Time with family better than presents (02/12/07)

The parade of February birthdays has begun. It seems as if most people in my family have their birthdays in the coldest month of the year. My mother is an exception. She had sense enough to be born in August and as we all know, August is not known for being cold.

I have purchased the requested remote control helicopter for one nephew and am dying to try it out. I am in a bit of a quandary as to what to do for the other nephew. His parents are in the middle of a divorce and things are quite strained. Besides, the kids are in Arkansas with their mother right now and we haven't seen them for months and months.

My daughter keeps reminding me that it isn't the kids' fault and that I should be the grown-up and treat the birthday boy and his sister the same as always. This isn't the easiest thing to do as neither child has been taught proper manners or even how to be civil to people bearing presents.

Today is my birthday. My husband and I have a tradition of going to Cleveland on the weekend closest to my birthday. We relish the opportunity to get out of town and away from our usual routine. It is something we both enjoy. The home and garden show we attend provides us a much appreciated taste of spring and a chance to see what is new and improved in the world of home improvement and gardening. If I get lucky, it will also provide a birthday present for one of the people I need to shop for.

It is far enough away so that I can't hear the house screaming to be cleaned or whatever and close enough to drive to in a reasonable time. Unfortunately it is usually the most frigid weekend of the year. Maybe we should start going someplace further south instead. I wonder if they have home and garden shows in Ecuador?

We don't speak Ecuadorian or whatever language they speak and we wouldn't have an excuse to visit my brother-in-law and his wife. They live within driving distance of Cleveland and we don't get to see them very often. They can't visit us because his wife, Diane, is allergic to cats. Even if we kicked Gracie, the calico cat, out for a few hours she (the cat) has left traces of herself everywhere in the house. It seems that no matter how much I vacuum or clean there is always more hair. I usually collect enough fur to make another whole cat.

There's an idea - maybe I should learn to spin the hair into thread and then weave it into cloth and create an animal that doesn't shed. Then again, maybe not.

One of the hardest things about having a birthday is answering the question, "What do you want for your birthday?" Let's see . . . I want a potting shed, new couch cushions, repairs done on the house, a cleaning lady, a chef, flowers of any kind, and death certificates of my grandparents relatives so I can find out how they died. Except for the flowers, I don't have a prayer of getting any of that stuff. Asking for genealogy information just makes me seem weird and more than a little morbid.

So instead I request a Tony Hillerman book, or gift certificates to crafts stores or other mundane items that I think are easy to find and not too expensive. What I cherish the most is getting together with family and catching up on their lives. Everything else is just icing on the cake. It doesn't really matter whether I get presents or not.

Plus I usually get to bake my own birthday cake. This is a good thing because I happen to like cake batter better than the cake itself. If I wait until we celebrate all the birthdays at the end of the month then I won't have so much cake leftover that I get tired of it.

The things I am looking forward to most are the home and garden show, spending time with the family and finally getting to play with that remote control helicopter.[[In-content Ad]]