They Say It's Your Birthday. And Damn Time They Did, Too.

[captainsblog]

Amazing, the things you learn solely on account of hitting the wrong link on an unfamiliar internal LJ page. I wound up loading the corporate home page instead of mine own, and discovered that they've finally re-enabled the birthday notification feature. If you're an elJay user, and logged in, clickity this and you'll get an option for email notification when someone on your Flist is celebrating their Big Day.

It takes two to cut the cake, though, and this "old school" feature returns only after a more insidious "new school" change made sometime in the past year or two. Apparently, LJ profiles changed sometime within that time, from the default display of the user's birthday (with all the notifications that might enable) to the default non-display of the date. (You always had the option of concealing the year, as I 've done- not that I know why, seeing how everybody and his Friend knows I'm 47 from reading any third given public entry.)

Many of you, who went private with that info but who tipped me off anyway? I have my ways of making your candles burn, mwahaha. But if you were just one of the roughly 1/3 population of Pominville Birthdayville who dropped out when the default changed? Gwon. Change yourself back. I'd like to wish you happies (and when you're old enough, nappies) on whatever the hell your speshul day is.

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I know what speshul day it is today (and tomorrow, too, yeah yeah, let's not get ahead of ourselves....).

I had many of the blessings of only-childhood without, strictly speaking, being an only child. Our much older sister was hardly ever under the same roof with me for the almost 30 years we shared this planet, but the middle girl, the one 14-ish years older than me, became many more things to me in my formative years than a typical Older Sib. She was babysitter, driver, companion and friend. When it was time to shed my roots and spread my wings, she was close enough to make it all feasible without being too close and making it uncomfortable. In the quarter century since I headed further west, we've had times of shared memories and times of separate mysteries, but we've always remained the essence of Family.

Forty five years ago, I broke her nose. Today, I break with tradition and wish her a Happy Birthday right on time:)

(And yes, since I know you'll read this: I've got your tax returns done. I didn't want to slow down the card by stuffing the envelope with them. You're getting 30 bucks back, woohoo!)