So this week’s family birthdays are on the 23rd, 24th, 26th, and 30th and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. I was drinking my morning coffee thinking today was nobody’s birthday and here comes a Facebook notification that it’s cousin Austin’s birthday.

I did not respond to it. I love Austin. I haven’t seen him since his dad and step-mom were still alive here on The Planet Ann Arbor and their kids (Austin and his two siblings) would come to visit them. That was pre-covid so it was a while ago. We would meet for lunch at the Sidetrack over in Ypsilanti. Sometimes our cousin Terri would schlep over from the Lansing area too. We had so much fun!

Actually Facebook birthday notices kind of annoy me, which is why I don’t respond to them. And why I have turned that notification off for myself. The first year I had a Facebook account I didn’t know to turn it off so I got all these happy birthday wishes from people I haven’t seen in umpteen bazillion years and/or didn’t know them well in the first place. Or know them at all. Ladies PLEASE include your birth name as part of your Facebook name!

Anyway I turned off that particular notification. I do NOT need my birthday remembered by a bunch of random people who don’t really give a hoot about me or when my birthday is. I mean this year covid disrupted my birthday (I did not have it) so we ended up celebrating The Day After Groundhog Day instead. That’s how much I care🐽

I first met Austin when I was two and he was four. My mom and I flew from Sault Ste. Siberia to Ann Arbor (we probably landed at Detroit Metro) so mom could help out with Austin’s newborn sister, two years younger than me. I remember nothing about that trip except that the airplane down had round windows and the airplane back had square windows. Or was it the other way around? And I remember butterflies in my stomach as we made our ascent.

Here we are. My uncle and his first wife (Austin and sibs’ mom) divorced many years ago. I don’t think it was easy at first but they were amicable at the end and my family attended her funeral. My uncle and his second wife died in the early days of covid OF covid. They were in a fancy nursing home at that point and, as we all know, nobody knew what they were doing in those days. We were all breathing on each other but we were focusing on washing our groceries. Our beloved cousin Terri died a few years later, NOT of covid.

Of all things, the baby that my moom and I flew downstate to help with, the one that I don’t remember from then. Well. We certainly saw each other growing up, mostly at our grandparents’ house in Detroit but I never got to know her. I hung around more with the cousins my age and a bit older. We eventually met up on The Planet a few years pre-covid when she was visiting her dad/stepmom. Of all things, we are DOPPELGANGERS! We look a lot alike and we were finishing each other’s sentences. We certainly have some of the same DNA.

So happy birthday to my cousin Austin who probably doesn’t even know my blahg exists.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 25th, 2024 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.