Hey Cupcake

Happy Birthday to me! (EVERGLADES-FREE WARNING - the Everglades is mentioned briefly in this post - deal with it.) I've never been one to advertise my birthday but I must admit that I do celebrate it and try to enjoy it like anyone deserves to with a whole lot of "it's my birthday so I'm going to do whatever I want". Of course I've always felt that a mother has every reason to celebrate that day as well considering the work they put in.

If you're keeping track I'm 37. Which is pretty good considering the doctors didn't think I would survive through my first Christmas. I was born with something of a superpower in that I could vomit across the room thanks to a cinched pyloric valve. I survived, as you may have noticed and have enjoyed 36 Christmases/Saturnalias/Hanukkahs since.

Just for fun - here's a look back at a few memorable birthdays (or the ones I have pictures of).

1977 - I'm the bushy-haired one enjoying Dr. Seuss' The Lorax on reel-to-reel. A movie that had an impression on me and yet continues to stress me out. "Unless"? What did it mean? I could have understood "Rosebud" but "Unless" was to abstract for me. Regardless, I speak for the trees as well as the metaphorical Barbaloots and Swamee Swams.

1979 - I hate clowns and yet celebrated my 9th birthday at McDonald's. Now I only go to McDonald's to cure the common cold. It works. Sister Tara is in the back in a Battlestar Galactica shirt. Sister Mandy trying to hog the spotlight and sister Tiffany stylin' in a McDonalds hat which she would trade in a few years later for an employees hat at the same place. As would I for $2.39/hour.

1980 - Continued the fast food themed birthday's by celebrating at Burger King and got a really cool Pac-Man glass and several Star Wars people. Times were good.

1987 - Thinking all day that everyone had forgotten my birthday - I decided birthdays were awful and cruel and I would never celebrate another. Later that night I was surprised to find my girlfriend had organized a cow-themed surprise party. I was relieved but now hate surprises.

1988 - Spent my 18th at Penn State during my freshman year where I took in my first college football game (89,000 people in attendance) and was later talked down off the roof of my dorm by a a resident advisor who thought I was going to jump when in fact I was just throwing pumpkins. Kids don't try this at home. Go to college and try it. I didn't drink then and still rarely do, but I ended up in the hospital that night with a concussion after running down a water soaked hallway, sliding and landing on my head. Kids don't try this. 1997 - Enjoyed this one in sunny Bradenton, Florida with a friendly squirrel who was interested in the box of cookies and cupcakes I had received from home. This may be the start of what others assumed to be my love for squirrels. I don't think people appreciate them enough, but I don't love them. Or at least not like I love cupcakes. Still, my niece has found every type of nick-nack with a squirrel on it to have her mom buy and send. And I love them all.

1998 - The traditional birthday during the mid to late 90's included a trip to the Gould's Orchard pumpkin patch in upstate New York. This was during the "stache" years and was just days before I pulled my snowbird routine and drove back to Florida for the winter.
1999 - Let them eat cupcakes! Who doesn't like cupcakes? My birthday request for 2007 was simply to have all of the nieces and nephews eating cupcakes on my birthday. (I'll post if they send pictures.) But here is Abigail stuffing her face as a baby. Start the bad habits early! (Note to Tara - 2 month old babies are too young for actual cupcakes - try pureeing it.)

2000 - The whole family was together for the big 30 and the one thing I remember above all else is watching the little sister and then boyfriend (and now husband) get into a scuffle, lock into combat like two sumo wrestlers and actually tumble down a hill like two raccoons in an over sized Wal-Mart bag. Good times.

2005 - Niece Estelle shares the same birthday and so in '05 we all trekked out to find a geocache I had hidden under a boardwalk on White Horse Beach in Massachusetts. The cache - called "The Siren of Sea" was buried under the sand during a storm back in the winter of '07.

2006 - My first birthday in another hemisphere. Ma-le and I spent a few days traveling along the coast in Ecuador, stopping in the port city of Salinas and desperately looking for Sangria which was the only thing I had hoped for. But the Ecuadorian presidential elections were on that same day and no alcohol could be served for 3 days prior to or during the election (a punishable offense that could and often does lead to incarceration). The day was redeemed when Pia and Johnny Garcia (Ma-Le's parents) had a Frutilla Cake waiting when we arrived back in Guayaquil. It was delicious. (And aren't they cute?) 2007 - Today I'm heading over to Fort Lauderdale like I do every week and then in the afternoon I'm heading into the Everglades National Park's Shark Valley. I've been just about every where else so this will be my birthday treat. Ma-Le's in Ecuador for a few more weeks so I will have to eat all of the cupcakes and lick the bowl. mmmm.