April 20, 2005
The Big-Insert-Number-Here-OH



Today is my ex-husband's birthday.  

Ray doesn't do birthdays well, especially the landmark variety.  [Read this: any birthday involving black balloons, "Over The Hill" references and/or the use of the phrase "The Big-Insert-Number-Here-Oh.']  He turns all morose and weepy, weeks in advance of the actual birthday, and he stands around in the kitchen saying "I'm an old man" a lot, and he warns everybody not to do anything to mark the occasion because he's just going to move to Hawaii and be a hermit anyway.  It was sort of cute and pathetic when he was turning thirty  ...   ever-so-slightly less cute [and ever-so-slightly more pathetic] when he was forty  ...  and today is [I'm sure] just plain pathetic, now that he's turning fifty.  I'm sort of glad I'm not there to witness the spectacle, this decade around.  As much as I like my ex-husband  --  and trust me when I tell you that I like my ex-husband LOTS more now than I did when we were actually married   --  I don't especially want to be there to watch him weeping into his enchiladas tonight. 

Maybe when he hits the big-SIX-oh.

Having said that  --  and having sounded slightly snarky saying it, I realize, although I don't actually mean it that way: I'm just not in the mood to hop on an airplane this afternoon and fly 700 miles on a rickety Alaska Airlines MD-80, just to give The Birthday Boy a hug and a $15 Safeway Gift Card   --  I do hope that he has a nice birthday.  Or that he at least tries to have a nice birthday.  I realize that being happy and smiling and enjoying himself isn't hard-wired into his nature, but I hope that he at least tries to have fun and appreciates whatever celebration the Tots have cooked up for him tonight.  I know that they're taking him out to dinner, on Jaymi's nickel   ...  her gift to him.  He loves going out to dinner  --  almost as much as he hates PAYING to go out to dinner  --  so this should be a good thing.  And I wound up PayPal-ing modest sums of money to the other two Tots last week, so they could each buy their dad a nice birthday gift.  Yes I know, they're all ADULTS now, and most of them are gainfully employed  --  the one who isn't gainfully employed is going to school fulltime, in between trips to his pony farm   --  and they should be perfectly capable of coming up with Dad's Birthday Money all on their own.  I suppose this is my roundabout way of contributing to the celebration without overtly contributing to the celebration.  [Although I might point out that one Tot  --  who shall remain nameless, although her initials might be D-A-U-G-H-T-E-R #2  --  was spotted at a TicTac CASINO, the day after I sent her this big chunk of cash.  If she winds up giving him nothing but a pack of chewing gum and a $15 Safeway Gift Card at dinner tonight, there's gonna be some SERIOUS 'splaining to do  ...  ]

next        previous        home        archives        want to throw a rock?