I almost forgot…

Somewhere between the trip to the Science Center and Thanksgiving, I had a birthday. It was kind of a big one. And since I have the best family & friends around, they made a big deal out of me…despite the fact that I wanted to completely ignore this birthday…

I knew there would be embarrassing things happening to me…I have one friend who is a little bit of a stinker and since I knew she had shown up with a wheelchair at the high school for my friend who had turned 40 and teaches at the high school…so I knew the same would happen to me. I just didn’t know when. Since I don’t work on Thursdays and my birthday was on a Thursday, I had to assume it would be either Wednesday or Friday.

It was Wednesday.

They came at the end of my workday (which on Wednesdays is 11:45) and surprised me as I came out of the faculty restroom. Nice.

I have to say, I was a very good sport. I really do hate stuff like that. The funny part was that elementary students don’t “get” the whole wheelchair thing. There were all these dropped jaws and comments like, “What happened, Mrs. Ball?” and “Did you break your leg?” When I told them my friends thought I was too old to walk, they said, “Your friends aren’t very smart.” Hee hee!

I got lots of flowers over the course of my birthday and was taken out for coffee with friends, lunch with Ed, and Ed brought Thai take-out for dinner. Spoiled rotten, I tell you! Ed bought me a beautiful new camera bag and the girls each picked out something special at the Christian bookstore for me. Over the weekend I was taken out for breakfast and to a craft show with my friends. Totally my kind of celebrations.

My Kindergarten students and colleagues had a big master plan of how to surprise me on the day after my birthday, which was thwarted because I got called to sub instead of work my regular job. They changed their plans and instead burst in on the middle of my reading lesson to yell “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” I stopped in Kindergarten later for turkey cupcakes and the sweetest version of the Happy Birthday song ever.

Pictures of the wheelchair event can be found at “40s”.