My birthday has come along again, which is always a good thing. Whatever wrinkles I get, and whatever gray hair I may achieve (amid the hair that may still be left), I welcome it.
Years ago, a local radio DJ, Tim Spencer, was complaining on the air about his birthday coming up. I wondered why? I mean, the alternative isn't such a good plan. It seems kind of boring! So, days later he mentioned me on the air as he read a sympathy card that I mailed him stating, "A reminder that the alternative sucks. Happy Birthday!" And he agreed.
And birthdays are just that: celebration of life. Usually with cakes, presents, cards. I don't need presents. If you're reading this then you're likely already a gift to me. If you want to doodle something on copy paper and give that to me, I'll take it. The gifts created by hand mean more to me than anything else I could be given. Even more important to me than money, because hand-made, or hand-drawn, is a part of someone and who they are, and that is a great gift.
I can say that the best birthday I ever had was surrounded by tons of my friends and co-workers at Isaac Hayes' restaurant back in the early 2000's. My friend Di Anne Price was performing on the stage, tickling the ivories, and I was gifted by the presence of so many beautiful, wonderful people.
I posted on Facebook once that: Friends are the best gifts people can give of themselves, and that you can allow yourself to be given.
That is truer as each year goes by. I make many new friends and am glad to welcome them into my life! Interesting people, fun people, creative people. I don't know or hang out with a single person who isn't special in some way. With that, I am completely blessed.
Sunday morning, August 17, my mom, during conversation, is the first person this year to say, "Happy Birthday," and that is fantastic to me because I am 100%, and without a shadow of a doubt, a mama's boy. I love my little mama! She's a nut, so I come by it naturally.
My second surprise, for real, today has been my friends singing Happy Birthday to me over cake and pizza (had I known, I would have skipped stopping by Taco Hell). I usually notice or catch on, but this was pulled off seamlessly, ha ha. I had no clue.
So, what will this birthday week have in store for me? What will the next year? I don't know. I do know that as long as I can have my friends be as big a part of my life as they have always been then it will be another great, fun, happy year for me.
I am truly blessed.
I end this post with a neat picture I found tonight:
August 1976, somewhere between Holly Springs, MS and Gatlinburg, TN. My parents were taking me to the mountains and we stopped off at this visitor center where there was a teepee and Big Bird and Cookie Monster. I'm looking through things tonight, and I find the following photo. Somewhere, there is a photo of me chasing Cookie Monster around as I laugh my butt off because he was scared of the puppet I had of himself. And this, as you can tell, is a fun photo to me because I was star-struck! I have always loved Big Bird, even if it wasn't the real one but, as the guy told me and I recall to this day, "I'm his cousin!"
Years ago, a local radio DJ, Tim Spencer, was complaining on the air about his birthday coming up. I wondered why? I mean, the alternative isn't such a good plan. It seems kind of boring! So, days later he mentioned me on the air as he read a sympathy card that I mailed him stating, "A reminder that the alternative sucks. Happy Birthday!" And he agreed.
And birthdays are just that: celebration of life. Usually with cakes, presents, cards. I don't need presents. If you're reading this then you're likely already a gift to me. If you want to doodle something on copy paper and give that to me, I'll take it. The gifts created by hand mean more to me than anything else I could be given. Even more important to me than money, because hand-made, or hand-drawn, is a part of someone and who they are, and that is a great gift.
I can say that the best birthday I ever had was surrounded by tons of my friends and co-workers at Isaac Hayes' restaurant back in the early 2000's. My friend Di Anne Price was performing on the stage, tickling the ivories, and I was gifted by the presence of so many beautiful, wonderful people.
I posted on Facebook once that: Friends are the best gifts people can give of themselves, and that you can allow yourself to be given.
That is truer as each year goes by. I make many new friends and am glad to welcome them into my life! Interesting people, fun people, creative people. I don't know or hang out with a single person who isn't special in some way. With that, I am completely blessed.
Sunday morning, August 17, my mom, during conversation, is the first person this year to say, "Happy Birthday," and that is fantastic to me because I am 100%, and without a shadow of a doubt, a mama's boy. I love my little mama! She's a nut, so I come by it naturally.
My second surprise, for real, today has been my friends singing Happy Birthday to me over cake and pizza (had I known, I would have skipped stopping by Taco Hell). I usually notice or catch on, but this was pulled off seamlessly, ha ha. I had no clue.
So, what will this birthday week have in store for me? What will the next year? I don't know. I do know that as long as I can have my friends be as big a part of my life as they have always been then it will be another great, fun, happy year for me.
I am truly blessed.
I end this post with a neat picture I found tonight:
August 1976, somewhere between Holly Springs, MS and Gatlinburg, TN. My parents were taking me to the mountains and we stopped off at this visitor center where there was a teepee and Big Bird and Cookie Monster. I'm looking through things tonight, and I find the following photo. Somewhere, there is a photo of me chasing Cookie Monster around as I laugh my butt off because he was scared of the puppet I had of himself. And this, as you can tell, is a fun photo to me because I was star-struck! I have always loved Big Bird, even if it wasn't the real one but, as the guy told me and I recall to this day, "I'm his cousin!"
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