Happy Birthday!

These people really need to stop having birthdays. And by "these people", I mean my relatives.

Dad's the tall one.

I don't have any more recent pictures of my father. So here's what he looked like a few birthdays ago. (I look more like him every year, although I sincerely hope to avoid the hair loss.)

So! This is my dad's mumbleth birthday! Way, to go, Dad; we always knew you'd make it to mumble! Bet you don't feel a day older than mumble, huh?

For the record, I do actually know how old my father is. (And I mean old! Wow! Ahem) Despite all my objections to the contrary, I can add. A little bit. I'll tell you this much; he was too young to serve in Vietnam (for which we are all very grateful), but too old to care about Sesame Street. Feel free to have a guess in the comments. Closest guess gets a postcard! (Relatives are disqualified.)

Okay, this post was supposed to be about my dad... His name is Bill. As in, "Did we pay for the electricity this month?" But not William, as in "Watch me shoot this apple off my son's head." Technically, it's Billy, as in, "That move where Adam Sandler plays a spoiled rich kid is on."

Since his birthday comes so close to Christmas, it was pretty much ignored throughout his childhood, which is really depressing. Especially since his siblings-- all 7 of them (my grandparents were crazy)-- had the traditional birthday fuss for their special days. So, he's spent my whole life telling us that he hates his birthday. We've all seen through the façade, and know that he in fact loves his birthday, but it's fun for him to pretend that he hates it. And if he should happen to read this blog post, he is certain to rant for 45 minutes about me putting it on the internet. Sorry, Mum.

Who am I kidding? He doesn't read my blog! Ha ha! I can post about the time I got stung three times in as many minutes and how it was entirely his fault (really, it was) and totally get away with it! Brilliant!

The other half of the balloon fiasco.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Dad's siblings. So a couple of years ago my sister and I were decorating for our mum's birthday, and we had some balloons attached to a table, and we debated for a little while about moving them so that the kids couldn't get to them. Then we decided that it was no big deal if the kids did play with them, actually, and left them where they were. Come the day of the party, the "kids" played with them all right: Dad and his younger sister pummeled each other with balloons, while everyone under 10 never even touched them. For that matter, no one under 40 touched them. Ah, sibling love.

Happy Birthday, Dad!