About to Celebrate # 59

This week is my birthday. Some people get a little crazy about birthdays, but that’s not the case with me. This year I will be celebrating No. 59.
I love cake, but at my age I feel that it would be easier to forget the candles and simply start a brushfire in the back yard, throw on a couple of Hostess Twinkies and call it a party.
It would definitely save a great deal of time, but I’d hate to knock all those wax workers out of the overtime they’d miss by not making candles for my cake.
Some families don’t really celebrate birthdays that much. When the kids get too big to ride ponies and are no longer afraid of clowns, families often acknowledge birthdays by sending a lame card or a Happy Birthday message on Facebook.
Not so with the Rickster. As long as my mama was able to cook, she’d whip out a birthday dessert fit for a king. Chocolate, red velvet, or coconut cakes were normal offerings for the occasion.
After I started dating Jilda, she began making me a birthday cake too. I’m not talking about one of those store-bought desserts that are about as edible as day old road kill out on Highway 78, but a real cake, with real sugar.
A confection that hits your bloodstream like a Ferrari juiced up on premium high test gasoline. Three bites and you’re high as a kite.
Now that’s what I call a birthday cake! In all the years we’ve been together, she has never forgotten my birthday.
I’ve heard people say their 30th birthday or their 50th birthdays were hard, but that wasn’t the case with me.
I am, however, a little apprehensive about No. 60 next year.
My old sister Mary Lois (she loves it when I say that), hit 60 a few years ago and I might have been a bit unkind.
I said some things that I fear may come back to haunt me on Jan. 15, 2011.
She actually got off lucky because I wanted to send male strippers dressed as morticians but I couldn’t find dancers that weren’t freaked about riding in a hearse so I buried that idea.
That’s probably fortunate for me because my sister is really creative and she could make my 60th difficult had I stepped over the line on her birthday.
My mother-in-law Ruby said on her 86th birthday that she felt 20 years old, until she looked into a mirror.
I still feel young even though my hair has gone south and my knees squeak when I stand up too quickly.
I believe birthdays are special. I have my iPhone programmed to remind me of the birthdays of all my family and friends.
And on those birthdays, I take a few minutes, no matter how busy I am, to call and say happy birthday. I think it says, “I love you and I’m so happy you were born.”
Here’s a quote for the men out there.
“A true diplomat a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday, but never remembers her age.”
– Author unknown.
But by far one of the best birthday quotes is by Frank Sinatra.
He said “May you live to be a hundred and may the last voice you hear be mine.”