Friday Five: Happy Birthday To Me

It's all about birthdays with the RevGals and Pals this week. And since I very recently (like, the day after Christmas) had a birthday of my own, it's most relevant.

"It's my party and I'll [blank] if I want to..."
Favorite way to celebrate your birthday (dinner with family? party with friends? a day in solitude?)
A nice dinner, in or out, is tops with me.

"You say it's your birthday... it's my birthday too, yeah..."
Do you share your birthday with someone famous? (Click here to find out!)
Mao Zedong; Steve Allen; Alan King

"Lordy Lordy look who's forty..."
Milestone birthdays:
a) just like any other birthday--they're just numbers, people.
b) a good opportunity to look back/take stock
c) enjoy the black balloons--I'll be hiding under a pile of coats until the day is over
d) some combination of the above, or something else entirely.
I hated my 30th birthday -- I didn't have literal black balloons at that one but I may as well have -- because it said to me that I was no longer a "young adult." Interestingly, after getting honest about myself and growing comfortable in my own skin -- I was perfectly fine with age 40. I think for my 50th birthday I might want to do something croneishly celebratory like going outside at midnight and baying at the moon or somefin'.

"Happy birthday, dear... Customer..."
Have you ever been sung to in a restaurant? Fun or cringe-worthy?
Actually I just did receive birthday salutations at a Famous Dave's...which is a fun place anyway. I also got a free mack-daddy hot fudge sundae, which got passed around the table. Unfortunately, completely unbeknownst to me, I was a day away from falling ill to my infamous UR infection, which is currently working its way around the guest list. So you may want to think twice the next time you're with the gang and someone suggests sharing dessert.

"Take my birthday--please!"
Tell me one advantage and one disadvantage about your particular birthday (e.g. birthday in the summer--never had to go to school; birthday near Christmas--the dreaded joint presents) This could also simply be something you like/dislike about your birthday (e.g. I like sharing a birthday with my best friend, etc.).

My birthday is the day after Christmas -- incredible competition, the nature of which makes it rather unwise to be overly pouty or ungracious. That's a negative. And the fact that my birthday is so close to a holiday, I think, makes it hard for me to remember friends' and relatives' birthdays...I really have to have them written down. I'm not sure there's an upside to being a Christmas baby other than the fact that, because your special day is colliding with a major holiday, there's generally minimal interest in the particulars of your day, like your age; a disadvantage when you're, say, five, can become a real advantage at, say, age 45.