Happy Birthday Laurie!

The word on the street is that today is Laurie’s birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURIE!  There are many rumors about which birthday it is.  While I won’t divulge her age, I will say that it rhymes with “bifty beven’. 

I though it would be fun to see how we celebrated her birthday a year ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago and 30 years ago.  Last year, we were in St. Louis on day 2 of our 25-day road trip.  We enjoyed a delightful meal in an empty restaurant.  The waiter was very attentive and the food was great, even though no one else eats there.  It reminded me of what Yogi Berra used to say, ‘No one goes there anymore.  It’s too crowded’.

Ten years ago we celebrated with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.  Her gift was a sand hill crane that joined another one in our back yard (decorative, not live).  Rosie and Emily were at home and Emily was working as a frame stylist at Lens Crafters.  Rosie and Laurie played in a quartet for a wedding in Golden a few days after her birthday. Adam called from Central Park in NY where he was watching an outdoor opera.  The high temperature in Denver was 84 and it was sunny on Laurie’s birthday.

Twenty years ago we celebrated her birthday by going to see her Aunt Velma and Uncle Louie at their mountain home.  Laurie’s cousin Carl and family were visiting from Atlanta.  We gave Laurie an answering machine.  The day after her birthday, Laurie went to the wart doctor . . . she had laser surgery on her foot two weeks before her birthday and the doctor blasted off a piece of her foot and the place where he did the work looked like a piece of pepperoni.  She had previously treated the wart with beetle juice.  The wart was caused by a virus that her immune system wasn’t fighting. The high in Denver was 78 and it was a sunny day.

Thirty years ago we went out for dinner and left Adam with Laurie’s parents. She was pregnant with Emily and had a back ache quite often.  We spent time reviewing LaMaze books so we’d be prepared for the upcoming birth.  I gave Laurie a wooden egg crate for her birthday.  The high in Omaha on her birthday was 96 and the humidity was 97%.

I can’t go back any further since I didn’t know Laurie forty years ago.  All I can say is that the high temperature in Omaha that day was 86 and there were storms in the evening.