July, the P word and birthdays

It’s Sunday evening. Like most of you, I’m tired of The Pandemic. I’m tired of writing about it. I’m tired of living it. I’m just, plain and simple, tired. But, I’m not sure if I’m ready to go back to “the good old days”, because I can’t imagine getting too close to people outside of my close family. The possibility of being in a public place without a mask is a bit daunting. And, here I sit. I am happy to have been double-vaccinated. I was fortunate to be one of those people who didn’t suffer any side effects from the vaccine. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but I don’t like being indisposed. When I had a Tuberculous vaccination, I didn’t get the classic welt or scar and I never got TB, so I guess I’m okay without side effects. LOML was also double-vaccinated without suffering any side effects. Most of our adult family has also had both vaccines. The end, I hope.

Sunday used to be a crappy day for me when I was a nine-to-fiver in the world-of-work. I would have spent five days at work, looking forward to the weekend. I whooped it up on Friday evening and all day on Saturday then dragged my sorry butt around on Sunday because Monday was just around the corner. I can’t get any of those wasted Sundays back, but I do try to make up for it now. Sunday has become the day I don’t hike, cycle or run. On Sunday I eat whatever I want. On Sunday I drink whatever I want. Also, on Sunday I work on this column. Some Sundays I paint. Some Sundays I sew. Most Sundays I bake something for the cookie jar. Sunday isn’t a drag anymore. I don’t have the start of a workweek looming. Sunday is the day I get a fix on the good things I have to look forward to during the week, which doesn’t include going to work. This Sunday I devoted some time to wondering how it became 56years since I met LOML and almost 49 years since we moved to Prince Edward County. How did that happen? Wasn’t I just looking forward to graduation and to finding a full-time job? If I don’t look in the mirror, I’m still twenty-something. If I’m playing on the floor with the youngest grandkid, the moment I try to get into a standing position I’m reminded of my twenty-something years with forty-nine years of experience. A wise person once said, “At our age, never sit on the floor without a concrete plan for getting up.” Indeed. The things I think about on Sunday. I was once so young I never thought I’d be living in this century. The twenties were so far off.

So, back to Sundays and now it’s half past July. July, it’s a big month for our blended clan. We celebrate at least two birthdays a week during the month of July, and of the eight birthdays we celebrate, only one falls on a Sunday. So, next Sunday (the 18th) will be extra special. I get to do all of my usual Sunday things and my baby sister-in-law who was born on the 18th of July, twenty-something years ago with a few years of experience will whoop it up for her birthday. When I was a kid, birthdays weren’t really a big deal. My parents’ families didn’t really celebrate birthdays when there were so many religious holidays to honour instead. Being one of seven kids, in a nine (sometimes ten) person household, birthdays were probably a pain in the backside and pocketbook to my parents. When I met LOML in 1965, I met a family of birthday celebrators! His family believed in big, store-bought cakes with rock hard flower decorations, piped on greetings and as many candles as necessary to make it right. Everyone’s birthday was an occasion to have pastel-coloured crepe paper streamers crisscrossed over the dining room table with beautifully wrapped gifts stacked on the sideboard and a special dinner. It was a bit exciting, novel and completely overwhelming to me. Don’t get me wrong, I was onboard for a birthday celebration, I just wasn’t prepared for A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION.

More than 50 years later, I’ve been known to put on a grand birthday celebration rivalling the best LOML’s family could throw together. And then? Well, and then the reasons for a big, noisy celebrations moved away to be with their own families and we were almost back to square one. It’s hard to scale back on the size of a birthday cake and when a cake does get baked just for the two of us. If I do bake we know we’ll be eating cake for days, especially since the P-word-thingy started last year and our children and their children haven’t been able to visit. Both LOML and I were born in July, but his family traditions clearly specify there will be two separate cakes. LOML doesn’t bake so I’ll be doing that job. I wonder if I could bake and decorate one cake, cut it in half and make it do for two separate birthdays? I’m not sure if that’s bending the birthday rules or not. There definitely won’t be crepe paper streamers or oodles of gifts on the sideboard. That’s where I draw the line. And, who knows, maybe a glass of local bubbly or three, even though our birthdays aren’t on Sundays. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Happy July. Eat cake and drink bubbly as if it were Sunday. Skip the streamers.