My Birthday Wish

Another Day, another year older. Oh what joys! Instead of waxing philosophic on another year, I'm just going to reblog the post I did for last year's birthday.

So my birthday's coming up in a week or so (August 27th) and I really don't have a lot of expectations. Dinner out with Fighting Nun, a good day out with  the whole family, my mom sending me homemade cookies, one or two small things, nothing big.  And that's the way I like it. A fuss being made over my birthday is old hat and I'm over it.

But there's something I'd like you all to do for my birthday if you've read my blog, or my tweets at all. I think you can probably guess what that is. George Mark House looms and will always loom large in my mind.  It's like an old friend who I forget about for big chunks of time but when I get back in touch, I fall right into my same rhythms with it.

I've done fundraisers and little things for them in the past with varying results and because I haven't had much time to organize myself, this one will be small and will probably have the same results. But I'd like to try and send them as much love (and money) as possible. I still have a small bevy of bracelets I made for the last fundraiser. On a first come first serve basis, I'll give those bracelets to the first five people who donate to George Mark House between now and my birthday. As always, if you've been saving up loose change for a rainy day, cash it in and send it. And if you do, let me know and I will parade you with as much gratitude as I have.

Just donate to George Mark House using their page, send me an email receipt ( tyliagardner @ hotmail (dot) com )  and where you'd like the bracelet sent to or or DM me on twitter with the information and boom, we're in business. Don't feel like donating, especially if you're not one of the first five, but you'd still like to donate?  No problem. Just tweet, or social media a link to George Mark House and you can have my blog for a full day. Want to promote your book , your blog, want to force my blog to post silly cat videos for a whole day? I will hand you the keys to castle if you give George Mark some love between now and my birthday. Seriously, any bit of love you can provide to George Mark house is enough and will garner you my love and and respect for the end of days. It's not only appreciated by me but George Mark House as well. Not enough people know what they do and how important they are to special needs and bereaved parents like myself.

They just recently had to stop their bereaved parent meetings, much to the chagrin of myself and parents like me. Tell them that their services and their support of my family and families like me is appreciated by throwing them a bone and some love, however small.

[Ed. Note: I've decided to extend my Birthday Challenge until the end of August, you have until 12:00AM August 31st to win loot or space on my blog!]

 I'm not doing a fundraiser this year. I 'd like to save that for Ukiah's birthday, but If you do chose to donate  a little bit of money to George Mark House between now and their annual gala and tell me about it, I still have some bracelets and some jewelry lying around that I'll gladly send you or I'll make you something special! But mostly I want their message and what they do spread out to the world. If you can,  tweet about it, put a link and their banner on your own blog, put it on tumblr. I don't care, just get the message out. I won't hand over the keys to my blog this time, but I will keep the karma rolling and tweet anything you want out to the world. On my birthday all I want is for George Mark House to shine and the message of what they do to reach as many people as possible. Thank you. 

Trifecta Challenge: Brand

 It’s so much different from up here, beautiful, serene, peaceful. I could never grasp the enormity of it from ground level. Sure I’d seen the aerial shots a thousand times, knew its shape and what it meant. But this place had always been more a relic of my childhood than a monument to human ingenuity.

I’d watched many a fisherman pluck a battered row boat from the J’s boat launch. I’d run back and forth over the little bridge connecting the tiny island in the middle of the lake to rest of the park on the bottom of the A. I’d plucked cattails off the backside of the L. It was just a tiny lake in a tiny park in the middle of nowhere that was my childhood home.

Now the lake is more of funny story to tell at cocktail parties. Why yes, I did grow up in a town that has the only man-made lake in the shape of its name, I’d say off-handedly. A little known fact is that the lake derives its shape from a cattle brand from a ranch family who formed the town, I’d quip.

But flying over it, it’s something completely different. I wish I’d gotten to see it from this high up in my youth. It’s a spectacle in a sea of brown where the only other landmarks are obtrusive pump jacks every few miles or so. This little lake is a visual oasis of blues and greens and seeing the name writ large on the ground filled me with a pride for the town I’d never really felt.

They’d called me to help them save it, to preserve it somehow. I had no idea if I had the wherewithal, but now, seeing its beauty the way I did, I’d damn sure try. 

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This week's Trifecta challenge brought up a lot of hometown nostalgia and pride for whatever reason. This week's word, brand, brought up a wealth of memories, so much to chose from that I didn't know where to start. I tried writing a piece about the Western Heritage Museum, but that didn't work out, thought about some of the cattle brands I'd seen in my youth, but that didn't really connect, so what I came up with is a little love letter of sorts to the town lake that was such a part of my youth. 

Also, FYI, my birthday's coming up. It you want to wish me a happy birthday, I've got just the way you can do it.

It's my birfday!

So, yeah, today's my birthday. Woo. (Streamers falling down, confetti in the air.) It's not that I could care less, it's just that more important, pressing things in my life have seemed to make having a birthday less of an issue.

For instance, this time last year? If pressed I would've asked for the Invader Zim box set (which I have now) and some other pop-culture related ephimera. Today, right now? All I want is a nap, a long, beautious, wonderful nap that last from here to Thanksgiving, followed immediately by a siesta and capped off with a bout of sleeping so furious and grand it makes Rumpelstilskin's sleeping fest look like naptime in a romper room. Is this wrong?

Don't get me wrong, any pop-culture donations (up to and including the new My So-Called Life DVD set) are welcome and appreciated, but if you could find a way to conk me out until, say the new Prison Break season starts, I'd really appreciate it.