, but I didn’t want to do it. Finally, Dad said he couldn’t take care of it anymore and wanted a neighbor to have it. The neighbor offered a really fair price, and it was done.

Dessert: Among your friends and family, who has the next birthday?

I think that would be TrackGrease, on the 10^th of February.

Suna’s Birthday

Suna models her new birthday present and smiles like Mona Lisa.

You say it’s your birthday

Well, it’s my birthday, too, yeah

—Lennon/McCartney

OK, not quite. My birthday’s next week. Today is Suna’s birthday. I gave her her birthday gift a little early so that she could wear it today, if she wanted. In fact, she put it on immediately and wore it to dinner last night, too. Anytime I can make Suna this happy, it feels like my birthday. She even forgave me for not giving her a card.

Here is a close-up of the necklace. Angela made a beautiful thing here.

So about the gift, it is a string of freshwater pearls and sterling silver beads. The clasp is decorative, secure, and sterling. The necklace and matching earrings were custom crafted by local jeweler Angela Woods-Meyer. Angela designed the set to coordinate with a silver and freshwater pearl that Suna already owned. And Suna doesn’t have to worry about seeing other people with this set; Angela never repeats a design.

Birthday

“Bah! Lemme eat my breakfast.”

This is Beccano’s day. It’s not really his birthday, but it’s his birthday for us. On his real birthday, he will either be in Ireland or en route.

As he put it, “I’m not just a year older than a ‘stupid twelve-year-old’ anymore.” So today was about gathering family around him. And he raked in the loot. Former RM bought him a practice amp. There was a ninja outfit. Hmmm. A Radiohead DVD. And more.

“Watch out! He’s got an ax!”

I’m also loaning him my camera to take to Ireland. So my next few posts will have recycled pictures, if any. But Beccano has a good eye. I expect to see some fantastic shots of the Emerald Isle.

On other fronts: FRM moved out this week; enter RM2. She will only be here for a couple of weeks—sort of eases the shock of Suna and me having the house to ourselves.