A Very Good Birthday

Twinkie cake

Yesterday was my birthday. My husband made one of my favorite dishes for dinner (pasta with sun dried tomatoes and portobello mushrooms), we set out our traditional "Twinkie Cake" (yellow cake with white icing), and four of us, totally off-key, belted out the tune.

I was so stoked the way I kept getting happy birthday wishes all day on Facebook, a steady stream of them from family and friends, scrolling up my wall. The first, just after midnight, was from my niece B. By the time I woke up, there were birthday wishes from my nieces in Vancover. Soon they were joined by happy postings from nieces in Jamaica, in Toronto, in Nassau, in Miami, and from the niece who's at college upstate with my son. I was so tickled by the extraordinary number of people who call me "aunt" and sent along their love.

There were also messages from my daughter (not my son, he called by phone), my cousins, friends across the globe, ex-coworkers, other mothers with whom I've shared my kids' school years and who are now independently my friends, as well as from cohorts from my own high school years way back when in Jamaica. I felt so connected.

As my niece L posted on my wall just before midnight (creating the sweet synchronicity of well-loved nieces bookending my day), "I know I messaged you happy birthday by phone this morning, but it's really not official till it's on Facebook, right?"