Spring timeout

One day a year I take a break from this blog to celebrate my daughter's birthday. Today is that day.

But first a little story.

When I was 12 years old, my family moved to another city. During those first months of adjustment, I kept noticing a Hess gas station that we'd drive past almost every day. There was a sign underneath the large Hess sign that read: "32279".

The number was the gas station's street address, but I translated it as a date in the future. I joked that momentous things would happen on March 22, 1979.

Well, March 22, 1979 came along about six months later and it was significant only in the fact that I fainted in art class after accidentally stabbing myself in the hand with a sculpting tool and getting a close up view of my own blood (I had a thing about that then).

So March 22 became known to me as a day of humiliation.

Fast forward six years to 1985. I was head-over-heels for a girl who worked the jewelry and layaway counter at the department store where we both toiled. We had a great time screwing around and skipping out on the boss for extra long lunch breaks. But on March 22 she quit her job. Outside of cards and letters for three months that followed I never talked to her again.

March 22 became known as a day of heartbreak.

Fast forward 13 more years. I came home after a hectic Saturday night of work. March Madness, you know. Everything going full tilt. The lights at home were on, even though it was 2 in the morning. My wife was sitting on the couch. Nine months pregnant. It was time. But we waited until morning to head to the hospital. Ten hours later, on March 22, at around 9:30 at night, my daughter was born.

March 22 is now forever known as my girl's birthday.

These days, she is into such highfalutin fare as Les Miserables (hitting store shelves on her birthday, not so coincidentally). Yesterday, my wife caught her reading about the Articles of the U.S. Constitution on her laptop. Not as part of a homework assignment. For fun.

Sometimes I still feel like I'm in over my head.

But it's all worth it. She transformed March 22 from a day of misery into a day forever joyful and filled with wonder.

Certainly I can stop babbling about cards for one day.

Talk to you tomorrow.