It’s My Party…..

…and I'll blog if I want to, blog if I want to….you would blog too if it were you!!!!

Not surprisingly, today's post is a bit self-serving because you see….TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!!!

Now, we're not gonna get into a lot of nit picky details such as age but I thought I'd chat a bit about memories of party's gone by.

Alas, I grew up in…ahem…an age when most kids did not have a birthday party every , single year. Don't get me wrong, I love attending my little underage friends party with balloons, cake, ice cream, high pitched squealing and the occasional ice cream smeared kiss but "back in the day" (Gulp, I'm starting more and more sentences like that) you usually only had them on special birthdays. I had two.

The first was for my 6^th birthday. I wore a fancy party dress and had a special birthday girl tiara made, appropriately, from foil (Yes…we HAD foil "back in the day"). I got to invite all my class buddies. We had balloons, cake and Mom got "special" Neopolitan ice cream bricks from the bakery. We have photos of all the fun we had including my harried Mom directing pin the tail on the donkey. What's that you ask? It's a game….a game we played "back in the day." Oh, yes we had a time including the mean girl who snuck upstairs and went into my bedroom and kidnapped my Raggedy Ann doll!! Ahem, that's a story for another day.

I have a photo of me in my tiara but because (grits teeth) "back in the day" our parents thought it a great idea to put the pics between acetate in an album where, the course of time, has MELTED them making them impossible to remove with out destroying the historical treasuresm I can't share it.

My second foray into birthday celebratory antics was for my 13^th when I got to have my first ever sleep over. We talked about boys way into the night, ate, listened to records and conked out on pallets. Fun all around and I had hidden my Raggedy Ann doll.

Those were the parties. There are lots of other memories. Like the year my birthday landed on Easter. Mom had carved and put together a birthday cake in the shape of a bunny. My gift came wrapped in a Leggs egg. I got to pick out my favorite dinner (roasted chicken and Mom's dressing). Good times my whole life.

My birthday took on a different aspect after my Mom passed. No more birthday cakes I was sure. But then a bunch of friends from the hospital took me out to lunch and brought a homemade cake. I cried. That same special gift was repeated a while back when not only did Bandita Donna remember my dearth of birthday baked goods but remembered I like chocolate cake with chocolate icing and brought me one!

Sniff, sniff…

Anyway, me and the kitties will celebrate together. My brother is taking me out to the movies and hopefully adoring me. I have wonderful wishes, from wonderful friends and will try not to count the number of Motrin I have to take.

So today is my day to celebrate and I want to celebrate it with you. What are you bringing to the party???

(Candid photo of my baby cats contemplating the existence of balloons...POP!)