KVETCHING

I have a wonderful friend whom I cherish; she and I have been friends since 1967; she has the characteristics that one desires in a friend: loyalty, candor, compassion; I have no doubt that she would "give me the shirt off her back" and I always say she epitomizes what a true friend is: one who will be there when it's the last place she would want to be; she's always "been there" for me!

BUT she has one fault: she never remembers WHEN my birthday is!

This is a typical exchange:

She will call, SOMETIME in July, nearly always AFTER my birthday, and say, "I KNOW your birthday is this month but I didn't put it on the calendar." I once again tell her WHEN it is and I always receive a lovely present.

So, WHY am I kvetching?

I have NEVER forgotten her birthday and I usually take her to lunch, and that takes pre-planning. One year, however, I was going to be out of town BUT I called her the day before her birthday and told her I would be traveling and that we could celebrate when I returned. I sent flowers to her home on her birthday. The day AFTER her birthday she called and told me that she couldn't believe that I didn't CALL her ON her birthday because I always had in the past. I told her that's why I had called her the day BEFORE and I asked, "Did you get the flowers?" She said that she had and, frankly, I wondered why she was whimpering. I couldn't get upset because I heard the plaintive sound in her voice when she said, "I kept telling everybody that you would be calling ANY minute because you never forget!" It's good that the CALL was more important than the material things!

Today I received 6 early birthday cards: one from my banker, one from my insurance agent, and four from my friend Patty which is typical from her. My brother Les brought in the mail and said, "It looks like you got a bunch of cards from Patty but one of them has different writing on it." I just sent Patty an e-mail to tell her she outdid herself this year: the card with the "different writing" had this message: "REMEMBERING YOU IN 2011, BEST WISHES ALWAYS" and Patty had signed my negligent friend's name! As I wrote to Patty, "I fell on the floor laughing and peed my pants."

Oh, Patty, to paraphrase Gerald, "I have you for my friend because of your sense of humor but I found out the joke was on me!"