Birthday Kisses

The movie was great! I laughed, I cried, I ate popcorn, but only a little bit, and drank water. There were just two other people in the theatre besides my business partner and myself, so I felt free to laugh as loudly as I wanted. Lots of sex in that movie, too. I like movies with a little sex, or a lot. This one was perfect in that regard. I wish I had a better mind for movie one liners, because there were many I wish I could remember.

I’m off now to get a manicure. I have to present the audit I just did to the board of one of my non-profit clients at 7:00, so I don’t think I have time for a pedicure.

No one has kissed me today, although I’m sure I’ll finagle one out of each of my sons.

Special

It’s funny. Today is just like any other day to the rest of the world, but May 22 has always been my birthday, and it has ALWAYS been special…to me. Only to me. No one else that I know shares my birthday, although the chances of me knowing someone else who’s birthday is today should be pretty good…I know significantly more people than 365. I know someone who’s birthday is the day after mine, and I know someone who’s birthday is the day before, but no one who shares my birthday.

I’m getting lots of calls, emails, comments on my blog. I never doubt that I am loved on my birthday. It makes me feel a little guilty that I am so bad about wishing other’s happy birthday. I usually remember at the last minute, usually manage a phone call or an email, but never seem to have the ability to really do anything on the birthday day. Except my kids, of course. I am pretty good at making them feel loved all the time, but ESPECIALLY on their birthday.

I packed my lunch today…salmon from two days ago, cauliflower from last night. I wanted to keep the calories down to a minimum so that I could splurge a little at Maggiano’s tonight, and not go over my caloric intake goal.

Heading off to play hooky and see Forgetting Sarah Marshall with my business partner.

Birthday Part II

Dang! I got carried away finishing the mulch project and I’ve run out of time to go to the gym and read my book, Feast for Crows, the fourth and last book in George R R Martin’s series, Song of Fire and Ice. I have a client appointment at 11:00, so no time to exercise any more than I already have. The rest of my day is full already. I’ll just have to do a ride a Larry on Saturday to make up for it. I’m taking my book to the office. I might just do a little reading there, as a gift to myself, because I missed getting to read this morning.

Oh, but my yard looks nice. It’s good to get that mulching done. I have the opposite of ADD. I get obsessive until a job is completed. I call it Project Completion Disorder. That’s what makes me a good auditor, though. That and the brains. And maybe the beauty. Nah. Beauty has nothing to do with auditing, unless it is used to make the men spill their secrets. Ok, maybe the beauty, too.

It’s funny. When I started this accounting firm 17 years ago, and hired my first employees, we were all in our late twenties, early thirties. We were the HOT MAMA accounting firm. Now we are middle aged. Not too long from now, we will be the old lady accounting firm.

I guess it’s better than the alternative. Hahaha.

Happy Birthday to Myself

Today is my birthday. I’m going to post as many times as I can today, so check back, if you want, for updates on my day. As a gift to myself, I am going to record for posterity, everything that happened to me on my 49th birthday.

I woke at 2:30am, the carpel tunnel in my right hand quivering in protest of my sleeping position. I looked at the clock, adorned myself with my oh so attractive wrist brace, wished myself a happy birthday, and went back to sleep.

I woke again at 4:35, having just finished a very long dream involving Brad Pitt and kissing. I looked at the clock and laughed to myself, uttering a tiny thank you to the universe for sending me a Brad Pitt kissing dream on my birthday. I didn’t even know that I was particularly attracted to Brad Pitt. After all, he cheated on his wife and seemed so supremely arrogant in Troy…but that was a movie character, not an actual depiction of Brad himself, right? I rarely have kissing dreams, and almost never with people I’ve never met, much less celebrities, so I was grateful.

I pulled myself out of bed at 6:30, donned my dirty gardening clothes, intent on finishing the mulch pile I had almost disposed of last night. I grabbed my coffee, did a tour of my flowers. A few more sweet peas came up, but the cannas and gladiolus are still slumbering, and no news from the African Elephant Ears, either. Perhaps I need to sing to them….

It was too cold to do the mulch in my clothes from last night, so I put on long pants and a sweatshirt and sat down to check my email. Four birthday cards awaited me as well as my daily SAT question of the day to keep my mind sharp. Thank you, my sweet friends, for remembering me today.

I played a game of spider solitaire, which I lost, read AAG’s blog, checked Waiterrant for a new post…there wasn’t one, and typed a few words here.

Ok, this is boring.

Maybe I’ll only post really fun stuff today. Tell you what. I’ll post every time someone kisses me or sends me a card. 

For any of you who live close by me, do me a favor and drive by my house. Admire my flowers and the new mulch adding background color to my garden. Say a prayer for my African Elephant Ears…after you’ve, you know, prayed for the orphans in China after the earthquake and the sad people in the aftermath of the tidal wave, and the folks in Darfur and other angry places in African, Iraq, and the Middle East.

Sigh.

You’re right, my African Elephant Ears will do just fine. Pray for those other people instead.

Check back later. Today is my day to do what I want, and I want to post about everything and nothing today.

Noteworthy

New surprises greeted me this morning in my wet garden walk. Two more lilies peeked through the sodden ground. Several gladiolas sent slivers of green in prayer towards the sky. One lonely cannas sent a single shoot up to scout around for the other five slumbering nearby. Sweet pea seeds shot up stalks three inches tall over night.

I am waiting, in breathless anticipation, for my African elephant ear plants to make an appearance. I planted them in early April, but I worry that I planted them before the last frost. Were they to not come up, I would be very sad. I’ve had them for three years, carefully digging them up in the fall, sending off their babies to the homes of friends. Every year, I worry about them. They are huge and expensive bulbs, not at all native to Ohio, but they add a dimension of the exotic to my backyard sanctuary, and I would greatly miss them, if they chose not to perform this year. If they are not up by this weekend, I’m afraid I will have to disturb their soiled slumber to check on them. And buy new bulbs, if I have to.

Most of you are probably not at all interested in what’s happening in Betty’s garden. My twenty seven dahlias, now tomato caged and flourishing probably concern you not. The immergence of seedlings that will one day bear blossoms of every color of the rainbow most likely cause you to yawn in boredom. Get on with it, you whisper to your computer screen, scanning quickly down the page. Tell us what we really want to know.

Sigh.

Is it enough to say that I am feeling peaceful, calm in my heart? Is it sufficient to assure you that the idea of weekends ahead, of Saturdays by myself, scares me not in the least? The other side of the king sized bed is occupied only by pillows, one of which says “Well behaved women rarely make history”.

And that’s ok. For now, for a long while, if need be.

Because I fully intend on someday doing something noteworthy.

Garden Forgiveness

Mother, forgive me, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks and three days since my last blog post.

I have been worshipping at your alter, though, Divine Grower of all Things Beautiful. I have been a faithful servant of your work. I have oohed and aahed over your creations to the far reaches of the land-the lilacs of Arnold’s Arboretum in Massachusetts and the tulips and dogwoods of Boston Commons; the tremulous green growth in Northern Kentucky, and the breathtaking beauty of the Waite Estate in southern Ohio.

I have been on my knees, oh Great Green Thumb, pleading for your blessings on my babies, planted lovingly, carefully, in beds of richness and dark, loose soil. I have toiled on your behalf, turning shovelfuls of dirt, breaking clods, tilling soil, loosening, welcoming, preparing the way for new life to grow amidst my garden. I have fallen into bed, night after lovely night, aching and exhausted, only to rise and cry tears of joy as toddler seedlings unfurled their tiny leaves, one after a blessed other.

Eighteen different kinds of seeds, I planted. And fertilized with organic goodness. And watered until you so graciously took the sprinkler from my hand and did the job for me from the heavens. Every morning, my steaming mug of Hazelnut in hand, I survey your work, and mark our progress. Almost all the seeds I planted have germinated, and those that haven’t, according to the seed packages, are still slumbering beneath their earthy blankets.

I lay in my bed at night and dream of what lies ahead, of the color and beauty that awaits my senses each morning. Already, the Iris, bluesy and rusty and husky, sing lustily to me, and the coreopsis are in sheltered rehearsal, waiting their cue to open their buds and belt out their yellow song. The poppies are swelling in a scarlet memorized melody, anticipating their grand entrance. And the snapdragons, of every color and hue, generously populated from last year’s seeds, and persistently promising flowers from old roots as well, have sent out their scouts and are preparing their own presentation. The purple and white and violet trumpets in the columbine section are winding up their annual siren songs, and will soon surrender to the dinner plate dahlias, growing with great speed and vigor behind them.

The impatiens I planted are bursting with vibrant color. They dot the perimeter of my gardens with an instant rainbow. Usually, I choose only one color and white, but this year, I was inspired to plant mixed colors, without rhyme or reason, every color of impatiens I could find. I am pleased with the result.