To Emily on Her Thirty-Something Birthday

They Say It's Your Birthday...

Today is Em's birthday. You are forgiven if it didn't make your calendar, we are still lobbying regional, state and municipal governments for approval to make it a holiday. So far, the festivities have remained in these four walls. I made the bed, I am making breakfast and I am making dinner. I wrapped presents, which for me is almost like I had bought the presents within. It's always one or the other, never both.

Happy Birthday, Em! You're the best. I am glad to have you as my partner and friend and can't imagine life without you. Which is good, because I bet it would be sweet... Never picking up laundry or cleaning, eating whatever I want all the time and having my money all to myself. On second thought, that means I would be living in filth, grotesquely fat, and since I am pathologically unable to balance a checkbook, broke as a North Korean T.V. Life without you would suck. Thank you, Kelly Clarkson for helping me see the light.

I must say in all honesty that I married up. It isn't often that one escapes their caste via marriage. David Arquette was one when he married Courtney Cox, but I think he soon will be demoted. Billy Bob Thornton jumped three tiers when he married Angie. It proved unsustainable. Usually, when you go out in public and see couples together you go, 'yeah, I can see that...' We fall into the category of 'Wow, he must be loaded...'

He is not, unless there is brown liquor anywhere in arm's reach... then maybe he's a little loaded. Maybe all these years they've been saying 'bloated...' That I can see. Unless it's down by my feet, in which case it may as well not be there at all since that whole region of the floor is completely invisible to me. but I digress. Sorry, I was channeling a little Rodney Dangerfield in there. 'Very little!', I can hear Rodney say from the great beyond.

Truth is, we got a good thing that seems to get better with age, just like you do, Em. I hope you love your birthday and people make as big a deal out of it as you hoped. It's your day!

Other Items

My young and talented friend Tyler McRobert, who is a student in the high school youth group to which I devote some time, has created the Uebbing Dictionary. Some time back, I created a blentry on made up words, like, um, blentry. You can read the post here. I welcome your submissions and will endeavor to scour back through some blentries and add some new ones in. I will also do my level best to carry a pen and notepad with me at all times as I make these things up all the time and they are lost to the ages almost as soon as they come out. Thank you, Tyler for all your time and your interest. Please don't let it affect your school work, and whenever you come across a swear word in my blog, please just say the word 'rainbow' instead.

We are in the middle of the best winter storm, ever. It is windy and cold, and has dumped snow all around the city where my office is. It is icy and nasty out, enough that my meetings have been canceled because the bosses who were coming up are stuck. All I have to do now is a bunch of paperwork. I don't have to leave the house, which as I often profess is my favorite thing in the world in any weather. the best part is there is no snow for me to shovel. We are in a pocket of little to no participation so far this winter due to the geography of Western Michigan and the wind coming out of the north, rather than from the West Northwest like it usually does. What this means is the lake effect snow stays closer to where it belongs, the lake.

The downside? It is coooooold. In fact, there is a wind chill warning in effect in my house. I tried to light candles last night, but every time the wind blew, they went out. It's sort of like lightning, first the flash, then the boom... first you feel the wind, then you hear the house rattling. This is a new thing for us as our sturdy old house is heavily framed and usually feels very solid, if a little drafty.

To get an idea of what I mean, sometimes the wind inside the house is enough to make the actors' hair blow on T.V. Sometimes it is so windy the dust bunnies go rolling in the breeze across the floor like so many tumbleweeds. It is so drafty in the house we can smell the neighbor's dinner. You get the point.

Anyway, I'd rather be in the house, near the coffee pot, working placidly at my desk than to be out there doing, whatever it is people do out there when it gets like this. Too bad Em still has to go out. The class of learning impaired students that she volunteers with wants to celebrate her birthday with her. I guess that's the downside to wanting everyone to make a big deal out of your birthday. I just smiled and waved from the front window in my robe with my cup of coffee as she trudged off... Until a stiff wind knocked me over. Damn... I mean, Rainbow.