It’s my half birthday and all that jazz

Only 6 more months to shop for my perfect birthday gift. A girl can dream…

I am a total half birthday celebrating kind of gal. Um, when I remember. Used to be that June 24th was the ONLY day that I could get a proper party going on. Because, let’s be real, who wants to pin the tail on the donkey on Christmas Eve?

My favorite half birthday party was to celebrate the fantastic age of 6 1/2. Mother and I were living in Tampa at the time. (Oh Florida, how you repeat on me…) I had some awesome friends and our town had a Future Skate. Jealous? Of course I couldn’t really skate, but I loved the idea of having a private booth and a stack of presents.

Ok really I loved the idea of getting to open my presents in front of other children. When your real birthday falls on a holiday you never get to really experience the thrill of present opening in front of peers. AND you have to be one of those peers and totally have present-opening envy for every other kid’s birthday party. Or was that just me?

So to celebrate my turning 6.5 I had a proper party at Future Skate and invited loads of people (because loads of people = loads of gifts.) And oh the gifts were off the hook that year. Smurfette Bank! Roach clips for my hair (what else were they meant for?). ET toys. Knock off Cabbage Patch kids…But really I got to have the brilliant and wonderful moment of being in a sea of 6 year olds and being the complete center of attention. And you know I took my time opening each gift, pausing for Mother to take a photo of me with each gift, and then slowly moved to the next one.

Me in an awesome circle of gift opening:

After gift opening it was time for my crowning glory- a solo skate (JUST ME!) to my favorite song. This is where I tell you that my favorite song was Jesse by Carly Simon. I had no idea what the song was really about, but I loved it. I loved it so much that I even named my first cat Jesse. I knew all the words and I was looking forward to belting them out as I inched around the rink.

Except a song like Jesse wasn’t exactly in the roster at a Future Skate that catered to tweens and teens. The DJ thought he was doing me a solid because clearly he knew my musical taste better than I did and he made a last minute substitution: Jessie’s Girl. Damn was I pissed. I think I actually cried and pouted for my entire solo skate. It sucked.

So sad:

But it was still the best half birthday I have ever had. For real.

This morning I woke up and decided that I needed a cake. I tanked up the W, loaded us up in the car, and set off to the local Publix in search of one of their 1/2 cakes. (because what is more appropriate for a 1/2 birthday than 1/2 a cake?) Sadly the Publix I opted to go to only had 1/2 cakes that did not rock my boat (lemon glazed sour cream numbers- while possibly good they did nothing in terms of a celebratory vibe).

W was being Captain Adorable and flirting with all of the fluorescent lights so I figured I had some time to cruise the make a cake aisle and get my Betty Crocker on. As soon as I saw that it was buy one get one free red velvet cake mixes I knew things were going my way. That is until I heard a woman clack towards me in some serious eff me pumps. She saw the car seat locked into the grocery buggy and declared that she just HAD to have a look.

And this woman leapt in front of W’s face and SHRILLED, “Hello Baby!!!!” in the loudest voice ever. Jesus hell, woman! And immediately I saw W’s bottom lip begin to quiver (a trait that is 100% inherited from his Grandmother) and I knew the wails were coming. To her credit the woman realized instantly that it was a stupid thing to do and began to apologize profusely. I took time to let her know that it was ok, because the last thing I would want is for some woman to begin her day thinking she was a baby attacker. But in my head I was pissed.

(& being that lady with the wailing baby in the grocery store is all kinds of hell. You tend to get loads of advice and looks. I hate it.)

The good news is that I have red velvet cake cooling on a wire rack in my kitchen. Oh yes. Come on over for a slice!

Tagged as: just writing