Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

For Rebecca Essex

Today, November 15th, is my birthday and, with exception of my relatives and one friend, nobody else wished me Happy Birthday.

Let me repeat this: none of my friends [from Romania] said anything.

It was a tentative Happy Birthday, though, a firm birthday wish for my wife (we are one week apart), because they knew precisely that her birthday is on the 15th and mine is, well, sometime in November. So I got some November wishes. Thank you very much!

The funniest thing came from my beloved, last week, who asked me: “what do you want for your birthday?”

“I don’t know. Surprise me.” I said.

“You know I can’t do that. I’m here [in the hospital] with Mom, 23/7. Why don’t you buy yourself something, wrap it, and pretend that is from me?”

I would have settled for only a Happy Birthday, no present at all. I was even slightly annoyed and equally disappointed that, with all that Internet at our fingers, “buy yourself…”.

But, what the heck, I bought it, I wrapped it, and Sunday morning I unwrapped it, I wish myself an early Happy Birthday, and I connected it: a Bose soundbar, the 700 Series. When else do I have the opportunity to buy a pretty expensive piece of electronics without having to make a PowerPoint presentation to show the wife how absolutely necessary it is.

Everything started with an experiment : I turned off the Show Birthday on Facebook. I have 253 friends, usually half of them say HB, this year I estimated that 8-9 of them will remember. Big mistake!

Only Becky from the old neighborhood in Tempe remembered. I dedicate this post to her.

When I told my son, he suggested that I check the news to see if anything happened in Romania. An earthquake or Internet outage of sorts. Nothing new, the usual political crap. They forgot.

Honestly, I’m hurt. Yet somehow, I’m smiling.

With all the stuff going on in my life, I needed some pick me up and some funny chats, but it seems that, as usual, I have to pick myself up.

Now I write this from my Mother-In-Law’s hospital room, I switched with Irina. First she told me that I don’t have to come while she is at pilates (her daily 1 hour mental and physical sanity activity), so I started the smoker and I made myself a hot cocoa. Just in case, no alcohol. If Irina calls and says “Jump” the only accepted answer is”How High?”. And tonight, she called…….

my sausages are all alone

To summarize, some quotes from my son, who is mature way beyond his age, and who was on a roll today :

“A lot of big but valid feelings. // The post makes sense. Glad you’re expressing yourself. // Now you have smoked sausages, and a sound bar. What a combo!”