“It’s my birthday, and I can do whatever I want” is a mantra that both my husband and I subscribe to…within reason. For example, I probably shouldn’t go to Paris for a day or adopt five adorable kittens from the animal shelter.
About thirty years ago, with our children grown and our budget in reasonable shape, I thought seriously about what I wanted to make my day special. I didn’t have to think long. The best present would be to be warm. I wanted to walk out the door, sans coat, and see palm trees.
Being a New Year’s Eve baby and a lifelong Wisconsin resident, I can count on having snow, ice, frigid temperatures or all three for my birthday weather. My mother loved to recount how she bundled me up on my second birthday and put me on a sled during a snowfall to go to the grocery store for ice cream.
Fortuitously, I have family and friends in both San Diego and Tucson. For many decades I’ve got not only the gift of warmth but also loving people with whom I can share my cake. There has been only one year when there were no palm trees. That was in 1999 when my husband was too fearful of plane travel. Like all computer programmers who worked in the 70, 80 and 90s, he was not sure all those computer programs could handle a new millennium.
By some miracle, the planes did not all fall out of the skies and computer Armageddon did not occur. We had a big, winter bonfire on the beach that momentous night. Not bad, but palm trees would have been better.
