Birthday Facts About Jessica K

Fact 1: Today is my birthday!

2: I am the product of a scheduled C-section, since I refused to come out of breech position. A lot of that stubbornness and choosing to be different at any cost has accompanied me during my time on earth.

3: My husband, whose voice is so deep and resonant that the first thing anyone says to him is usually, "You should be on the radio!" sings me the birthday song for many days on either end of the actual day, with lyrics adjusted to fit ("...Happy two days before your birthday, happy birthday to you!").

4: It's good that I appreciate little things like item 3, since we won't be able to afford anything more elaborate this year.

5: I've never been in a desert environment for my birthday before. Even the summer I spent in Andalucía, by the time my birthday rolled around I was in green, rainy Galicia (Northwest Spain) listening to bagpipes, utterly blissed out.

6: Summer birthdays were hard when I was growing up because you didn't see your friends to invite them to your party, so if there was a party, it was a pretty quiet affair.

7: I think my favorite birthday ever was my 25th, because I was in England for the year with a bunch of other people who loved the Middle Ages enough to get a degree in their study. I invited everyone I knew to a good Spanish restaurant and had a very fine time. My beau even brought out a surprise chocolate cake that wasn't as dry as all the other British chocolate cake I'd tasted. :)

8: That isn't to knock my more recent birthdays, when my true love has done everything in his power to make me happy. But he does that every day of the year, so who's keeping track on one silly day?