Birthdays
Though it’s going on six months ago I can’t fail to mention my birthday in early September. We started the day with a great bike ride and stopped by Old School on the way home. Check out “Green Flashes and more riding stories” to hear about our Old School adventure.
We spent the late morning swimming, then had dinner with Alex and Amanda at their new apartment. Alex, who’s an incredible cook, tried out a few new recipes; they were a total hit.
It was such fun to just sit and relax and have great conversation! What a difference from our regular days of work, work, work. We wandered out for frozen yogurt later in the evening, even having a chance to see Amanda’s dad’s new boat, before calling it a day.
A day later Amanda followed up on my birthday by sending a wonderful fruit arrangement, set up like a floral arrangement. I’d raved about the one she’d sent the year before, so I was thrilled to have it again. I was secretly hoping she really would send another one. The fruit didn’t last long with both of us devouring it. Thank you, Amanda!
Meanwhile, Paul, my oldest, has been incredibly reliable over the years in calling or emailing me for my birthday, but by late evening I hadn’t gotten any messages. About nine p.m. I got an email notification on my Droid 3. I read the email and laughed out loud.
Happy Birthday Mom.
I tried to get today off so I could spend today with you but I ended up in Dubai.
Love you Mom
Some might think it was a very creative reason for missing my birthday, but I should explain that Paul, while a full-time real estate agent in Fort Lauderdale, still flies as a flight attendant for United Airlines. I have to grant him that being in Dubai would be a deterrent to getting together for dinner in South Florida. Dubai or no, he still remembered my birthday!
Jaimie Snoddy’s gift basket
We’re still in touch with several of our Gueydan buddies, including Jaimie Snoddy. She and I had a great long talk one day in late August, catching up on everything. I mentioned my upcoming birthday, and so help me if I didn’t get a care package from her a few weeks later. My birthday gifts included several packages of jerky, a bottle of wine, pepper jelly, and grape jelly, all of it homemade.
We rationed everything out over the next few months, making everything last as long as we could. The grape jelly was the last to go, and I have many memories of my early morning toasted bagels with their light coating of fresh garlic and grape jelly.
As is so typical of Jaimie, everything was absolutely first class. We count ourselves lucky to have her as a friend.
My brothers and their birthdays
I have to brag a little bit here, not about me or about Chelsea, but rather my two older brothers. My oldest brother, Dennis, celebrated his sixty-ninth birthday in early August, a month before I celebrated my sixty-second. My next oldest brother, Brian, then celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday in late September.
So how did they celebrate? They took a day in mid September and bicycled seventy-two very hilly miles around Lake Tahoe. I don’t remember their time right now, but I do know it was eminently respectable, under eight hours, especially considering that they don’t do long daily rides as a rule. I so wished we were there, but I got to enjoy their victory from a distance.
Dennis is already planning on doing the same ride again for his seventy-second birthday and has invited us along. I think we will be in lower Central America by then, so if we can’t get back, we may try to convince him to come ride with us.