Happy Birthday Numbah One Son

Today NOS turns a whopping 8. That means he is halfway to a driver's license, which is ironic, because he is halfway towards the clutch pedal as we speak. Fortunately for me, he is starting to develop my attitude towards birthdays which is:

1- I do NOT wish to be the focus of attention
2- I like getting stuff

So...

3- Leave cool gifts on the doorstep, ring the bell and run away.

When I turned 40 last year, TFBIM seemed pretty adamant about throwing me a party. This would have sucked for a zillion different reasons, not the least of which is that she would have overloaded the guest list with her friends who are (with THREE notable exceptions) jejune, vapid, witless and morbidly uninteresting...to say nothing of criminally tedious in conversation. So, I took preemptive action and scheduled JokeFest, wherein I celebrated my birthweek. This was because my actual birthday that year was on a Wednesday, and half of my pals (Rak DMC, the Klinker & Book 'em Dan-O) could only attend a party the weekend BEFORE my birthday, whereas the other half (Poppy, Jujube, Duane) could only attend the weekend AFTER.

Most people thought I was violating Precept #1, but in fact...I was not. I got all foodie-ish and managed to cook for all the parties, thus out of the way of most people. My evil ploy worked. My only regret was liking Jujube's gift, who was hoping I'd wonder what it was and would end up hating it. SORRY Jujube, but I liked it and I STILL DO. In fact, I use it all the damned time. Poppy, as usual, was stellar in her giftage.

Anyway, NOS cleaned up pretty well. A family tradition holds that birthday gifts are to be placed at the foot of the bed for the honoree to find upon awaking. He got a lot of "spy" stuff, a LOT of Lego stuff (Ferrari and Harry Potter), Harry Potter cards and books. Oh, and Game Boy stuff, especially the GameBoy GameLink, so he can play with Poppy's son (whom he considers the COOLEST kid, because he's two years older).

Anyway, Happy 8th, NOS, your old man loves ya!

-Joke