What’s going on? When I was growing up I could always rely on beautiful weather for my birthday. Sunny skies, temps in the seventies, no humidity. Now there’s global warming to contend with. Heat, humidity and hordes of mosquitoes arrive much earlier in the season than they have any right to. But that’s not all that’s changed. Used to be I couldn’t wait for my birthday to come. But today it’s birthday with a capital B. Or perhaps BIRTHDAY, maybe even in blinking fuschia text. It will not be ignored. It just doesn’t seem possible that I’ve celebrated thirty of these already…not that I remember the first two, maybe three. I can try to talk my way around it…I certainly don’t act like I’m thirty. People tell me I don’t look like I’m thirty (but I can try to have some of the grace and guts of Frances McDormand, and tell people “this is what thirty looks like”). But maybe I’m best off quoting my dear old Dad, whose birthday it also is today. Every year he has two things to say of our birthday:
1. “Honey, you’re the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten” and
2. “It’s better than the alternative.”