Readers – bear with me as I try fiction based on real life today!
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She realized when she woke up that her birthday was once again coming on the coldest day of the year.
As she mulled this over, doing minor arithmetic while drinking a hot cup of coffee, she came to the unreasonable, irrational conclusion that no one should ever have sex in April. If you have sex in April when birds are singing and flowers are blooming and spring is in the air and you get pregnant, you tend to give birth in January. And having a birthday in January is not fun. Not when you live in a cold place and your birthday just always seems to come on the coldest day of the year.
She loved sun and warmth. Palm trees and desert skies, all the plants that grow in the heat – Bougainvillea, Desert Cactus, Hibiscus, Morning Glory — these were the things that warmed and grew her soul. She thrived best in the warm glow of sunlight.
But her birthday was in the cold – when all of life felt bleak and the only thing to do was eat muffins, drink tea and dream of sun-drenched elsewheres. She suddenly remembered her fortieth birthday, when a party was planned and invitations were sent. Only a quarter of the people came. The following day a friend called her. “The party girl had no one at her party” the friend screamed into the phone! “What’s that about?!” “How come no one came to your party?”
And all she could say was “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because it was the coldest day of the year.”
This year, not only was her birthday coming in the cold, but rumors of a snow storm of epic proportions were filling the airwaves. There were reports of crazy lines in grocery stores, a feverish frenzy to stock up in pantries and kitchens that were already stocked well, a heightened alert akin to the coming of an air raid, and conversations that could focus on nothing and no one else.
So there she was. Turning the lower end of the speed limit on a day when a blizzard would paralyze the city and any attempts at celebration would be quickly thwarted.
At this point she realized she sounded more Eeyore than Winnie the Pooh. With this realization she decided she must recapture her inner Pooh Bear and get on with life.
What was it that Pooh said to Piglet so long ago?
“What day is it?”
It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
My favorite day,” said Pooh.”
And so it would be.
