I have a SH-T memory, but I know I had a lot of kick-ass birthday parties growing up. That was back when Moms didn’t need Pinterest to feel guilty/inspired; they just made rad sh-t like bread in the shape of Winnie the Pooh characters, or jammed one large emergency candle into a Fido Dido DQ cake and called it a day.
Before I hit 13, I had only three expectations: a cake, my favourite song that I also sang …”to ME, Happy Bir…” and a sleepover with all my friends. And if there were too many to fit into our bungalow’s living room then the one friend who was the most timid would get the brick fireplace hearth as her death bed from hell.
Easy.
After 13 the memories expand out a little; great glowing flashes of our tiny house jammed with girls, gifts, headbands, crimping irons, Truth or Dare, Nicky Nicky Nine door, great teetering slabs of black forest cake, fresh Dean Koontz novels with spines meant to be bent, new school gossip and eventually passing out to the soundtrack of soft girl snores in a stuffy room with a deathly cloud of sweet perfume sitting on top of us.
