Weird
birthday this year. It fell in the middle of the week, during a stressful time
for the Mrs. – she had CEOs from Europe touring her stores and would be overnighting
in Houston on my birthday. No problem; I’m a big boy. Little One was stuck in
school 45 minutes away; student teaching during the day and taking a class or
two every night. Patch, however, has a birthday that falls the day before mine.
So the agreement the family decided on was that we’d all celebrate Patch’s
birthday the Sunday before and mine the Saturday after.
Patch, as
always, made out like a bandit. The Mrs. took care of all the makeup, beauty,
and clothing gifts, with some help from Little One. I bought her a “Five Nights
At Freddy’s” stuffed animal, an LED-strobe light thingie for their upstairs
apartment, and a gift card to B&N. We had ramen at a highly-rated
restaurant in downtown Dallas, and cake afterwards at home.
Me, all I
wanted was a home-cooked meal. And the wife, as usual, outdid herself: homemade
lasagna (half-veggie for Little One, half-meat for the rest of us) and –
brownies for dessert! This we did last Saturday. I mowed the lawn and took
Little One on errands on me while Patch worked at the boutique. I chilled in
the afternoon watching a bad movie from my youth (1978’s The Medusa Touch,
starring a drunk or hung-over Richard Burton) while the ladies went to the town
pool. Then, lasagna, and after we ate I sat down in my chair in the living room
to open up gifts. And what did they get me?
Well, for
starters, I got this card from Patch:
Loved it. I know deep down she wants to read Tolkien but will never admit it. I’ll have to work on that.
She also
gifted me two records: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in Bm (“Pathetique”) and a
dual record of “Death and Transfiguration” by Richard Strauss on one side with
Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” on the other. Both records are older than me by four
and seven years respectively. I plan on listening to both later today. My
collection is now up to 56 albums.
Little One,
my impoverished college student, bought me a large Yankee candle for my desk, pumpkin
flavor. But she spent the early afternoon with me, which is more priceless than
any gift I could receive. She also bought me a card showing a smiling slice of
pizza wishing me a Happy Birthday, with a heartfelt message inside.
The Mrs.
bought me a desperately-needed pair of khakis and a book written by Charlie Kirk,
Time for a Turning Point. I told her honestly that I may need a bit of
distance before I crack the book. I was a huge Charlie Kirk fan for several
years. He was one of the twenty or so YouTube channels I watched almost daily,
and I agreed with about 98 percent of his message. If rumor was correct and he
was contemplating converting to the Catholic faith, then that would up it to
100%. I’m thinking of starting the book early in the new year. To round off my
gifts, she bought us tickets to see the Dallas Stars play in early October.
And that’s
that. Another year round the sun, another year older. Sands through the
hourglass, waiting for nobody. I’m in a good place in most of the categories I should
be in a good place, save for two major areas I’m struggling with. Other than
that, we now look forward to Little One’s birthday next week, the wife’s three
weeks after that, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. Time
marches on …
