Although this space has served as my travel blog, I’ve decided to post an occasional non-travel entry because, well, it’s my blog and I can do what I want to. I don’t know how frequently this will occur – probably not very, as I will post only those writings that I feel are fit to print / fit to read. Here’s my inaugural non-travel entry – enjoy.
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A few years ago, I made a resolution to not get upset when my birthday comes and goes with little notice. Still, it’s hard not to feel a little bereft when the only mention of this year’s birthday comes from the Honda dealership where I recently bought a new CRV after my last one was totaled. Folsom Lake Honda sent me a happy birthday email message festooned with bright balloons. In it, they encouraged me to print the email and bring it in to the service manager who would give me a free ice cream and a chat.
I’m picturing the carton of ice cream from which the Honda service manager would dish up my serving. It must be years old, the cardboard crushed and covered with freezer fur, tucked in the back of the employee lounge freezer with a post-it note stuck on: DO NOT EAT! FOR BIRTHDAY CUSTOMERS ONLY! The service manager would extract it, dust off ice crystals, pry off the lid, and attack the rock-hard ice cream with a large kitchen spoon – their scoop having been misplaced somewhere among the random implements stashed in the employee lounge drawers. It would be vanilla – the universal flavor of ennui – and as I attempt to melt it between my teeth, the service manager would try to talk me into buying the extended warranty I failed to purchase when I bought the car.
I’m not quite that desperate for attention and besides, it’s early yet. I’m bound to get at least a few text messages as the day progresses and people’s smart-phone calendars ping with reminders. It won’t happen on Facebook, however, since I hid my birth date from public view. I used to get 20 or 30 birthday nods from Facebook friends, the greetings trickling in as the app admonished users to post well-wishes on my wall. On top of that, I’d get another 25 or so acknowledgements from other Facebook friends who simply “liked” what someone else had already posted. That truly is the least a person can do when it comes to wishing someone happy birthday, and I decided I can live without it.
My husband is typically on-it when it comes to remembering my birthday. He had to be taught, but he now appreciates the plight of those of us with late December birthdays: the forgetfulness of holiday-weary friends, the treachery of the ‘slash’ gift. But this year, even he is distracted, and I forgive him. He’s still banged up and sore from the car wreck – the one that totaled our last Honda. In short, he’s got his own miseries to nurse. (Update: he remembered and stepped up bigly.)
This will be the second time I don’t receive a message from my mother reminiscing about the time (around noon) and circumstances of my birth. On this day last year, she was in the hospital after having been admitted on her birthday (December 26th) with a failing heart. It was the all-time record for shitty birthdays for both of us. Due to fears over the surging COVID Omicron variant, the hospital locked down, and I was unable to see her or get any first-hand information from medical staff. Driven, I think, by panic, she morphed into the kind of patient none of us envisions becoming: uncooperative and argumentative, and she’d hang up on me when I tried to comfort her by phone. Although released from the hospital after a few weeks, it was to nursing care where she lasted only a few weeks more.
So, you see, things could be worse. At least this year I’m not mismanaging the care of a dying parent; nor am I reckoning with what could easily have been my husband’s crippling injuries from the car wreck.
As I write this in the day’s early hours, sunshine is brightening the sky outside my window. A welcome relief after days of fog and yesterday’s storm. Later, I’ll take my bike up the hill and ride some of my favorite territory, and this will be a fine way to spend my birthday.
