Saturday, February 03, 2007

Happy birthday to me!

20-20. Nope, it's not my vision. It's my age. As in "Yesterday I was 20-19, but today I'm 20-20, and next year I'll be 20-21." I think it sounds nicer than the F word, don't you?

I don't really have any big plans for the day. Mike is at a swim meet in Versailles (which is pronounced just like it's spelled here in 'tucky), and Annabelle has a theater class in Louisville this afternoon. On top of all that, Fred is nursing a nasty cold, so I don't know that there will be much partying going on. I do, however, have a bottle of wine I brought back over from Germany last summer, and I WILL be opening that sucker.

I've been thinking a lot about previous birthdays lately. Some of them--like the original one--I don't remember at all:



Come to think of it, I don't remember my first birthday either:



One of the first birthdays that I do remember well is my fifth. I had a ballerina-themed party at my Grandma Jernigan's house. Guests included a couple of friends and my cousins--Laura and Danny are in the high chairs, and Julie is on the right in the shockingly short purple jumper:



One reason that birthday stands out in my memory is that my Grandma Whitecar had a puzzle made out of that picture and gave it to me for the sixth birthday. I still have that puzzle!

My best birthday party ever would have to be the one I had when I turned 7. Along with my cousins (Julie is in the green dress, Danny is the little guy in the yellow shirt, and Laura is the blondie in the lower right-hand corner) and my sister (who is being held by, I think, a girl I bit on a different occasion--but she really deserved it), I also had most of my second-grade classmates as guests. (See the boy in the darker yellow shirt? His name was Patrick, and he was my boyfriend.) I was obsessed with the Wizard of Oz that year, so that was the theme of the party. My mom made a kick-ass cake, and my parents put a lot of planning into party games and activities:



When I turned 8, I asked for a bridle for my birthday. Never mind that I didn't have a horse! I figured if I got a bridle, I wouldn't be without a horse for long. Yeah . . . that didn't quite go as I had planned. I was excited to get that bridle though:



One of my most disappointing birthdays--and one I'm grateful to have no photographic evidence of--was my sixteenth. That's the day I flunked my drivers license test. How humiliating! I went back a week later and got the same tester. At the end of the test, he sat there in the passenger's seat of my parents' blue Plymouth Reliant and totalled my points and totalled them again. I will never forget his words: "Well, Miss Boyd . . . according to this, you passed. . . . But I still don't think you're that hot."

By and large though, I have definitely had way more good birthdays than bad.

Happy birthday to all the cool people who share my special day, especially my cousin Ally, my friend Beth, and my friend Sibylle's son Konstantin. Aquarians rule!

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