The Birthday Begins

Thank God MSN didn't forget that today is my special day: I received the birthday greeting from the MSN team when I checked my mail this morning. Talk about warming my heart: it doesn't get much better than this.

My daughter-in-law sent a card that arrived yesterday. I opened it when my friends dropped me off on their way home from our trip to the shore and we all 3 enjoyed a big laugh. The caption reads: "Good news! Paople are living longer than ever!" The zinger inside concludes, "Bad news -- we don't get to choose which people." I've known all along that I like my new family member, but it's equally great that I like her sense of humor.

What a wonderful day at the shore yesterday! My, but it was bright and sunny, the temps just into the 70s, so it was cool and inviting. We ate our lunch outside at a Mediterranean-themed restaurant, sitting on a patio with a wonderful ocean view. Then we wandered to the shoreline and occupied a couple of benches while we talked, and talked, and talked. The time seemed to fly.

Suddenly, it came to us that we were feeling the sun on our sensitive (older) skin, and one friend said to me, "You are really red!" I replied in kind to her, but we had no idea just how RED we were until we stopped for a quick break about 1/2 hour from my house to water the horses and get a bite to eat. Lobster red: both of us. Really, really red lobster red.

During the night, I woke a couple of times to cool the burn on my arms and face and spread another layer of extreme moisturizing creme over the burn. Experience has taught me the value of keeping the skin pliable and moist when it's badly burned as that seems to quicken the healing process and lessen the amount of skin that's going to peel. And it will peel.

The 3 of us who shared lunch in LaJolla talked about days gone by, people gone by, and careers gone by. I had a moment when we were sitting on the bench and sharing our lives that took me back to 1996-97, when our friendship was threatened by another friend who then became our boss in a work situation. While our friendship had seemed strong prior to working together, it was doomed when our relationship became part of our workplace. One of the women needed to have absolute positional and personal power over the others, but that's not how friendship works. We lost our working relationship, as well as our friendship, as the situation became intolerable when she expanded her reign of terror to include the other staff, not just her friends.

She was determined to win at all costs, and she did win -- in her perception. I've always thought of her as the biggest loser, but that's just my perception. She made it quite clear during the reign of terror that her perception was not just her reality, but everyone else's reality, and when that came to pass there was no turning back for any of us.

Isn't it funny that the rest of us are still friends who continue that friendship, while the one who needed the positional and personal power to define who she is lost both her power and her friends? I hope it was worth it in her life, as it changed forever both my life and the other friend she targeted along with me. Both of us survived, moved on and changed our lives to accommodate that which we could not change or tolerate in the other circumstance. That was just the way it had to be: not better, not worse, just different.

Enough of this reminiscing! I'm off to scarf the free birthday b'fast and see what I can do to help son! Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me ...