In the last week or so, I’ve celebrated 3 different birthdays. MaKenna’s (last thursday), Richard’s (W00tSt0ck), and Ashley’s (last night).
It’s an interesting time of year to have a birthday, and I’ve always found Richard’s birthday to be one of the strangests… Why? Well it always fell on the last day of school, or dang close to it. It’s kind of like my birthday and Christmas… They always got blurred together.
But Richard’s birthday is a little bit weirder in that, he’s the only person I know where his birthday “party” has somehow taken place at my house multiple times… I know how it happened every time, and I’m probably making it sound like it’s a bad thing (it’s not). It’s just something I always found weird… But then again, I often think it’s weird that people don’t have birthday lunches in Iowa every year.
To some degree though, I also always felt a little bad about it. The first time I remember it happening, it was a somewhat surprise party. A group of us had all gone to a college fair in Minneapolis. We had spent the day wandering around gathering free stuff, while some of our friends were stuck back at MSA. At the end of the day, and I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but we all ended up back at my house. I think maybe Michelle implied she was taking everyone home, and I was the first one because I was the farthest out.
In any case, when we got there, there was cake, ice cream, and the parents all ready to sing happy birthday. I’m pretty sure it was a surprise to him.
The next time it happened was entirely by accident. My parents planned my grad party. In fact I wasn’t involved at all. So it didn’t cross my mind until like a day before it happened that my parents had put it on Richard’s birthday. In any case, I don’t think he had a birthday party planned that day, but in typical Gehring fashion, when he showed up at the grad party, we had to do something… And we did, although the photo is somewhat… embarassing… as the cake had already been eaten….
But we sang, and thankfully it drew some of the attention of of me for the day :-). Still feel like we should have done more than that…
I must admit though, I do enjoy celebrating birthday’s with friends. Whether it be Ashley’s 21st birthday and watching her drink for the first time… or being with MaKenna as she turns one… or sharing a amazingly good Steak with Richard on his 25th. They are all now great memories, and something to blog about in a few more years :-).