Happy Birthday to me!

Yep, today is my birthday. Being of a "certain age", I'm not telling the exacts, but I doubt I'll be living the same number again.

Birthdays are nostalgic. I tend to look back to special birthdays and smile. I also think of the parties I've given myself at 30, 40, 50, 55... oops! telling my age here... and the supposition that I don't want to wait until the next milestone at 60 to be doing it again. So, this is fair warning to my friends: I'm seriously considering one for 57 1/2.

So far today, I've fielded "happy birthday"s from the cat who woke me up at 4:30 in order to be first (my husband thinks he was merely hungry but did rush to be second to say it), both sons, my sister (who lauded that I'd always be older), and a friend who asked me to lunch. My dance card being full today, we're dining on Thursday. This is how one celebrates one's birthday all week.

My greatest birthday story is how I was named. My parents (in a fit of feistiness I never recall seeing) bet on my name and date of birth. I was due near my dad's birthday. They readily agreed on the name for a son (something to do with a Junior) but the girl name was leading to disagreement. So they bet that should I be born on my dad's birthday, he would name me. And I was. And he did. So instead of being a Deborah Kay which is what my mother wanted (and as it turns out there were three others in my class), I am a Velta Kay, named for my mother, Velta Lee. In most instances, I've dropped the Velta, but it lingers nonetheless. Two years later, with my sister due around the same date, my mother declined to bet. I think they must have agreed upon the name anyway.

But every year after I left home and married, my mother would call at the minute of my birth to wish me happy birthday. Sad to say, I think I miss that the most about her. I know I did the year she died. There was no one to call at 9:26 in the morning and say, Happy Birthday.