Sunday Downburst - 20820 Days and Counting

...whether you're having fun or not.

Have I mentioned how much I LOATH my birthday? Ever since I can remember, and I can with great clarity remember every one from my 4th birthday on, my birthday has been synonymous with a terrible, miserable, absolutely rotten day. Pets die, car crashes occur, terrible storms arrive, and anything else you can think of that constitutes a personal or communal catastrophe happens either ON the day or within a couple of days, either side. Remember eight years ago? We were all trembling in shock from the events of 9/11 as I turned 49 and NO ONE noticed. Well, one friend did...my sweet next door neighbor who had the rotten luck to celebrate HIS birthday on Sept 11. A year later, the neighbor son on the other side was born on the 12th. Yeah, counting his mother and sister and my friend/cohabitant Peter, there were SIX Virgos in three consecutive houses. Be afraid, be very, very afraid...

But this is about the crap day that always seems to be my birthday, no matter how good I feel or how fine a mood I'm in at the beginning of the day.

No, there will NOT be cake.

Today, as the newest example, I got up in the middle of the night for a drink and a stop in the bathroom, and reached for the glass of juice I always keep next to the bed. Yeah, you guessed it...3AM, half a glass of GRAPE juice spilled-all-over-the-carpet-and-my-precious-sketch-pad later, the lights are all on and I'm running to the kitchen for paper towels and spray cleanser. Half hour later, I'm back in bed, staring at the ceilng. Yup, must be my birthday.

This morning, I got up and sat down with my cup of eye opener while I waited for a wave of pain to pass. I opened the card and wee gift that awaited me by the coffee pot, then proceeded to have a crap time of getting breakfast together. You'd THINK toast would be pretty easy, huh? Not toDAY.

About twenty years ago, I actually realised there was some crummy cosmic pattern involving September 13th, so I decided to change the date I celebrated my birthday. I consulted a variety of oracles and after seeing a lovely biorhythm pattern of perfect peaks of physical, emotional, and intellectual cycles on that date for that year and the following two, I decided on October 2nd. Coincidentally, the first person I informed of the change was born on the 2nd of October...he thought I was joking! Stuff that makes you say "hmmm..."

Another step down my path

So I celebrated my birthday on October 2nd for five years running, having absolutely glorious days each time, and I figured I had broken the curse so I returned to celebrating on September 13 again. I actually had a pretty good birthday for a couple of years, and then back in the toilet the event went. I think I should really consider altering the date again, don't you?

For today, though, I'm just going to sit here, type, sew a little, watch some global disaster shows on The History Channel, and wait for another birthday to pass.

UPDATE - ONE HOUR LATER

Remember the middle of the night grape juice incident? That was NUTHIN' Peter and I have just spent the last half hour or so cleaning up a MUCH bigger spill of the same substance. THIS time I moved the same way I've moved a thousand times before, but this time a FULL - that's a 20oz glass - tumbler of grape juice got knocked over, spilling across my bedside chest (where I'd piled stuff the night before during the clean up), down through all three drawers, soaking a multitude of stuff that I haven't yet been able to face, and (thank GOD) soaking both the throw rug next to my bed and my (formerly) lovely yellow linen blouse. Purple and yellow make a particularly dreary shade of grey, btw. So NOW I have to clean everything from the drawers, then clean the room, and finally do a thorough vacuuming before moving the bedside chest and tackling the stain.

Anyone care to TRADE birthdays? Please?