It's My Party, and I'll Cry if....

10/12/1952: Gertie Gold Gives birth to the sweetest little guy. The nurses, already sensing that he can tell the diff between boys and girls nickname him 'Butch'... a name that will not stick past this anecdote.

10/12/2006: IT'S ME BERFDAY!!! LET'S GET STARTED:

9:20 AM
I have three vehicles on my property, changing the face, in fact, of said property as I write this, putting in a new septic system. The tanker truck is just now beginning to get to the point where my office is starting to smell like the plant in the valley where we get our oven roasted poop. Only ours isn't oven roasted. Dolli prepares to flee. The Bobcat has dug a trench where the path between the garage and house used to be, only to come up to a point where apparently a rather BIG tree used to live, it's stump and root system a cheerful reminder of the good old days. The main drain from the house, set to be replaced with a nice new PVC one... um... at least until the camera does it's work, can't quite be tracked properly. BULLETIN 9:38AM No new main will be put in. It appears that in order to do so, well... our kids will one day, God willing, get to tear down the garage to get to it.

Gifties so far: 10:55 AM Birthday wishes via a few cards, a call from Selma, a call from Debbie, one e-mail and several welcome MySpace postings. Got a Gift Card to West Point Market. $50 worth of French Mustard, here we come!!! My partner sent me a box o' chocolate which I received yesterday. Super. Got the newest European Film and Video production guide. More to come, I suspect (nod, nod, wink, wink) Grateful for all. Just glad to be here.

From My Dear Friend Paul, who REALLY cares about me:

Dear Harv,

Today is your birthday. How nice that you are still alive. May you
continue to live and thrive as long as you see fit. And if you decide
to shoot yourself in the mouth, may all your detractors who will say
things about you being too cowardly to continue living contract such
horrible diseases that they themselves are forced to kill themselves,
their last thoughts of shame being that they were such hypocrites to
have questioned your motives for taking your own life.

Love,
Paul

10/13/2006: THE REST IN REVIEW

I had planned on yet another ambitious pictorial, and detailed birthday diary, but:

"You load 16 tons, and whadaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don't call me cause i can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"

So I received an enormous number of loving and thoughtful phone calls with birthday wishes. Between those, my usual air traffic controlling hours on the phone, developing my newest show idea, Landscaping Solutions for the Septically Impaired (firsthand research for said project, i.e. the creation by my art department of all that clay based mud of the future in my yard costing several thousand dollars), and the overall non-stop nature of my day, I was led to do something totally uncharacteristic:

At 8:05 PM I told my dear friend and neighbor, Faith, who had thoughtfully stopped in to drop off something she had promised Dolli, bringing her wonderful 'light up a room' smile AND a cute birthday card... to go home. She was actually into one last, probable 15 second 'and by the way...' segment of her goodbye outside when it happened, but still... I hit the wall and caved in.
I am ashamed.

I didn't have any high expectations for this day, truly.

But the ONE THING, the simple idea of peacefully getting take out in time to be settled in on the couch with Dolli, our beloved pooches at our feet, relaxing and chuckling to 'My Name is Earl'and propelling through the only night of Mindless Prime Time (MPT) where we actually have programs we like to watch all the way from 8-11, was NOT going to happen as hoped. So we turned on the VCR to tape Earl while we scrambled eggs to eat with the WONDERFUL SOURDOUGH BREAD (always a silver lining, no?) Maynan had, along with an issue of The Ring, something that has become sort of a 'Periodical Gold' in this era of pugilistic apathy, brought me earlier.

The eggs were good, the bread and butter excellent, the Carrot Cake fabulous, and all good wishes and intentions were simply wonderful... Dolli tried and asked and was sweet as that delicious cake she brought home, but I was toast, plain and simple.

So I don't want to seem ungrateful. I was absolutely fine and good and happy and... apparently running on fumes, cause I was fabulous right up until I wasn't... and then I wasn't. Doesn't happen often, and I must say I told Dolli not to worry, that there was absolutely nothing she could do that would be right. I had to get though my snit to the other side, which I did. But I was, and am hungover from it.

I am another year older and on the day to mark it I became a cranky old man!

... and THAT (along with a client-pissed-me-off-driving-me-to-the-ragged-edge- of-irrational-but-justifiable-professional-suicide story that blog-prudence, once again, dictates I'll not tell here) is the REAL story of the day.

Thanks to everyone. I really DO love you all, too!!!!