Birthday Week

Every year I get a little bit better at keeping the birthday blues at bay.  My tip for this year -Start Celebrating Early.  Take your "birthday week" seriously.  Open presents when they arrive.  Go to Trader Joe's with a couple of recipes in mind and stock up.  While you're there pick up a twelve pack of Whale's Tail Pale Ale and say to yourself -it's a whole lot cheaper than going to Nantucket.  Next, unabashadly and unbegrudgingly make your own birthday cake.  This year I'm making a pavlova because I've always wanted to and because Yvette van Boven is a hoot and it's her recipe.  If I ever write a book, I want it to be as personal and as lovable as hers.  Also, my mom made this killer lemon meringue pie -it was truly a masterpiece, and so every time I have egg whites beating I think of her.  I miss her dearly this week.  I find myself asking why, why all over again, but that is a question I'm getting comfortable with.  This question I ask best to my sister.  She asks the same question back to me.  Then we spend as long as we need to in the subjunctive.  We play out various and wonderful what-if scenarios and start many sentences with, "Can you imagine if..."  After our dwellings we walk about in disbelief critiquing our shoes and discussing where we want to end up for a drink, completely aware of the gift we have in each other.  We decided on Drink.  It's like a nugget of NYC tucked below a rather ordinary, wide street in Boston.  We decided on this place as we both declared we would be on the Acela to that very city if mom had any say in it.  The bluefish spread with warm, lightly charred bread was the best thing I've tasted in a long time.  There we laid out plans for the coming year -how to squeeze out every ounce of this life, how to rein in our wildest dreams and how to peaceably take over the world.