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Have whatever you want even if it's not on the McDonald's dollar menu
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I’ve decided that today is my birthday. Again. Not that this old girl needs any extra birthdays, thank you, but the real one last month pretty much blew. So today I’m taking a do-over. I figure if I can move time with a VCR or DVR and watch Entourage at 5pm on Tuesday if I want, than I should be able to celebrate my birthday whenever I want. 
But let’s back up here while I tell you the story of my real birthday which took place during our work/vacation in the Catskill Mountains … my very favorite place on earth. Jeff had a bunch of comedy gigs up there and I was his GPS. In between we walked and read and relaxed and had a beautiful time.
Then here came Saturday, August 1st. “Hi Mom, Happy Happy Birthday” was my first phone call from daughter Heather in Florida. “Doing anything special?” “Dad has two gigs tonight so we’ll just eat some cereal in the room before we go. No biggie,” I answer.
“Hi Mom, Happy Happy Birthday”, second call from London from my son Cory. All day long came calls and emails from Florida, California, NewYork. I heard from almost everyone I knew and loved. Even from my sister Michele who hardly ever remembers birthdays. But the one person who didn’t remember it was my birthday was my own husband. Even though it was the first time he’d forgotten since 1970, and even though I told him not to buy me a thing (we’d just seen “Hair” on Broadway a few weeks earlier and called it my birthday present), I was still upset.
First thing in the morning I’d gone out by myself to take a walk and left Jeff to get some extra sleep. Heading up the narrow mountain road to see if it was re-opened from the previous day’s flood, I rounded the narrow curve when a pickup truck buzzed by at sixty. I got a flash of Stephen King, but continued on my way so I could re-route our trip if the road would still be closed later on. I wanted to be prepared for our drive to the gigs.
When I finally did get back to the room after checking with four different hotel people about alternate routes, I was greeted by housekeeping. No Jeff, no birthday note, no cell phone message, no nothing.
“Anything you’d like to say?” I asked when he returned to the room and hour later. “Had a great walk, how about you?” was his answer. Okay so that’s how the day was going to go. I knew his head was occupied with work stuff, so I figured I could wait until later in the evening to get some birthday recognition. And I was right. At midnight, after both shows were successfully completed and navigated, he pulled the car into the McDonald’s drive-through. “Have anything you want tonight even if it’s not on the dollar menu,” he said. Happy Birthday to me.
Truth is, I’m kind of glad he forgot my birthday, because when our anniversary rolled around last week he actually sprung for the Deluxe bouquet from Publix supermarket instead of the usual three for ten dollar variety. Guilt is a beautiful thing.
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