The Year She Wasn't Sixty Yet

So it started like this...

What is it about the day of our birth, that we seem to want to recognize?

In the beginning...

The beginning of all that has happened since then.

Ms. SpoolTeacher has trouble processing very much emotion; so, she didn't notate her birthdate on Facebook.

Happy Birthday.
"Liked"
Thank you.
Hope you're having a great day.
"Liked"
Thank you.
Hope you're doing something special for yourself.
"Liked"
Thank you, (but I'm cleaning someone's house today and then grocery shopping for a friend who is lame and then cleaning my own house)
"You liked this."
Thank you.

How can she tell them she hasn't any friends. Oh, well they can tell by the Facebook count. Oops!

"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Ms. SpoolTeacher, Happy Birthday to you!"

Thank you.

"And many more...!"

There mother always filmed them singing that song, but, of course it was before sound and they just had to imagine what they were saying when they played it back, but they knew.
"And mannnnny mooooore!"

The year her babysitter made her cake.

Her mother always made a double layered round cake and would only use powdered sugar, butter, vanilla and milk to make the icing.
She would separate out a little of the icing and color it with those poison food coloring drops and then she would take a large nail and etch a scallop all around the edge and fill the etched scallops in with a little of the poisoned stuff .
She also etched "Happy Birthday" and who ever's name it was and their year with the poisoned icing too (She didn't know it was poison then. You can't blame you mother for everything.)
Anyhoo, they would all make a special deal out of the birthday girl and she would feel like a queen for a day.

One year their mother got a great idea and decided they were too old for little girl birthday parties. She decided to take them, and whichever of their best friends wanted to go, out to a matinee movie on base and after the movie the soda shop for a malted or ice cream bowl. She'd drop them off and come back and take them for treats.

This year Little Ms. SpoolTeacher couldn't find anyone but one to come.
One sister was sick, another off at something else and no one wanted to be friends. No one but one (The story of her life. As she happens to like it, it turns out).

It turned out to be her most memorable birthday of youth.
Everything went wrong, but everything turned out right, different but right. Her mother made sure of that.


And her babysitter who liked her so much..

And Alvin her dog.

That was the year Mrs. Smith
gave her a lemon tree.

The "Ben Casey Tree". The tree that wouldn't die.

Not even after being transplanted from their little house on the lane up to the farmhouse on the main street and then several times around that property because the farm workers kept thinking it was getting in their way.
Not until she left home and wasn't attending it.

Well, this year Ms. SpoolTeacher told everyone she "wasn't sixty yet".
She had a horrible time turning 30, no trouble with 40 or 50 but expects 30 doubled will either be double trouble or double getting over trouble. She's hoping for the best...a few little years from now...Sixty's the new forty you know.

Well this year she did see a movie with friends but it was late in the evening at the friend's house and they all had pizza not pie or cake.

Her friend who is eighty something, going on sixty, sent her a check with one condition,
"I want you to buy a hummingbird feeder, and not one of those cheap little red things. I want you to find a nice one."
 

So after searching online and reading the critiques she bought one of the cheap little red things.

As cute as these were, the reviews said they were lousy.

So now she can have two, one for the front and one for the back, surely her friend won't be mad.

No sooner than she put it out last night, this morning watering the front, a little hummer was buzzing around her head like a helicopter... she hadn't seen any all summer, amazing is what they are. Amazing. 

She never saw one sipping, but they're coming in so it won't be long.
So, why, even though the emotions are too much, do we want the cake and friends and the day to feel like a queen?

To feel counted. To matter. To be seen. At least for the day.
She may leave the balloon up forever.
"Liked"
Just to remember the year she wasn't sixty yet.

Happy Birthday, Angie Boog...

My, how time does fly...

Here you are waiting in your Mama's tummy, Daddy eating a hamburger; we were all so looking forward to you.
It wasn't long before you arrived, much to our delight.
I babysat you one night not long after you'd arrived...I hovered over the crib all night, watching you breath, afraid you'd stop.
You looked like an angel.
Your Mama would buggy you over to my little house and we'd all sit and enjoy "our little girl baby".
I suppose you were a few months old when she left you with me there and I cleaned all my lower cupboards out so you could crawl through them, (there weren't any dividers). All the pots and pans were on the floor and you would sit among them and play for hours.

My friend and I would take you out to dinner and all you would eat is french fries and a coke and you would terrorize all the other diners by making a menace out of yourself; but I didn't know any better how to discipline you and I just wanted you to feel free...

As you grew up and started riding your little stingray bicycle, I can recall many, many times of driving up to your little house on the court and hear you exclaiming from afar, "Aunt Sahr!", That's how you said my name.
I loved it. I loved you. You'd come speeding up on your "motorcycle" and give me a giant hug.

I took you with me every chance I could, everywhere I went. Those were the days before seat belt laws and you would ride standing up right next to me. Sometimes we'd go all the way to the beach, just you and me.
I remember trying to get you to leave a shop but you were fascinated with something and I made the mistake of saying, "Okay, I'm leaving you here." You screamed and ran, but I felt just awful for doing it.

And do you remember the time you and I and one of your friends drove all the way from Tucson to California with the two of you in the bed of my truck dressed in your bathing suits, getting a suntan? Boy the truck drivers really were a honkin'! And then we broke down exactly at the desert "Camel Stop" mechanic shop and I had exactly the $18 dollars in my wallet needed to get whatever it was fixed.
Oh, the fun I have had with you.
And I love to see that your life has turned out so good and that you have become the wonderful woman that you are.

I found a few of these pictures that Gramma R had put in albums and left them to us after she died...

She put on the back of this one:
Angela's Birthday Slumber party 1983 9 yrs old Pomona
Rosie, Cindy, Angela, Cindy B, Missie
I think you guys all wore balloon boobies and marched around, quite proudly, laughing. (but not in this picture)

You and Melissa, you always a fashion plate...

Hugging Gramma.

Hugging Soo Soo. I think this Christmas, Soo Soo was taken out of moth balls for you, probably cleaned up and refreshed, "Here we go with Soo Soo". When you were just a toddler, you would hold his tail and one of us, usually Aunt Ms. SpoolTeacher, would hold his head and together we would travel all over Gramma's house singing the Soo Soo song.

Patchouli wasn't much younger than you. You'd known her most of your life. She was everywhere you were. Sweet little Chouli.

Once again, you as a fashion plate.

You and Gramma celebrating your birthdays together this year. I think Aunt Nennie was out.

Not long after the birthday celebration, brother Brett was born and you were the best-est ever sister.

My, how time does fly. We're twenty years apart and I can't believe we have seen so many years go by, together and apart. You're always, and forever will be, a huge big part of my heart.

Happy Birthday, Angie Boog. I love you to pieces.

Love,
Aunt Sahr