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Happy Birthday!
Jul. 18th, 2008 10:38 amIt has been pointed out to me that I was a day early, even when you consider time zones, in wishing TexasWren a happy birthday.
Mojosmom kindly(?) explained that I live in a very different time zone, and that it was in fact her birthday here in Australia, even if it hasn't yet arrived in Chicago.
Owwwoooooh! Sometimes this timezone business makes my head hurt. Driving a shift that spans a midnight doesn't help me keep track of the daze, neither.
It's Friday here in Canberra.
I remember once, about this time of day, I got on a plane, full of excitement. It was Friday when I left, Friday when I landed in Sydney, Friday late afternoon when I got aboard a Qantas jumbo heading east out over the Pacific. But after that, things went beyond my ken. We crossed the International Date line around midnight, and it may have been Saturday down below. Or it might have still been Thursday as we crossed over. I looked down on the glowing lava in the middle of one of the Hawaiian islands and was confirmed in my excitement as the rest of the plane slumbered on.
And at dawn we neared the Californian coast, and it was definitely Friday morning. Again.
I went through immigration and customs and security, tired, excited, bewildered at my first taste of a truly foreign land. While I'd been overseas before, it was only to New Zealand, where they are just like us except they talk funny. Here, cripes, but they walked on the wrong side, they were in a different hemisphere, they had all sorts of weird laws, they elected their head of state... And they talked funny.
And then after lunch, I got aboard a flight to Washington, and the sun set somewhere over the Midwest, and it was still Friday. I was welcomed by ResQgeek, who, by that time, looked to my tired eyes to be a sainted angel sent to save me from all the weird sights and sounds pouring into my fading brain.
He rescued me, grabbed my big yellow bag, wrestled me into his car where the steering wheel wasn't, and calmed me down by driving around Washington at night. There was the Washington Memorial, the White House all lit up, crikey but here was the fabled Lincoln Memorial and we were driving right by it! G'day, Abraham!!
It took me hours to get back to anything resembling normality. I was introduced to MrsGeek, and we sat up until midnight talking. And it was still Friday!!!
That was the longest, and possibly the happiest Friday of my life.
So, mindful of the weird sort of time they have in the rest of the world, I got confused and went early today. It's Friday, you see.
Never mind. To all my BookCrossing, Livejournal, Facebook and real life friends. I might not remember your birthdays. I might remember them early. I might be six months out of whack.
But every day, I think of you all, I rejoice in your friendship, I read about your joys and tears, and I wish you all love, happiness and the very merriest of birthdays every day of your lives.
Party time!
Mojosmom kindly(?) explained that I live in a very different time zone, and that it was in fact her birthday here in Australia, even if it hasn't yet arrived in Chicago.
Owwwoooooh! Sometimes this timezone business makes my head hurt. Driving a shift that spans a midnight doesn't help me keep track of the daze, neither.
It's Friday here in Canberra.
I remember once, about this time of day, I got on a plane, full of excitement. It was Friday when I left, Friday when I landed in Sydney, Friday late afternoon when I got aboard a Qantas jumbo heading east out over the Pacific. But after that, things went beyond my ken. We crossed the International Date line around midnight, and it may have been Saturday down below. Or it might have still been Thursday as we crossed over. I looked down on the glowing lava in the middle of one of the Hawaiian islands and was confirmed in my excitement as the rest of the plane slumbered on.
And at dawn we neared the Californian coast, and it was definitely Friday morning. Again.
I went through immigration and customs and security, tired, excited, bewildered at my first taste of a truly foreign land. While I'd been overseas before, it was only to New Zealand, where they are just like us except they talk funny. Here, cripes, but they walked on the wrong side, they were in a different hemisphere, they had all sorts of weird laws, they elected their head of state... And they talked funny.
And then after lunch, I got aboard a flight to Washington, and the sun set somewhere over the Midwest, and it was still Friday. I was welcomed by ResQgeek, who, by that time, looked to my tired eyes to be a sainted angel sent to save me from all the weird sights and sounds pouring into my fading brain.
He rescued me, grabbed my big yellow bag, wrestled me into his car where the steering wheel wasn't, and calmed me down by driving around Washington at night. There was the Washington Memorial, the White House all lit up, crikey but here was the fabled Lincoln Memorial and we were driving right by it! G'day, Abraham!!
It took me hours to get back to anything resembling normality. I was introduced to MrsGeek, and we sat up until midnight talking. And it was still Friday!!!
That was the longest, and possibly the happiest Friday of my life.
So, mindful of the weird sort of time they have in the rest of the world, I got confused and went early today. It's Friday, you see.
Never mind. To all my BookCrossing, Livejournal, Facebook and real life friends. I might not remember your birthdays. I might remember them early. I might be six months out of whack.
But every day, I think of you all, I rejoice in your friendship, I read about your joys and tears, and I wish you all love, happiness and the very merriest of birthdays every day of your lives.
Party time!
