It's late December, so that means that my birthday is rolling around again soon. Soon as in a matter of days. I have been having mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I have some fun things planned and it ought to be a fun day. On the other hand, I've been think about Carol, the woman who came into the world five minutes behind me. Even though she's passed on, it's still her birthday, too. When we were kids, birthdays were always special occasions. My mother went to all kinds of fuss to make sure the birthday person (or people in my and Carol's case) had the best day possible. You could have anything you wanted for dinner, watch anything you wanted on TV and of course, have any kind of cake you wanted. Carol and I almost always chose pork roast for supper, since eating pork on New Year's Eve was supposed to guarantee prosperity in the coming year. When my grandmother still lived in Peoria, she would sometimes make beef rouladon, a German specialty and German chocolate cake. She was one of the best cooks I've ever known. Sometimes, we would ask her and Grandpa to take us out for dinner, which they always did, followed by a shopping trip for new clothes. Like many people whose birthday falls close to Christmas, we often felt ripped off. I can only really remember one birthday party. My mother worked full time, unlike a lot of mothers in that era, and she didn't have a lot of time for things like planning a kids' birthday party. Not to mention, money was always rather tight when we were kids. One tradition that we held to in our family was the birthday spanking. You couldn't have your presents until you'd taken your spanking. It was usually given by my father or grandfather. The spanking was done OTK but was never done hard. A spanking on ones' birthday was symbolic, unlike the ones we normally got as punishments. There was just some momentary embarrassment and then it was forgotten in the mad dash for gifts and cake. When we were younger, the cakes were homemade and usually from scratch. Cake mixes were available, but they weren't widely trusted by experienced bakers back then. Later, when we were older, the cake would be ordered from a bakery, like the chocolate one with the blue flowers in the above photo. It never seemed like a proper birthday without a cake. As we got older, the spanking tradition went by the wayside, although I did try to get a couple of boyfriends to spank me on my birthday.
Being in the scene has opened up new possibilities for birthday spankings. Back in the days when Crimson Moon held parties in January, Carol and I could always count on some good-hearted top to remember to give us our birthday spankings . But once they stopped doing them in January, it became a case of us having to try to arrange something privately. This almost never worked out. I have all ready blogged about the 1985 birthday spanking I received from a guy I used to bowl with. That was my 25th birthday. When I turned 50 in 2010 I had a very memorable birthday spanking from an old spanko friend of mine.
He gave me a very nice strapping, took me out to dinner and then to see "True Grit" at the theater. It was my first birthday without Carol and I think he wanted to make it as nice for me as he could. It was one of the best birthdays I ever had, thanks to him. No one else did anything for me or even said "Happy Birthday" to me. At that time, I was still unemployed and had no computer.
Two years later, I had another memorable birthday spanking from a scene friend. This time, my old buddy Charles came down. He always came to Peoria on New Year's Eve as he had friends who threw a party every year. Because I live with my sister and her family, I couldn't host him. We had to get a hotel room. But it was still fun, despite the fact that I had been having abdominal pain since the previous day. I knew I should get checked out but I didn't want to be in the hospital on my birthday.
Forty-eight hours after this photo of me happily smiling was taken, I had my appendix out. I managed to put the pain out of my head and enjoy it.
So, what will this year bring? I have no idea. Mike has already told me that he won't be able to come down for my birthday. So I'm counting on other toppy types to deliver the spanking I've come to expect on my birthday.
