Friday, February 10, 2006

Happy Birthday to Me

I used to have a boss, early in my career, who never had a birthday -- he had a birthweek. By the end of the week he looked like he would bleed to death through his eyeballs.

I also have problems getting my annual celebrations completed in one day: now that my kids are not all living at home the birthday celebration seems to move to the nearest free date, and sometimes there are multiple celebrations (usually a dinner somewhere) depending on when/if they come to visit.

On the day of my 50th, my wife organized a surprise party for me. We were supposed to have one couple over for a BBQ and a swim, but an hour later the doorbell started ringing. Fooled me completely. Good on her.

Two days later (July 24th 2005) my wife, my at-home daughter, and my no-longer-at-home daughter (and her boyfriend) had lunch with me at the Ritz on the Canal. It was a hot and sunny summer day, and we enjoyed lunch sitting on the patio in the sun with the boats floating by on the Rideau Canal. Then came the little cake with the sparkler in it, and daughter K gave me a computer-generated birthday card with a really weird poem. Mega weird. Ummm, thanks. I didn't want to say something like "this looks like what you used to write when you were in grade 2."

Then she gave me the "gift certificate". The Soaring School doesn't sell gift certificates per se, so K generated her own, telling me I could redeem it by going to the Soaring School and signing up for a glider flight.

I was gobsmacked.

When picking a birthday present, sometimes you hit a foul, usually you connect for a single or a double. My family had tagged this one out of the park.

The "gift certificate" basically said I was to go to the School and pay my own money for my own present, so the monetary value of the piece of paper in my hand was nil. But they gave me what I really needed to start on my journey into flight: a kick in the pants and the command to go do something.

I guess they got tired of hearing me talk about flying, and decided that it was time to stop talking and start flying.

Over 40+ years I never gave myself permission to take the first step. In my 50th year, my family did.

And so it begins.......

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