Happy Birthday To Me (And Michael)

It's my birthday!!!

It's Michael's birthday too, although he's not nearly as happy about it as I am.  I enjoy my birthday.  it's a big deal every year as far as I'm concerned, and I don't mind saying that I love it when other people make as much of my birthday as I do.

There are some disadvantages to sharing a birthday with a sibling, as you might well imagine.  Being a twin means that your birthday is never all about you.  I hope you guys don't think I'm a selfish person, but sometimes I like things to be all about me. 

Another thing is that being born in December has its own special difficulties.   Having a birthday this close to Christmas means that your birthday is sometimes overshadowed by that other big winter event.    With Christmas only nine days after our birthday, it meant Michael and I usually received small birthday presents from our parents when we were growing up.  The more significant gifts were for Christmas, naturally, but I think I would've preferred it to be the other way around.   The one notable exception to the 'small birthday presents' tradition was on our sixteenth birthday, when Michael got his first car and I got my very own horse.  Best birthday present ever, in my opinion.   Our parents always let us have a birthday party, though, and we always had a cake. 

If you're starting to get the impression that Michael and I were spoiled, you're probably right, but I think we were spoiled in a good way.  Our parents gave us lots of attention when we were kids and I never felt like I was missing out on anything.  Presents were an amazing bonus to our already fortunate childhood.

Sometimes I wonder what changed between our childhood and now.   I mean, it's obvious that Michael and I have grown up, but I don't know if that should have altered our relationships with Mum and Dad so much.   Mum and I don't connect the way we used to; it's like she disapproves of me more and more all the time.   Michael doesn't really seem to get along with either of our parents any more.   Personally, I'm very grateful for my relationship with my father.  At least nothing much has changed between Dad and me.

But...I'm not going to dwell on my parents right now.  That's probably best left for another post anyway, and besides, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY (in case you didn't know).

I got loads of birthday greetings today from people at school.  Eddie, my boss, sprang for pizza and cake for the staff at the store, and he somehow managed to find a birthday card with Braille on it.  It was awesome.   Garrett, one of my childhood friends from our days at the school for the blind, also sent me a Braille card.   I need to find out where those came from.   I want to send one to Garrett on his birthday in April.  

I got a birthday greeting from Google, too:

When I sat down at my computer and I heard my screen reader saying happy birthday to me, I actually laughed out loud.  I thought maybe somebody had been playing with it.   Sini came into the room when she heard me laughing, and I asked her to look at the screen and tell me what she saw.  Turns out, nobody had been messing with my screen reading software after all.  Sini said my Google screen had a bunch of pictures of birthday cake on it, and when she used the track pad to move the mouse pointer over the picture, a little box came up that said 'Happy Birthday Tyler!'   That was the alt text my screen reader had been picking up.

Of course I had to show everybody in the house who was interested.   I carried my laptop all over the place, showing off my Google birthday screen.   Beau, Remi and Dylan liked it.  Even Xander admitted that he liked it.   Rommie didn't seem impressed, though, and told me that I was acting like a little kid.

"So what?" I said. "It's my birthday."  

Pax thought the whole thing was awesome.  It's possible that he was even more excited about it than I was.

"How does the internet know your birthday?" he asked me.  "It magic?"

"No, it's not magic. When I registered for my email address and everything, there was a part where I had to include my birth date.  That's how the internet knows my birthday.  I wasn't expecting a birthday greeting, though."

"Can the internet know my birthday?" Pax wanted to know.

"When's your birthday?"

"In the rainy season."

"When's that?"

"Not the dry season," he said.

I laughed. "That's not helping much, buddy.  I don't know when the rainy seasons and the dry seasons are on Eris."

"The dry season very hot," he said. "It like summer, but longer.   Then, when it rain a lot, that the rainy season."

"The winter, then?"

"Yes, but I born at the end of the rainy season," he said. "That's what Suvi say."

"So, your birthday's in the spring."

"Maybe," he said.  "I not know."

"I don't know," I corrected him.

"I don't know," he repeated dutifully. "Maybe we ask Sini."

So, we did.   From Sini I learned that Erisans don't celebrate birthdays like we do.   Although mothers generally remember the exact day their children were born, they don't make an annual event of it after that, nor does anyone else, for that matter.  The exact date of a child's birth is recorded with the government and I guess that's pretty important but, for the purposes of daily life, Erisans seem to find it sufficient to know in which year they were born and in what season.

According to Sini, the end of the rainy season on Eris' Central Continent where Pax used to live coincides with spring in Northern Continent, where Sini used to live.  We decided that since we don't know Pax's exact birth date, we'd let him pick one day in spring to be his 'birthday' and we'll celebrate it Earth style.   Pax thought that was a brilliant idea.  He picked 28th March as his 'Earth birthday'.    We promised him a cake, and we said he could have a small party.

He's going to be seventeen, which is kind of weird to think about.  He's the same physical age as Radek, and only a few years younger than Xander and Remi, but they're leaps and bounds ahead of him in practically every way.    We don't normally think of someone who's almost seventeen as a child.  I wonder what Erisans would think of Earth's independent seventeen year olds who have jobs, drive around in cars, prepare for college and essentially run their own lives.   The average Erisan would probably think our kids grow up way too fast.  

Personally, I think growing up is overrated.

Twenty-four going on twelve works for me, at least for today.

Oh...I've got to tell you about my party!  It was amazing, seriously, although I don't think Sapphire was particularly impressed with the number of people who showed up.   I'm not sure who made up the guest list, but I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I guessed about fifty people came to the party.  Fifty people who don't live here already, that is.    Michael came, which was super awesome, but he brought Josh and some of their other friends which was...not so awesome.   Josh is the self-proclaimed 'Party Tornado', a nickname which I can assure you is wholly appropriate.  The guy is practically a force of nature.  A loud, obnoxious, habitually intoxicated force of nature.  Go Josh.

We collected keys from everyone who arrived in cars - or on a motorcycle in Josh's case - and then I asked Pax to go and hide them.   Anyone who was drinking wouldn't get their keys back until Sunday morning, even if that meant some people had to crash on the living room floor.   Some people did exactly that, although a lot of people took the bus or a cab home, and there were also a few designated drivers. 

The party wound down around two in the morning, by which time Sini and I decided it was far too late to collect Skyla from her baby sitter's house.  Rommie felt much the same way about going to pick up her kids from their sitter.  Fortunately, we'd all planned for that eventuality.  I don't know what Rommie told her kids' sitter, but Sini and I let our friend Amelia know that if we didn't call by midnight, we wouldn't be coming for Skyla till Sunday morning.   We made sure Skyla had everything she needed for an overnight stay, and Amelia said she was only too glad to keep Skyla overnight.

After the party, Pax decided that he was going to have a 'sleepover' in Beau and Dylan's room.  That was fine with us.  We sent him off to the basement and spent the rest of the night alone together, blissfully free from responsibility.  Sini suggested we lock the door of our room.  For what she had in mind, that turned out to be an exceptionally good idea.   Happy birthday to me!

We were all pretty wrecked on Sunday and cleaning up after the party wasn't much fun, but the guests who'd stayed over all helped with the cleanup too, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.   By lunchtime on Sunday, everything was back in proper order, more or less.

Michael stayed all night, and I'm pleased to say he didn't crash in the living room.   On Sunday morning when I got up, I overheard them talking in Rommie's room.  I was dying to linger in the hallway and eavesdrop, but I was worried somebody might catch me there.   I don't know what Rommie and Michael were talking about, but it didn't sound like they were fighting, so I'm hoping that's a good sign.

Well, I'd better end this post here.  I've got some studying to do because I've got an exam tomorrow.  My last exam is on Thursday, and then I'll have my holidays.   I'm really looking forward to having a few days off from work and school.   I'll try to post again before Christmas, but if I don't manage it, I hope each and every one of you has the best holiday ever!