ok i guess i better just grow up and decide whether i’m doing this in upper and lower case or not. i think it’s harder to stick with lower case. i think i’m making more mistakes than usual.
Okay, that’s better. Now, it’s my special day today. Fairly uneventful. I’m not groaning or moping about the age thing. I think I got this one under control. So much bad news around me…around our world right now. My little inch toward eating at Denny’s for under 11 bucks at 4pm in the afternoon getting closer just isn’t that important.
I actually didn’t remember it was Oct 17 when I woke up. Social Media fixed that.
I got one card from my middle brother. P says in his sweet and goofy penmanship, “I am truly grateful for having you as my little/big sister.” OMG what a loaded birthday missive that was. Use your imagination if you don’t know what I mean…and note the order of little/big.”
I got two phone calls…one from my oldest childhood pal and fellow Libra (I have gotten that call every Oct 17 for about 50 years now). And one from an actor I recently directed in a play. I love that! I got schmoozed! That hasn’t happened at all during the mom years. God bless it!
I got 3 or 4 texts. One from my adult stepson, written in Japanese (no, he’s not…but R-chan is the only one in the family who speaks to me as such and frankly the only one allowed to). I replied to him in my best college nihon-go. All I can say is auto correct is a bitch. It took me like 8 minutes to type thank you very much. The others were from my high school sweetheart, my cousin in Hawaii, and Emily Rice (yes, I am name-dropping here…look her up…I’ll be here when you get back) and who wanted to take me to lunch but I think I replied too late and essentially stood her up. I made it a glass of wine after dinner, but then she stood me up. It’s all good. We see each other every few days.
I got one really sweet email from N, my 13 year old. No card, but several hugs from S., my soon to be 17 year old.
I got 212 birthday wishes on Facebook. I looked slowly at every damn name. I reacted to as many as I did with a heart. Nutty how all those well wishes and names of people you haven’t seen since 9th grade algebra or that college play you were in, or a total stranger for that matter, make you feel so good.
I was very excited to see that A had posted a birthday hello. I’ve been having a lot of dreams about him recently, one where I actually woke up sobbing. He was a most important boyfriend for many years. Though in a recent social gathering he referred to our relationship as “when we were seeing each other.” WTF? “We lived together…” I quibbled. Ugh. You get the picture. It’s worth noting after looking through 212 Facebook posts I noticed he was the only one who spelled my first name wrong.
Among my favorite posts was one of a picture of me and my best friend in 1974 at Magic Mountain. We were starting 8th grade… the age of my daughter N and her friends today. I stared at it and after a few seconds blankly. We are innocent and lovely in our high waisted jeans and halter tops. The man we are posing with is….well I didn’t know who he was for about 15 seconds. I didn’t recognize him, but my friend points out it’s her dad….OK. Right. That’s Chuck. Chuck was legendary.
You know back then we talked on the telephone instead of text, Snapchat, and Instagram. Like without the visual. The rest was left up to the imagination. She and I spent about 99.9% of our free time with each other that particular year; if not in person then on the phone. I still remember her number (391-8009) She was the most important relationship in my life in 1974. On that particular phone call she told me she was going to ask her dad to take her to Magic Mountain for her birthday.
As I said, we were together constantly. By 1974 we had been friends for nearly 9 years. I had never met her father. You can imagine how much time they spent together. Like I said, legendary, in that I wasn’t sure he really existed.
What did I say to my best friend? Encouragement? “Yeah, ask him!” perhaps “take me too.” For her, it was a bold gesture, a daring do. Out of the blue, she calls her invisible father and says will you take me the Magic Mountain for my birthday? Alls I know is she called me back in 45 seconds and said he would pick us up on Saturday morning. It had been that easy. I could hear the shock in her voice. No instagram or emojii necessary.
The pic was taken by Chuck’s girlfriend. I remember, after a bunch of rides, we rested on the grass on that hot, exhausting, and totally memorable day at So Cal’s newest theme park. We were throwing ice chips at each other and laughing. Chuck was like a kid and his girlfriend was attractive and accessible and cool.
That evening they dropped me off and then dropped my friend off at her mom’s, and then resumed life as normal. Not talking, not seeing each other. I think he lived maybe a mile away from her.
Her face in this picture is worth a thousand words. She’s happy, and you can also see she’s not completely comfortable. I know my girl. Oye. Heartbreaking.
Well anyway, all 212 FB messages got me, but that one REALLY got me.
Birthdays.
Domo arigato gozaimashita. xoxoxoC.Fujikawa
P-Nut gallery notes.... 