Tuesday

I want to wish my good friend Bronwen Burr a very happy birthday. We are celebrating her today. I hear she celebrated it to excess Saturday. When Bronwen was born, Sunshine and I were on holiday in Xilitla, México. We are out of town on most of Bronwen's birthdays because Sunshine's own birthday is the day before. (Well, more "out of town" than normal--but we're getting confused as to what "in town" actually means.) This makes it easy to remember Bronwen's special day, since we're already doing something special at the right time to celebrate her, too. Last year, we happened to be out of town again, but at just the right place at just the right time: we were visiting Bronwen's house. We got to see her turn one. Today, when Bronwen turned two, we were in Dalat, Vietnam. We had one extra half of a large, purple, two-layer berry cake with icing roses (in various stages of bloom) and bows of curled flat white chocolate. We imagined it would be very nice to share this cake with our friend BB; but, as you know, while it was the right time we were in totally different places. It is becoming very difficult to imagine Bronwen: at two she is twice the girl we remember from her last birthday. I'm afraid she might have similar trouble imagining just how good her half of this cake would have been. There was no way to carry it on the airplane this afternoon, let alone mail it around the planet to Bronwen. Maybe it isn’t such a hot present, this tease of a half-eaten cake. So I took a picture for her instead, now she can someday imagine having, instead of eating, her half-cake. It's here when she wants it. [Cavin]