A Puzzlement and Birthday Thoughts~~~~

Well Sweet things, I survived my first day back to work after getting over the flu, but not without some consequences.

I’m still plagued with the dry hack cough, so I must be sure to carry cough drops if water is not available, and I was so tired at work that I took a short nap on my lunch hour, I came home and instead of dinner fell asleep, finally woke up two hours later, a bit of low seasoned chicken stew, and now am trying to get back to sleep to face work tomorrow. (pitiful mew)

I finally have been checking things and I have a puzzlement, dear Fram and several other of my web log friends have asked why I didn’t post any comments to my post from this last Friday, the reason is I didn’t receive any, which has me puzzled. This has happened once before, but I’m not sure if it’s some sort of glitch or if for some reason the monitoring section didn’t allow the comment to reach me. (quizzical face)

If any of you did post a comment for Friday the 13th of March, please try again and I’ll see if it registers. Otherwise I just don’t have any idea what happened. Although I did have a problem logging on to Blogspot that day just to check things, for two hours I kept getting that it was not available. Did anyone else have that problem?

WHAT ARE BIRTHDAYS??

I’ve been trying to think what, really are birthdays. I mean considering that there are what? 2 or 3 billion people on this planet and there are only 365 days in a calendar year, so obviously we must share birthdays with a lot of other people that we don’t know about. But birthdays are special, in fact for many people, especially children they are very special. Why??

Because it’s YOUR Day, you may share it with several million other people but no matter what it’s YOUR Day, to be acknowledged by family and close friends, that this day has a special meaning to you.

At a certain point in the Universe you appeared on this planet, to grow, learn, affect, create an effect upon others, to interact, make a contribution, to save, or prevent actions from happening and to create actions to happen. But each one of us, even though we share this particular day with several million other people, is unique.

Yes, unique----now if we want to take into account astrology and the alignment of the sun, moon, planets and stars and allow that they in some indefinable way affect us and our eventual adult personalities, then the very year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second starts to make us unique, if you include location, then that defines you even more.

But no matter what, we are unique and depending upon the culture and familial outlook upon birthdays, we somehow celebrate it.

Children look upon birthdays as being a time that is special to them, that it cannot be taken away from them, that they are recognized as an individual within the group, of course it’s more difficult if you are twins, triplets or heaven forbid, Octopulets, then it makes it hard to be recognized as an individual. But let’s put that thought aside and concentrate on just you.

For the individual child it’s celebration, cake, ice cream, a party and presents, whether it’s a Barbie Party, a Disney Princess Party or a Hanna Montana Party. I guess for boys it would be Spiderman, Dinosaurs, Racing Cars or the X-men.

Then as one gets older birthdays become milestones, turning 13 when you’re not a child nor an adult but someone between or a teenager, for Jewish children especially boys it’s a Bar Mitzvah, for girls a Bat Mitzvah it means that you have greater responsibilities for you are being admitted into the community as a growing adult.

For Catholic children when you turn 13 or sometime during your teen years if you are a serious dedicated religious youth you receive confirmation into the faith and become a “solider for God”. I understand that in the last 20 years they’ve changed the timing of that sacrament.

Among Latina girls the Quencilla (I’m not sure how’s that spelled) I do know that it means you’ve turned 15 which is a religious ceremony and it’s like a coming out party “I’m on my way to adulthood”. The Latina girl who is being celebrated wears a dress and veil much like a wedding dress and if the family can afford it a very big celebration.

But there are birthday ceremonies that celebrate milestones that are non-religious for many girls it’s a Sweet 16 party, also like a “coming out party”.

I’m not sure what it is for boys maybe it’s when they get their driver’s license sometime soon after their birthday in their later teens.

Then another milestone is when one turns 18, you can vote, and in some states legally drink alcohol.

The next is when you turn 21, and then you are considered to be fully an adult although there are some parents who might debate that.

But after that it becomes all down hill, you hit 30, 40, you’re considered over the hill at 50, and at 60 it’s considered a miracle that you made it.

But then something happens you hit 70, 80, 90 and more importantly 100 and are still going strong, people start doing some serious celebrating again, especially if you hit 100.

But no matter what Birthdays are special, even if you go through the “7 ages of man”( or woman hood) as Shakespeare refers to it, you start “mewing” and you end “mewing”, but for some people they say it’s O.K. and perfectly alright to enjoy your second childhood of birthdays because you earned it!

So what are Birthdays??? Well as one acquaintance of mine refers to it, “Birthdays come after you reach a certain number of years---and you celebrate them because you SURVIVED that many.”

And when she told me that, I sat down with a ‘wump’, you celebrate your birthday because you manage to survive that year of ups and downs and that is a very good reason to celebrate.

Well my birthday is coming up in a few days, and I am going to celebrate, oh nothing outrageous or fancy, but with a few good friends, and to just be happy.

Now there is someone I know who had (because I’m posting this so late) a birthday and I’ve someone to wish Fram Happy Birthday (sorry it’s a little late) and I hope you like who has a birthday cake for you and who is going to blow out the candle for you. Be sure to make a wish. That’s important too. Happy Birthday!!

Until later, enjoy, and stay healthy