Taking a Break

I will be offline for the most part during the next week and a half. First to spend a few days with my kids over the weekend celebrating my birthday without attachments to electronics. They have arranged everything for the party, and I don’t even know the venue, or what is planned for Saturday. I will be picked up and driven there by one of my sons, and then I will know. 🙂

Following the party, my sister and her husband from Michigan will stay with me for several days, and I am so looking forward to that visit. It’s been almost four years since we’ve seen each other, so we have lots of catching up to do.

My actual birthday is July Fourth, so even though it is a little early, I thought I’d share this excerpt from my humorous memoir, A Dead Tomato Plant And a Paycheck. Enjoy…

Crash! Bang! Kerpow!

Either it’s the Fourth of July again, or all the aerosol cans in my garage are exploding.

This holiday always brings a multitude of fond memories to me, not only from a patriotic sense, but also because it happens to be my birthday as well the birthday of the USA. Even having to bear with such comments as, “You must be a real firecracker,” I’m glad I share my day with such a prestigious holiday. At least I’m not easily forgotten. A birthday on January sixteenth can slip by unnoticed, but who can forget the Fourth of July? (Besides my mother’s maiden aunt who also forgets to send me Christmas cards)

When I was a kid, I naturally assumed that all the fanfare, from parades to fireworks, was all done in my honor, and it was a big shock to me at about age eight to realize that 15 of us were celebrating my birthday and the rest of the world could care less.
My sister, likewise, thought all the hullabaloo was in my honor and it really upset her. After all, on her birthday she only got cake and ice cream and a new pair of shoes, but I got a parade, a picnic, fireworks, and a new bathing suit. (Even discounting all the rest, she would have been happy to trade her shoes for the bathing suit).

One year she really got in a tiff about the whole thing. Instead of going down to the corner to watch the annual parade with us, she locked herself in the bathroom. “It’s not fair!” she wailed. “Just one time I’d like to see them have a parade for my birthday.”

That was the year I learned the horrible truth, as my mother tried to patiently explain to both of us what the Fourth of July really meant and get us down to the corner before we missed the parade.

Small town parades have a way of passing swiftly and every second was precious.

Disappointment loomed larger than life for me, although my sister was now delighted, and I found that the parade didn’t have the same magic anymore. In fact, I considered locking myself in the bathroom for a good cry.

Now that I am a grown woman of some maturity, although that point is debatable at times, I have learned to be more pragmatic in my approach to my birthday. But the child in me would still like to walk down to the corner to see the parade and I always get goose-bumps when I hear “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on the radio.

That same sister is the one who is coming to visit. I wonder if we can find a parade and if she’ll go watch it with me?

If you are celebrating the Fourth, I do hope it is with family and friends and lots of fun. Be safe and be happy.