Guess whose birthday it is?

Yes, that’s right! Carl Linnaeus! The Swedish botanist who introduced the world to his complicated scientific classification of all living things! Without Linnaeus, none of us would have had to memorize those endless charts and graphs in biology class. So thank you, Carl Linnaeus – because of the “genus” of your scientific mind, a new order was brought to the kingdom of taxonomy and all the species on the planet have benefited greatly. You’re a real class act! (Did everybody get that? Because if not, I’ll be really disappointed…)

Oh, I’m just kidding. Actually, it’s Rosemary Clooney’s birthday! Yes, Rosemary Clooney, who sang such classics as, um, I think she sang that song about “come on-a my house” and something about how I’m gonna give you apples and pears and peaches… and maybe a kumquat or something. And candy. Yeah, there was definitely candy in that song. (What’s up with that song? Does anybody know? Is it supposed to be literal, or some kind of metaphor? I mean, that lady has an awful lot of fruit at her house…) Okay, so I really don’t know much about Rosemary Clooney. Except that she was George Clooney’s aunt. And apparently my mom used to sound like Rosemary Clooney when she sang in choir in high school, because someone left a comment about it in her yearbook. And, of course, today is Rosemary Clooney’s birthday!

All right, all right, seriously – HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC!!! My earliest memory actually goes back to the day Eric was born. Not that I can remember being excited about the prospect of a baby brother in the house (although maybe I was, who knows…) – no, what I remember is that my grandparents were staying with me while my parents were at the hospital. And my grandmother gave me a piece of toast with jelly for breakfast, but there was a tiny little black speck in the jelly so I refused to eat it. Thus began a lifetime of picky eating. And since it was Eric’s birthday, I suppose HIS lifetime of picky eating began that day, as well. I’m sure, even as a newborn baby, all wrapped up in a blanket in a crib somewhere in a hospital in Buffalo, New York, Eric was thinking, “I guess this place isn’t so bad… except for that mayonnaise stuff… eeeewwwww…” Eric is still the only person I know who really understands the way I eat. If we were in a roomful of people who all cleaned their plates, Eric and I would still have little piles of reject food parts on ours. There are just some things you can’t eat… and if you DO eat them, you’re just plain weird. (Yeah, that’s right, I’m turning it around – YOU are the weird ones. Not me. Not Eric. YOU. Eric and I are perfectly normal…)

So Eric, I hope you get a chance to run out to the Starbucks across the street and have some birthday coffee. Right after you have some birthday French toast at the Pancake House. And when you get the big jar of birthday mayonnaise I sent you, there’ll be no need to thank me. I KNOW you’re gonna love it… :)



Oh, don't look at me like that. I didn't REALLY get you mayonnaise...