Greetings from The Birthday Girl

For breakfast, I've just eaten a piece of frozen Pink Champagne Cake, the cake that you can only get at the old McGavin's Bakery bakery on Bremerton's Callow Avenue.
I love frozen cake; especially wedding cake, it's sublime. It's gotta be white with layers of white frosting. I forgive the pink frosting on the top of the McGavin's cake because it is, after all, named "PINK champagne cake". It fortifies me. It strengthens me for the day to come. I washed my hair and put it up in rollers. I am the only woman "On Island", I swear, who actually puts rollers in her hair. To top off the visual experience, I wrap a bright scarf around my head of rollers making me look as if A giant bee stung me in the head and my top blew up. The other day a friend took me to The Harbour Pub and I gladly went along, with rollers and a scarf on my head. A woman in a booth stared at me, or more specifically, she stared at my scarf so obviously and with so much interest that I smiled at her and said, "Yeah, I guess you don't see THIS much anymore, do ya?" When she asked, "See what?" I responded with, "Rollers on the top of a head", which sounded faintly like "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes." "Oh no!" the woman said, "I was thinking abut how exotic you look!" She smiled. I smiled broader than before. My friend smiled at me in a "See?" kind of smile. Everybody smiled. We sat down and ordered a bottle of wine.

That happened the other day, when I was younger. Today I am older, but even at this age I am not shy about the rollers in my hair. My hair is thick, thick, thick and needs to be overruled. It needs to be put in its place. It is a naughty schoolgirl who must be tamed. So. I tame it.

And this morning I made a pot of coffee from "Grounds for a Change", which is a catchy title, but a terrible coffee. The blend is "Agate Pass Blend", and DO NOT buy it, or else put only a few tablespoons of grounds in it, for "Grounds for a Change" has NO taste. it is vapid, ethereal, suffering coffee. I think it must have been either very cheap or very expensive, I don't remember now. These are the two extremes I go to - cheap or expensive. Sometimes I say, "Life is too short to not buy the best" and sometimes I say, "Life is too long to buy the more expensive!" It all balances itself out.

I know a man who doesn't own a dryer. He's certain that the reason all his clothes remain looking so swell (even his deceased father's clothes remain looking swell) is because he does not torture their cloth or threads in a dryer. He either hangs clothes outside or puts them up inside on racks. I am sure he is right and, indeed, I have more and more often been drying my own clothing by draping and shaping it over my furniture. So a blouse might come out looking like the back of a sofa. A pair of pants might end up looking like my kitchen stool. In this way, I am creating a new fashion style, wearing already interesting clothing in even more interesting ways, say, in the shape of various living room or kitchen furniture.

I am one yeara older today and I have a gorgeous bouquet of flowers at my side, sent by the Dietz's, our oldest "couple" friends. I do not mean "oldest" in the way of "their ages are higher than anybody else's", I mean it in the way of "we (meaning Jim and myself) have known them the longest. I am a year older and I love the Dietzs even more today than I did yesterday, I'm sure of it. My son sent me a beautiful and touching Japanese block print, meticulously glued to a piece of cardboard, with tiny precise holes pressed through the cardboard to hold precisely secured thread so that the print may be hung on the wall. He's been in jail for a few months and in the hospital for a goodly amount of time, so the fact that he would be able to find cardboard, some kind of device to cut the cardboard, thread (did he unravel it from a hospital sheet?) and the little print, is in itself a feat. A task of love. When you are a jailbird and you go to Harborview, you are watched closely by the policeman who stands watch outside the door. You can't just run blithely down the hall lopping cardboard, gluesticks, thread, scissors and art magazines into your bag. You don't have a bag. You can't run nowhere. You Stay In Your Bed and wonder how in the hell you are going to make a present for your mother. Kevin did it and I am touched. Over the years I have been the recipient of many, many such presents from various jails and penetentiaries around the country.

Last night my friend Robin gave me a bronze antique angel to hang on my bedroom wall, a Kewpie doll to stand amongst my upstairs bathroom-collection of other Kewpie dolls, a gorgoue turquoise and obsidian necklace and an antique cow. It is the antique cow I love the best.

Years ago, before my son became a bankrobber and went into the pen, he used to steal all my birthday and Christman presents from various antique stores. The things that especially caught his eye were small, antique animals, made of metal. Painted metal. I have, for years, always kept two shelves nailed into the walls of my kitchen filled with such articles. I don't believe I have ever received any gift from my son that came through more conventional means. I am neither bragging nor sniveling. This is a fact and it is somewhat an unusual fact. Robin has, though, added two antique animal-figures which have actually been paid for. With money. An entirely new trend.

And now it's time for me to go buy some champagne. For myself. Because I deserve it. I have managed to get to this new age by walking, running, falling, crawling, dancing and, sometimes, prancing. I intend to attain more age-mileage in the very same way. Happy Birthday, Kay. Let's buy some tulips, as well.