It's my birthday today, friends...

 

  ...and I am a very childish 58 year old now.  lol  Child-like, I MEANT child-like !!!!!!

   It's been a good quiet day so far. I have had phone calls singing Happy Birthday to me,  cards from very thoughtful friends, and many many emails and birthday wishes online. I am feeling very very blessed.

   I cooked some bbq ribs and mashed potatoes and green beans with loads of onions for the Irishman's supper and my lunch. Just finished eating. Have to leave for you-know-where in about 45 minutes.  Before I go, I have a little online thing to take care of...I have decided to give myself , for my birthday, the gift of becoming a Club 24 member. It's a local charity that serves the homeless and hurting out of St Louis, called New Life Evangelistic Center. And then I am writing the President of the United States a quick note to ask him to please look into the travesty of what the city of St Louis is doing with the almost one million dollars a year they are getting from the government to supposedly help the homeless.  And I shall consider it all a good days birthday gift.  So there.  lol  NLEC gets no gov't money, no United Way  money...it's all the donations of regular people and churches that keep them going. They give out more than 800 sandwiches a day, every day. They have beds for the  homeless  that are filled every single night. I may not be able to do much, but I can make an effort to do any small thing. And so can most of us.

  My NaBloPoMo post on friends for today comes from The Velveteen Rabbit.  Rabbit is talking to the Skin Horse.

 "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you.  When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real."

  "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

   "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real, you don't mind being hurt."

   "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked "or bit by bit?"

     "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

     ~~From The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams

  And that, my friends, is what friendship is all about. About being real enough to be hurt, to have your luster fade, and still be loved.