Birthday 2021

My day started with some actual fanfare. I was greeted by a chorus of birthday greetings from four others. It’s a far cry from some of my lonely birthdays, where I worked and no one knew. There were some gifts and even though she hates them, Mother cooked me some eggs. I started my day with a couple of makeshift breakfast samidges and some OJ.

That was after I’d opened my first gift. I got some transom straps for the boat, a Christmas tree ornament of a boat and some parchment paper for the air fryer to reduce cleanup efforts. That was from my parents. I’d previously received my gifts from STL Sister and my BIL and my gift from Sudbury Sister was in the mail. The Chef’s father, New WB would be delivering it tomorrow. He was by the house several times previously to drop these gifts off. That’s the perils of providing an Amazon based list to people.

After breakfast my family went to go play pickleball and left me to head to work. I went to prepare and the Titi dog followed me to pee on my rug again. I guess that was his gift for me, or he was jealous of the attention I got or was scared of me or just spiteful. Either way, he felt suitably guilty and this time hid under the desk in the office. He hid so well he eventually fell asleep. Tough life.

I joined the last day of the three day meeting and before break Garzy reminded the team it was my birthday. A handful had known and reached out beforehand but her reminder started the deluge of texts and messages. I wanted to thank everyone because when you have a few in a row with no warm wishes it does make you thankful. While the meeting droned on about topics not relevant to my work I dabbled in some problem solving on the side. I was getting my inbox whittled down before going off for a week and loading it back up. I was doing the meeting through my iPad so I was able to range a bit too. That allowed me to do laundry and some other chores around the house while participating. I’m still not used to that freedom. Lunch showed up before I knew it and I was done for the day. Mother rolled up a tasty wrap of leftover chicken, Chick Fil-A sauce and assorted veggies for me and poured a treat of some chocolate milk. Good fuel for the afternoon.

That fuel was used up in short order. We had plans that would have us out and about during the heat of the day and it was a heated one. It said that it was 33C and feeling like 39C. We made sure we all had water with us when we headed out. The plan was to golf the front nine of the fabled New Liskeard Golf Club. My home course when I was a lad is still very familiar to me. I’m not sure they have changed a thing on the front, maybe to make it easier. It was in phenomenal shape with the weather up North. We got checked in and were there very early to try and stretch and shake the rust off. My BIL had golfed already in 2021 but I hadn’t swung a club since 2017 and the Big T was allegedly in that range as well. It showed for us on the first couple of holes. I lost four balls in three holes, including two on the second hole, a short par three. I put up a couple of sevens and a six before I stopped the bleeding. As it turned out, I really had forgotten how to swing but remembered the couple of key ingredients for myself and I started to come back to form a bit. It was incredibly hot so the course was relatively quiet. There was a dude in jeans playing alone behind us, we told him he could play through and his game suddenly went to hell. He couldn’t hit it fifty yards and he started running between shots and then started sweating really hard. Poor guy, I don’t think he knew much about etiquette or the game in general. We had a nice couple of hours.

We finished strong and nobody lost anything. My BIL lead the pack and I was in the middle and Big T was a few strokes off the pace. He had a couple of implosion holes where he lifted his head too many times. I think even he had a good time. My BIL said he had to go pick some stuff up in town so he took off and we headed back out to the house. We got there and finished setting things up for the company that was coming. There would be a decent crowd for my birthday. I think it was the first time I had that much family around to celebrate my birth since I left home twenty years ago. Admiral Bonesaw and Dutchie even came up for it. Amongst other things but it was nice to see them and formally meet their daughters. We figured out that sitting out front of the house was the coolest spot and soon the crowd gathered. We had an amazing meal. This is pretty typical of our family gatherings, incredible amounts of food. This was no exception and the crowning touch had to be the cake. My BIL had picked it up after golf and it was huge. He got the full slab (which isn’t cheap) and I think we would have had lots with the half slab. He didn’t know and I wouldn’t have either, plus now I have a mountain of excellent cake to deal with, the best problem to have! There was also iced cream, I had both.

After eating some hot dogs for supper and amazing salads, including Mother’s famous Chicken Taco Salad, we retreated to the rapidly cooling backyard to encircle the firepit. We spread out the chairs and started a fire. It wasn’t going to be a long fire but we got some coals going and the kids roasted (ignited) some marshmallows. I even got to have a couple this time around.

The little girls eventually had to be corraled and run back into town so that signalled the end of the evening for us. It was a pretty good birthday and I’m glad we got to get together. Might not get such a chance again either. I tried to take a panoramic photo with everyone who stayed for the fire and it turned out mediocre, it’s below. The guests went home and my BIL and I extinguished the fire with the hose and we all were in bed around ten and I was asleep before eleven. That was a good one, even if I had to work half of it.