53rd Birthday

Today was my birthday!  Oh yeah, it was the oldest's birthday too, he turned 22.

I heard from so many friends through Facebook, and each message touched me in a special way and brought back so many memories.

The preschoolers gave me a surprise party.  I love the card they made me.

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Several different people called me at work and sang to me, there were wonderful emails, special gifts, and beautiful cards.  My favorite card came from my friend Laurie.  It was the perfect card!

Once home I received a special birthday call, and then I went out an worked in my rose beds.

It was Survivor Night so Loni came and brought me gifts from my grandcat, Mocha - a CCR cd and a Van Morrison cd.  Mochas personal shopper did a great job! 

I received a call during Survivor from Randy and I asked if I could call him back later.  

Loni had to leave after Survivor to do homework, so I turned Spotify to Van Morrison at full volume and took the phone out to the porch swing and called Randy back.  This was at 8:00 P.M.  I hung up the phone at midnight.  We caught up on our families. Randy loved my parents and we took turns telling stories about what went on back then with them and us.  I caught up on his parents and brother.  I always loved Randy's brother and it turns out he lived in Dallas for a while.  So different from Randy and yet so wonderful in his own way.  Then we had to talk about our kids and he told me about his grandchildren.  We reminisced about our years together good and bad, funny and not so funny.  Randy told me he had not laughed so hard in a very long time.  I found out about his experience with cancer, and some other health issues.  He was kind enough to listen to all my stories about Raymond and the boys.  Then it was on to music. 

Randy is the person that introduced me to John Prine, and many other artists.  We talked for over an hour about our favorite artists.   He gave me the names of some other artists he wants me to listen to, and I bet I will love them.  

I did ask him if he remembered how spectacular we looked together when dating and he said yes.  He said he always wanted to dress up for me.  Then we laughed about other little quirks we had. 

I think maybe having a new friend might be the best birthday present I could have received.